The Red House

Wordy, talky, slow moving, and dull, Milne's The Red House Mystery could not hold my interest. My Kindle said I was 49% through the book when I put it aside and decided to read a different book. Milne is known more for Winnie the Pooh than for mystery writing, and this book shows why.

This is a good little mystery story. I like Milne's style with his characters. It kept me guessing, and I like when a book can do that. This is a quick, fun read, perfect for your summer reading list.

Who knew that the author of Winnie the Pooh wrote mysteries? This book read like an Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes novel. It is set in the English countryside and even though you know who did it rather quickly, it's the mechanism of death and the intrigue surrounding it that draws you in.

It's an old book, set in England, so the language isn't what we speak. But it's intriguing. I read it years ago and forgot how it ended. I'll call it unexpected - not too detailed as far as setting and I can't really "see" where the characters are, but the ending was...unexpected

This is one of over 100 free ebooks I felt compelled to download the first month I had my Kindle. So many books, this one included, sounded so good. Unfortunately, I have not taken the time to read this one, Yet. but I plan to.

The idea of a current day Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson duet is not well done. The Watson guy comes off as very juvenile. The rest of the story is not bad.- Ending is a little idealistic - (murderer takes his own life).

This is probably one of the top classics of "golden age" detective fiction. Anyone who's read any mystery novels at all will be familiar with the tropes -- an English country house in the first half of the twentieth century, a locked room, a dead body, an amateur sleuth, a helpful sidekick, and all the rest.

It's a clever story, ingenious enough in its way, and an iconic example of Agatha Christie / Dorothy Sayers -type murder mysteries. If you've read more than a few of those kinds of books, you might find this one a little predictable, but it's fun despite that.

It's particularly of note, however, because Raymond Chandler wrote about it extensively in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder." After praising it as "an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks," he proceeds to take it sharply to task for its essential lack of realism. This book -- which Chandler admired to an extent -- was what he saw as the iconic example of what was wrong with the detective fiction of his day, and to which novels like "The Big Sleep" or "The Long Goodbye", with their hard-boiled, hard-hitting gumshoes and gritty realism, were a direct response.

So this book's worth reading not just because it's "an agreeable book, light, [and] amusing in the Punch style", but also because reading it will give a deepened appreciation for the later, more realistic detective fiction of writers like Hammett and Chandler.

Nice story idea,but some places are very confusing as to who is talking to whom. A smooth plot with lumpy portions here and there. This is a good tale for a young person,like the stories read as teens.

I had a free version of this eBook for the Kindle but it had issues with the Table of Contents (making several hundred locations a link in the TOC as far as I could tell - but making it very difficult to know where to start reading and made me concerned about potential other problems with that version) so I decided I would spring for an official the store Kindle Version. There were three versions available, one version coupled with a second book called The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux. This "Public Domain" version of just the Red House Mystery and a more expensive digireads version. Since I already had a copy of Mystery of the Yellow Room I went with the digireads higher priced version.

Shortly after beginning to read the digireads version of this book I notice that many places in the book where characters were speaking that there were no quotation marks. In some places this made reading the book very difficult, trying to determine who was speaking or if it was the writer describing something.

I thought perhaps A.A. Milne actually might not have employed quotation marks when he wrote this book but having read several of his other books I did not think this would be the case just because this was a Mystery book.

So I bought this cheaper "Public Domain" Kindle version since there was no sample available and ta-dah the quote marks were there.

There is no Table of Contents in that version though. But I decided I could live without the TOC but not without the quote marks so kept this version and am about 1/3 of the way through it.

The writing is typical Milne style and I am really enjoying the "locked room" mystery written early last century and need to go back to find out whodidit.

I had a free version of this eBook that I obtained for the Kindle but it had issues with the Table of Contents (making several hundred locations a link in the TOC as far as I could tell - but making it very difficult to know where to start reading and made me concerned about potential other problems with that version) so I decided I would spring for an official the store Kindle Version. There were three versions available, one version coupled with a second book called The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux. A cheaper "Public Domain" version of just the Red House Mystery and this Digireads version. Since I already had a copy of Mystery of the Yellow Room I went with this solo higher priced version by Digireads.

