The Red House Mystery

I even recommended this book to my book club. What a great satirical look at mysteries from the author that brought us Winnie the Pooh. I will caution you that it is a classic and therefore has an older style of writing. Don't expect a fast paced thrill ride. It is an easy read with easy characters to get along with.

Downloaded quickly with no problems. Recommend both book and seller to anyone looking for a Kindle book to while away the hours. How convenient to have a modern electronic form for books - great for waiting rooms! Very entertaining reading.

A.A. Milne was a talented writer, and his traditional style is beautifully demonstrated in this mystery. One must enjoy a bit of the English tradition and the charm of the language to appreciate the writer's skill and style. I am a Milne fan

Enjoyed reading something by Milne other than Winnie the Pooh, although I've always loved those books. This is a light mystery, and an enjoyable one. I recommend it, especially the free Kindle version if you have one...can't beat that price!

This is a charming mystery by the author of Winnie the Pooh. It has little violence, no sex, and indeed only marginal female characters. Readers may recognize a hint of some Agatha Christie plots but this book was first.

The title intrigued me, and the fact that this whodunnit was written by the creator of Winnie The Pooh compelled me to check it out. Once I got past the plethora of unnecessary speech tags, profusion of semicolons, and what would be considered today misplaced commas, I found myself enjoying The Red House Mystery. But it failed to captivate me.

Milne's Holmes-Watson attachment to amateur sleuths Bill Beverley and Antony Gillingham is humorous but Gillingham, the deductive brains of the two, lacks any true sense of intellectual depth and came off to me like a mere puppet for the author to speak through.

A man's been shot to death in a country manor. Though only the estranged missing brother appears to have a motive, the police give far too much latitude to the other guests without any concrete evidence to eliminate any of them as suspects. But without this flawed contrivance Antony and Bill wouldn't be able to conduct their secret investigation, in the course of which they stumble upon a secret passageway which they far too easily discover how to enter from the library. From that point on I took everything with a grain of salt in order to plow on, because by then I HAD TO KNOW how the story ended.

I wonder if this book got any attention when first published? Milne left himself an opening for the amateur "Sherlock" as McClinton referred to himself to pursue with Bill Baldwin continuing as his "Watson". No time wasted on elaboration of stock characters. I think that makes it seem less dated. At the time it was published, it might not quite fit the tastes of the times. On reflection, one difference from most contemporary books of the time is no reference to WW I. Nothing is said about the military gentleman's service. Almost all of the male were of an age to have been in the war. One sentence mentions Bill as having been in the army. Perhaps it was written before the war. A change from reading new cozy mysteries. Very civilized ending.

The Red House Mystery is a very interesting book. It is a mystery yes, but the book seems like, and the author indicates this, that the characters are like Sherlock Homes characters and I don't know this but I wonder if it was written about that time. The characters know they are amateurs. What is interesting is that the characters are "figured out" as you go and there is a lot of good dialog and speculation. I won't tell you the ending because it is a very big surprise. I have never read this as an ending before.
I discovered that A. A. Milne had written other books and decided to collect and read them. I believe this is one of his first and I understand his only mystery. As you read you can see the personality of the author in his writing. Perhaps at this time he was trying to find his niche as a writer?
It is a lovely fireside read. It is a mystery you could give your Grandmother to read and you know her sensitivities would not be taxed.

About the Kindle Illustrated edition:
Ordered this in error as had already read the free Kindle version. Checked it briefly. It has pictures at the back, but they consisted of one picture of his grave and pictures of early editions. The introduction was interesting and not in the free version. Didn't look exhaustively, so there may be other pictures or illustrations that I missed.

About the novel: Good mystery and well worth reading. Have to tune yourself to the times and many of the plot devices were fresher when he wrote them.

Entertaining. A little rough at first to get used to his style. The mystery kept me quite interested. I liked how he would give the reader the characters' reasoning along the way rather than putting ALL the pieces together at the very end. Not as polished writing as other mysteries but as I understand this was a one time excursion in this genre. Neat story of how it came about.

About the Kindle Illustrated edition:
Ordered this in error as had already read the free Kindle version. Checked it briefly. It has pictures at the back, but they consisted of one picture of his grave and pictures of early editions. The introduction was interesting and not in the free version. Didn't look exhaustively, so there may be other pictures or illustrations that I missed.

About the novel: Good mystery and well worth reading. Have to tune yourself to the times and many of the plot devices were fresher when he wrote them.

Entertaining. A little rough at first to get used to his style. The mystery kept me quite interested. I liked how he would give the reader the characters' reasoning along the way rather than putting ALL the pieces together at the very end. Not as polished writing as other mysteries but as I understand this was a one time excursion in this genre. Neat story of how it came about.