Shortly after beginning to read the book I notice that many places in the book where characters were speaking that there were NO quotation marks. In some places this made reading the book very difficult, trying to determine who was speaking or if it was the writer describing something.

I thought perhaps A.A. Milne actually might not have employed quotation marks when he wrote this book but having read several of his other books where he did use quote marks, I did not think this would be the case just because this was a Mystery book.

So I bought the cheaper "Public Domain" Kindle version of this book (no sample available to try) and ta-dah the quote marks were there (there was no Table of Contents in that version though). So I decided I could live without the TOC but not without the quote marks so I kept that version and returned this one. I am about 1/3 of the way through that version. The writing is typical Milne style and I am really enjoying the "locked room" mystery written early last century and need to go back to find out whodidit.

I thought, gee, he wrote the Pooh books and so I got the book. He should have stuck with Pooh. The writing was what I expected, but the endless re hashing of the events got to me. Would it never end? This would have made a very good short, short story, it needed large amounts of editing. Sort of like almost any book you pick up these days, 250 page is a book not 800.

I have read this book before purchasing this copy. I love it! The book by A.A. Milne is great! However, this copy is not. The book is very large and thin. It looks like a book that one would find in the desk of a schoolchild. I wasn't impressed. I've returned the book and I am going to look for a better copy.

If I had been from England and knew the slang it might have been better. Tried to get interested but just couldn't. There are not too many books that I just give up completely on......this was one. Boring.

This novel, as you might expect from the creator of Pooh (though that came later), is the most playful, whimsical, Wodehousean murder mystery imaginable. From the beginning it has a slightly surreal, stage-y quality to it, as if everyone, even the dead man, shot through the head, might just be pretending. The setting is a perfect stage set, a comfortable red brick house full of artsy, dilettantish, pretentious, improvident, or just obliging guests, pretending to play golf at the expense (thanks to someone else's money) of a host who has built a career on not writing (everyone politely maintains the fiction that he actually does write, and he, obligingly, pretends to do so). If it all seems unreal, that's because in fact it is: the generous host has created his own little fantasy world at the Red House, over which he exercises absolute control: a guest who doesn't play along for any reason at all is just not invited back. Now something shocking has happened: the host's long lost brother has returned from Australia, but within minutes he has been shot dead and the host has disappeared.

Mr. Antony Gillingham (not Lady Mary Crawley's beau -- this one would not at all measure up to her standards), happening to be on the spot (at the front door) when the shot is heard, moves seamlessly into a new role as amateur sleuth, being a person who, thanks to an inheritance, has the luxury of making a career out of moving from career to career, seeing the world, as he imagines it, and rejecting it when it doesn't measure up, which is frequently. As for this particular situation, he knows nothing of it, but is immediately, effortlessly, master of it all. His keen grey eyes see everything, more than those of the police, the life-long friends, or the faithful servants, and whatever they see is stored forever in his brain. The only thing he can't see is the question forming in Inspector Birch's brain: How exactly did Gillingham happen to show up at that precise moment?

The opening paragraph is the most beautiful I've ever encountered in a murder mystery. It is like a poem (reminding me of that wonderful Jerome Moross song "Lazy Afternoon"), but with just a little bit of sting in its tail: "In the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon The Red House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders. a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From a distant lawn came the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds, making ease the sweeter in that it is taken while others are working."

Printed across the front cover of "The Dell Great Mystery Library" edition of A. A. Milne's THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY (1922) are Alexander Woollcott's famous words of praise: "One of the three best mystery stories of all time." However, after reading Milne's mystery, anyone who has read even a handful of these vintage mysteries--Wilkie Collins' THE MOONSTONE, Conan Doyle's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Grant Allen's THE AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE, Baroness Orczy's OLD MAN IN THE CORNER mysteries, E. C. Bentley's TRENT'S LAST CASE, Philip MacDonald's THE RASP, Anthony Berkeley's THE POISONED CHOCOLATE CASE or THE PICCADILLY MURDER, any of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, and virtually any short or long Agatha Christie mystery--will probably feel that Woollcott's praise is excessive.

THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY involves a murder in a British country house where a small number of invited guests have been staying. Although the mystery in this book is well constructed, and although fair clues are presented for half of it, my chief objection is that the remaining half is "solved" entirely by a letter of confession written by the guilty party. To be more precise, we readers and the two amateur detectives (but not the police) are able to figure out the secret of WHO was killed and WHO killed him, but not WHY he was killed. And, in hindsight, it turns out that we readers and the two amateur detectives are chiefly able to reach a fairly certain conclusion about the identity of the killer because our correct conclusion was based on a totally WRONG idea about that person's motive for the murder.

My other main objection to this mystery is that the "telling" of its story is very shallow. The characters are all two-dimensional with no deeply presented feelings about anything. The two amateur detectives, Antony [sic] Gillingham and his friend Bill Beverley, often refer to each other as "Watson" and "Holmes"--with Beverley, the "Watson" one, often exclaiming how much "fun" he is having, and Gillingham, the "Holmes" one, coming across a key clue (an old theatrical poster) by convenient luck near the end ... and taking mysteriously unmotivated mercy on the killer.

Finally, in the last two pages as "Holmes" presents the many strands of his reasoning to "Watson," he totally forgets and misrepresents (or rather Milne himself totally forgot and misrepresented) the clearly established (and CRUCIAL) sequence of two events: when the owner of the Red House told his house-guests that his ne'er-do-well brother was coming to visit, and when he told that same information to a nearby neighbor, the mother of the young woman he planned to marry.

If I were giving this novel a letter grade, it would be a weak "C+". Incidentally, within the first 50 pages I correctly guessed everything that could be solved in this book, not because I'm any sort of good detective, but merely because I happen to be quite familiar with HOW mystery writers construct their plots.

As the child of British parents, it is perhaps not surprising that my life-long acquaintance with A. A. Milne’s work includes the two Winnie the Pooh books (Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner) and two works of poetry, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, all of which I continue to own to this day, albeit in somewhat battered form. It was a surprise to me, therefore, when I ran across a mystery novel by this author, published in 1922 and featuring a “locked room mystery,” as the phrase goes. The setting is the country house of an affluent Englishman, Mark Ablett, where he and his cousin/factotum Cayley are hosting a party. Mark’s ne’er-do-well brother Robert arrives from Australia, and in no time at all is found dead, murdered in a locked office, and Mark is nowhere to be seen. Enter Antony Gillingham, a friend of one of the house party and a young man who likes to try out new professions from time to time; this situation is tailor-made for him to try his hand at amateur detecting…. Having been published in 1922, this novel of course possesses the casual sexism and class snobbery of those times; but if one can ignore that aspect, the style is quite breezy and almost care-free, if one can say that about murder, and I quite enjoyed it. Recommended.

The Red House Mystery was written in 1922 by A.A. Milne. Yeah, that's right, the Winnie the Pooh guy. It was written as a gift for his father, a fan of Sherlock Holmes type mysteries. This is the first and only adult mystery Milne ever wrote. It is viewed by some as the quintessential British whodunit of its era.
The Red House of the title is an English country estate, a Gosford Park on a less grand scale. The third person narrative starts off with a murder. The victim being Robert Ablett, long lost brother of the estate's master, Mark Ablett. Clues are uncovered by a Watson and Holmes duo.....houseguest Bill Beverly and his friend Antony Gillingham.
Recommended to mystery fans primarily for its historic significance. Modern readers may be put off by the lack of action and the abundance of preciously quaint banter.

The story is set in an English country house called the Red House whose bachelor owner Mark Ablett is entertaining a house party with several guests.
At breakfast, he receives a letter informing him that his wayward brother Robert from Austalia will be visiting his house that very day in the afternoon. Mark informs the other guests of this and sends them off to play golf while he prepares to meet his brother.
Robert arrives in the afternoon and is received by Audrey, the parlour maid and taken to the office room on the ground floor. Unable to locate Mark, Audrey goes out of the house to search for him.
In the meanwhile, a shot is heard from the office room. Matthew Cayley, secretary and cousin of Mark rushes to the office room door and tries to open it but finds it locked. He bangs on the door, but there is no response from inside.
At the same time, Antony Gillingham enters the house. He has come there to visit his friend Bill Beverley, one of the guests.
Gillingham and Cayley go round the house and enter the office room through the French windows. They find Robert lying on the floor, shot dead.
Mark is nowhere to be found. He seems to have disappeared. It is presumed that Mark shot Robert, perhaps accidentally, and then ran away to escape the consequences.
Antony Gillingham is a traveller and adventurer, rich enough to please himself and apply himself to any occupation that interests him. He decides to assume the role of “Sherlock Holmes” and solve the mystery of the murder of Robert and the disappearance of Mark Ablett. His friend Bill assumes the role of “Watson” and together they are able to solve the mystery.
This is a classic Golden Age detective fiction. It is a pleasant and enjoyable read, full of wit and humour. A fun and lighthearted mystery. The plot is clever and intriguing. There are several twists and turns and interest is sustained till the end. The solution is fully satisfying. It is also a fair play mystery. All the clues are there. Not only the whodunit, but also the whydunit and howdunit are mysterious. Also mysterious is the disappearance of Mark, the solution to which comes as a surprise.
Unfortunately, this is the only detective novel written by A. A. Milne. He clearly had the talent to write such novels.

This book should be read by all who love Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, but only when they have grown. Milne spent his life as a writer, mostly short material, and I do not know of another adult fiction book he wrote.
The writing is very old fashioned in choice of words, dating to a time when men changed their attire for dinner, and they spoke respectfully to each-other.
The basis of the story is a typical country house "cosy" with the visitor playing at Sherlock Holmes, using his remarkable powers of memory, to clear up a murder in a believable but extraordinary solution

Everybody knows Milne as the creator of Winnie the Pooh, but few people these days know he also wrote short stories for PUNCH, essays on ethics and politics, theatrical plays (his idol was James M. Barrie), and screenplays for Leslie Howard's early films. In fact, he was annoyed at being typecast as a children's author and wanted to experiment in various genres, which is how he came to write this detective novel in the amateur sleuth tradition, and which features a literal locked room. Though it was an immediate success, he never wrote another one.

The setting is the classic English country house where the owner, Mark Ablett, has been playing host to a number of weekend guests. His advisor, business manager, and general right hand is his cousin, Matthew Cayley, who shares the house. And then there's his ne'er-do-well brother, Robert, whom the family had hustled off to Australia fifteen years before, and who has now returned to call on Mark. The servants hear a shot and Robert's body is found on the floor of Mark's office -- discovered by Antony Gillingham, who happened to be in the neighborhood and stopped by to visit with Bill, one of the guests. And Mark himself has completely disappeared.

Antony is an odd bird who got an education but has no interest in the usual sort of career. Rather, he loves to watch people and to this end has worked quite successfully at a number of occupations (he met Bill while working behind a tobacconist's counter). This seems the opportunity to try his hand at detecting, just for the fun of it, and so he takes on the case, cultivating Cayley (whom he is sure is hiding something) and stepping carefully around the inspector from homicide. He figures he's the ideal investigator, since everyone else is naturally biased in the matter, while "he knew nothing about Mark; he knew nothing about Robert. He had seen the dead man before he knew who the dead man was."

Milne's style is lighthearted and humorous and while Antony tackles the case in earnest, he doesn't take himself too seriously. Enlisting Bill as Watson to his Holmes, he asks, "are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself, all that kind of thing? Because it all helps." Antony is very good at logical analysis and proposes theory after theory, picking each apart and discarding it. It doesn't hurt that he also possesses a semi-eidetic memory.

Raymond Chandler famously excoriated Milne's novel and "cozies" in general, and he made some telling points, but the situation isn't really as bad as all that -- even though Milne seems not to have omitted a single trope. It's an enjoyable and well-written story with interesting characters who behave consistently (if you're paying attention), a reasonably ingenious plot, and are no deus ex machinas. There's a reason it has gone through dozens of editions in the past ninety years and has never been out of print.

Milne's ability to spin a twisted tale of murder and intrigue is worthy of Agatha Christie but he seems to have drawn inspiration from Sir Ian Fleming. His two main characters, who act as sleuths, refer to each other as Holmes and Watson.

Milne’s mystery is a stylish early twentieth century British story, with a body, a missing man, eavesdropping maids, secret passages and a mysterious visitor. His writing style is replete with head hops and changes in point of view, so it is difficult to keep track of who is speaking and whose thoughts we’re reading. He also peppers the dialogue with all the British cliché phrases like: “I say, old man.”; “Dash it all.”; “I daresay”.

Despite the challenges of Milne’s writing, The Red House Mystery is an engaging and satisfying read. Not much action at all, and it is slow to build but it does become exciting as Gillingham and Beverley close in on the final solution.

The biggest drawback is the ending. Although Milne wraps up the mystery, nice and neat, he leaves one big, open thread, unforgiveable unless he plans a follow-up.

Which he didn’t.

Printed across the front cover of "The Dell Great Mystery Library" edition of A. A. Milne's THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY (1922) are Alexander Woollcott's famous words of praise: "One of the three best mystery stories of all time." However, after reading Milne's mystery, anyone who has read even a handful of these vintage mysteries--Wilkie Collins' THE MOONSTONE, Conan Doyle's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Grant Allen's THE AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE, Baroness Orczy's OLD MAN IN THE CORNER mysteries, E. C. Bentley's TRENT'S LAST CASE, Philip MacDonald's THE RASP, Anthony Berkeley's THE POISONED CHOCOLATE CASE or THE PICCADILLY MURDER, any of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, and virtually any short or long Agatha Christie mystery--will probably feel that Woollcott's praise is excessive.

THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY involves a murder in a British country house where a small number of invited guests have been staying. Although the mystery in this book is well constructed, and although fair clues are presented for half of it, my chief objection is that the remaining half is "solved" entirely by a letter of confession written by the guilty party. To be more precise, we readers and the two amateur detectives (but not the police) are able to figure out the secret of WHO was killed and WHO killed him, but not WHY he was killed. And, in hindsight, it turns out that we readers and the two amateur detectives are chiefly able to reach a fairly certain conclusion about the identity of the killer because our correct conclusion was based on a totally WRONG idea about that person's motive for the murder.

My other main objection to this mystery is that the "telling" of its story is very shallow. The characters are all two-dimensional with no deeply presented feelings about anything. The two amateur detectives, Antony [sic] Gillingham and his friend Bill Beverley, often refer to each other as "Watson" and "Holmes"--with Beverley, the "Watson" one, often exclaiming how much "fun" he is having, and Gillingham, the "Holmes" one, coming across a key clue (an old theatrical poster) by convenient luck near the end ... and taking mysteriously unmotivated mercy on the killer.

Finally, in the last two pages as "Holmes" presents the many strands of his reasoning to "Watson," he totally forgets and misrepresents (or rather Milne himself totally forgot and misrepresented) the clearly established (and CRUCIAL) sequence of two events: when the owner of the Red House told his house-guests that his ne'er-do-well brother was coming to visit, and when he told that same information to a nearby neighbor, the mother of the young woman he planned to marry.

If I were giving this novel a letter grade, it would be a weak "C+".Incidentally, within the first 50 pages I correctly guessed everything that could be solved in this book, not because I'm any sort of good detective, but merely because I happen to be quite familiar with HOW mystery writers construct their plots.

Printed across the front cover of "The Dell Great Mystery Library" edition of A. A. Milne's THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY (1922) are Alexander Woollcott's famous words of praise: "One of the three best mystery stories of all time." However, after reading Milne's mystery, anyone who has read even a handful of these vintage mysteries--Wilkie Collins' THE MOONSTONE, Conan Doyle's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Grant Allen's THE AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE, Baroness Orczy's OLD MAN IN THE CORNER mysteries, E. C. Bentley's TRENT'S LAST CASE, Philip MacDonald's THE RASP, Anthony Berkeley's THE POISONED CHOCOLATE CASE or THE PICCADILLY MURDER, any of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, and virtually any short or long Agatha Christie mystery--will probably feel that Woollcott's praise is excessive.

THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY involves a murder in a British country house where a small number of invited guests have been staying. Although the mystery in this book is well constructed, and although fair clues are presented for half of it, my chief objection is that the remaining half is "solved" entirely by a letter of confession written by the guilty party. To be more precise, we readers and the two amateur detectives (but not the police) are able to figure out the secret of WHO was killed and WHO killed him, but not WHY he was killed. And, in hindsight, it turns out that we readers and the two amateur detectives are chiefly able to reach a fairly certain conclusion about the identity of the killer because our correct conclusion was based on a totally WRONG idea about that person's motive for the murder.

My other main objection to this mystery is that the "telling" of its story is very shallow. The characters are all two-dimensional with no deeply presented feelings about anything. The two amateur detectives, Antony [sic] Gillingham and his friend Bill Beverley, often refer to each other as "Watson" and "Holmes"--with Beverley, the "Watson" one, often exclaiming how much "fun" he is having, and Gillingham, the "Holmes" one, coming across a key clue (an old theatrical poster) by convenient luck near the end ... and taking mysteriously unmotivated mercy on the killer.

Finally, in the last two pages as "Holmes" presents the many strands of his reasoning to "Watson," he totally forgets and misrepresents (or rather Milne himself totally forgot and misrepresented) the clearly established (and CRUCIAL) sequence of two events: when the owner of the Red House told his house-guests that his ne'er-do-well brother was coming to visit, and when he told that same information to a nearby neighbor, the mother of the young woman he planned to marry.

If I were giving this novel a letter grade, it would be a weak "C+".Incidentally, within the first 50 pages I correctly guessed everything that could be solved in this book, not because I'm any sort of good detective, but merely because I happen to be quite familiar with HOW mystery writers construct their plots.

Printed across the front cover of "The Dell Great Mystery Library" edition of A. A. Milne's THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY (1922) are Alexander Woollcott's famous words of praise: "One of the three best mystery stories of all time." However, after reading Milne's mystery, anyone who has read even a handful of these vintage mysteries--Wilkie Collins' THE MOONSTONE, Conan Doyle's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Grant Allen's THE AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE, Baroness Orczy's OLD MAN IN THE CORNER mysteries, E. C. Bentley's TRENT'S LAST CASE, Philip MacDonald's THE RASP, Anthony Berkeley's THE POISONED CHOCOLATE CASE or THE PICCADILLY MURDER, any of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, and virtually any short or long Agatha Christie mystery--will probably feel that Woollcott's praise is excessive.

THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY involves a murder in a British country house where a small number of invited guests have been staying. Although the mystery in this book is well constructed, and although fair clues are presented for half of it, my chief objection is that the remaining half is "solved" entirely by a letter of confession written by the guilty party. To be more precise, we readers and the two amateur detectives (but not the police) are able to figure out the secret of WHO was killed and WHO killed him, but not WHY he was killed. And, in hindsight, it turns out that we readers and the two amateur detectives are chiefly able to reach a fairly certain conclusion about the identity of the killer because our correct conclusion was based on a totally WRONG idea about that person's motive for the murder.

My other main objection to this mystery is that the "telling" of its story is very shallow. The characters are all two-dimensional with no deeply presented feelings about anything. The two amateur detectives, Antony [sic] Gillingham and his friend Bill Beverley, often refer to each other as "Watson" and "Holmes"--with Beverley, the "Watson" one, often exclaiming how much "fun" he is having, and Gillingham, the "Holmes" one, coming across a key clue (an old theatrical poster) by convenient luck near the end ... and taking mysteriously unmotivated mercy on the killer.

Finally, in the last two pages as "Holmes" presents the many strands of his reasoning to "Watson," he totally forgets and misrepresents (or rather Milne himself totally forgot and misrepresented) the clearly established (and CRUCIAL) sequence of two events: when the owner of the Red House told his house-guests that his ne'er-do-well brother was coming to visit, and when he told that same information to a nearby neighbor, the mother of the young woman he planned to marry.

If I were giving this novel a letter grade, it would be a weak "C+".Incidentally, within the first 50 pages I correctly guessed everything that could be solved in this book, not because I'm any sort of good detective, but merely because I happen to be quite familiar with HOW mystery writers construct their plots.

Note: This review is of an earlier edition of the book containing an Intro by author Milne.

I was a little skeptical about Milne's ability to turn out a good book in a genre so different from his wise Pooh whimsies. I became especially skeptical after learning that this was to be Milne's one-and-only foray into the field of mystery-writing. So he wouldn't have a chance to practice his aim, to practice pulling the trigger without jerking. However as it turns out, Milne hits the bulls-eye dead-center on this one try.

In his introduction to this edition, Milne sets forth what he considers the criteria for a classic mystery - and he meets all those criteria in this engaging, quintessentially British drawing-room murder.

Although written in 1922, "The Red House" has a timeless quality. However, aside from being gently low-key, there is one other sense in which the story does depart from what's popular for most modern murders. Milne says that in order to be a classic, a mystery must feature an amateur detective, and this amateur must reach his conclusions by pure logic - leaving any "microscopes (and such) at home." The detective should only have access to information that the readers might also possess in their everyday, commonsense occupations. So there's no CSI-like reliance on the arcane habits of blowflies here.

The breezy bachelor detective, who serendipitously arrives at the house-party just moments after the murder - reaches his conclusions by way of simple mental re-enactments. When he espies something a shade unusual, he traces back and thinks of all the scenarios that could have led to that particular configuration of things and events. Why is a man's collar tossed by itself in a downstairs hamper? Why are the books in the manor-house library arranged in that slightly inconvenient way?

When Antony Gillingham and his chosen Watson sidekick arrive at the junction where all these different re-imagined scenarios intersect - they have their motive - their means - and their killer.

There are only a limited number of suspects here, so you won't be faced with having to memorize a long list of characters. This makes for an easy, but very satisfying read. This is a book every mystery-story fan should have in his or her permanent library - along, of course, with that dead body sprawled on the rug.

Yet another entry in the store's endless ability to mangle books in Kindle. This latest scam puts a blank line between every paragraph, and of course uses straight quotes instead of real quotes.

So sad how the store gets away with this near vandalism, again and again.

"The Red House" is probably heralded today chiefly because of its early, early publish date (1922). It would likely have contained inventive elements at the time and proved a matrix for subsequent mystery writers. Since then, of course, the field has become thick with clever plots and twists. One shouldn't expect to find something surpassing ensuing contributions, but perhaps appreciate its import as a link in the chain. As with this book itself, the young amateur detective and his Watson did remarkably well on their first outing. They definitely made an engaging working team. Like many mysteries, there is a stretch or two involved as far as credible circumstances. The author dedicated the book to his father, writing it to answer his wish for more mysteries. It is impressive on that basis as well.

I was a little skeptical about Milne's ability to turn out a good book in a genre so different from his wise Pooh whimsies. I became especially skeptical after learning that this was to be Milne's one-and-only foray into the field of mystery-writing. So he wouldn't have a chance to practice his aim, to practice pulling the trigger without jerking. However as it turns out, Milne hits the bulls-eye dead-center on this one try.

In his introduction to this edition, Milne sets forth what he considers the criteria for a classic mystery - and he meets all those criteria in this engaging, quintessentially British drawing-room murder.

Although written in 1922, "The Red House" has a timeless quality. However, aside from being gently low-key, there is one other sense in which the story does depart from what's popular for most modern murders. Milne says that in order to be a classic, a mystery must feature an amateur detective, and this amateur must reach his conclusions by pure logic - leaving any "microscopes (and such) at home." The detective should only have access to information that the readers might also possess in their everyday, commonsense occupations. So no CSI-like reliance on the arcane habits of blowflies.

The breezy bachelor detective, who serendipitously arrives at the house-party just moments after the murder - reaches his conclusions by way of simple mental re-enactments. When he espies something a shade unusual, he traces back and thinks of all the scenarios that could have led to that particular configuration of things and events. Why is a man's collar tossed by itself in a downstairs hamper? Why are the books in the manor-house library arranged in that slightly inconvenient way?

When Antony Gillingham and his chosen Watson sidekick arrive at the junction where all these different re-imagined scenarios intersect - they have their motive - their means - and their killer.

There are only a limited number of suspects here, so you won't be faced with having to memorize a long list of characters. This makes for an easy, but very satisfying read. This is a book every mystery-story fan should have in his or her permanent library - along, of course, with that dead body sprawled on the rug.

The so-called "Golden Age of Detective Fiction" was a largely British phenomenon that took place in the 1920s and 1930s and its masters are among the most well-known names in the mystery genre (Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, etc.). The stories of this time had a number of conventions (which they did not invent, but certainly popularized), and they were so prevalent that several essays were written codifying them. These will be familiar to anyone with a passing familiarity with older mysteries: the amateur detective, the country house, a murder, a cast of suspects staying at the house, all clues revealed to the reader and sleuth at the same time, hints of romance, etc. Apparently, the man who later gave the world "Winnie the Pooh" was interested enough in the detective genre that he decided to have a stab at it himself. The resulting book, which, while anemically titled, has to be considered a very entertaining example of the "Golden Age" novel.

The protagonist is Andrew Gillingham, a young man receiving a fine inheritance who, rather than gadding about (a la Bertie Wooster), finds it interesting to try out different professions for a year or so. One day, while out in the country, he realizes that a good friend is a guest a nearby manor house. He heads out for a brisk walk to pay a surprise call on his friend, only to stumble into the immediate aftermath of a murder (in the office, with a revolver). It doesn't take long for him to realize that instead of being a supporting player in the police investigation, he can, instead, try out a new profession -- that of detective.

And so the game is afoot, as the sharp young man uses his powers of logic and deduction to try and reason out the murder (with the typically plodding help of his sidekick friend). If you've read many of these kinds of stories, you'll probably be able to figure it out reasonably easily (although I didn't), but the real charm of the book is in the light, witty prose, which carries the reader along effortlessly. It's a style likely to appeal to fans of P.G. Wodehouse, though obviously not as farcical as that. It's well worth reading if you've got a taste for the world of Britain between the wars. Had Milne not made his fortune with Pooh Bear, this book demonstrates that he certainly could have done well as a mystery writer and he did write several other mystery plays and stories, just not novels.

The real mystery is why this particular novel has never been made into a film!

Surprised to find Pooh's author when perusing my eBook mystery anthology, I thought I'd indulge my curiosity to see what Milne did in another format entirely. I was treated to a pleasant mystery with well constructed characters and plot. It's set over only a few days, primarily at the manor house of landlord Mark Ablett. Mark's ne'er-do-well brother Robert arrives after fifteen years in Australia. After apparently arguing with Mark, a shot is heard. Mark's cousin Cayley, his assistant of sorts, with newly arrived visitor Antony, investigates and finds Robert shot dead in the `office'. All evidence seems to point to Mark, but with Mark's being missing and having apparently fled and no gun to be found, whodunit and why are problematical. Antony voluntarily assumes the role of investigator, playfully taking on friend and fellow guest Bill to be Watson to his Holmes, and engaging in observation and deduction to attempt to come to the bottom of things. Milne develops the story line well, and draws things to an unexpected conclusion. Characters Mark, Antony, and to lesser extents Bill and Cayley are well made. There are no women in central roles and only a handful in peripheral ones. Milne's writing directly to the reader is comfortably familiar and his style in this format is gently flowing. Wishing there were other Milne mysteries with Antony and Bill or without them, this short mystery is definitely worth one's time, reading, and enjoyment.

A. A. Milne is best known as the author of the 'Winnie the Pooh' stories but before he began writing stories for his little boy he penned this story for his mystery loving father. This one has all the classic mystery novel elements, an amateur detective, a house party in the English countryside, and, of course, a body discovered in a locked room. Young, handsome and wealthy Andrew Gillingham had decided that he would stop by the Red House to visit an old friend who was at a house party there. Their reunion was cut short though when the owner of house was discovered dead in the library. All the usual mystery elements are present, the red herrings, the subplots, hints of romance, hidden motives and secret passages all twist and turn into a merry chase until all is revealed in the final chapter. It is a fun read, and while many readers will reach the conclusion before our hero there will still be a twist or two that will come as a surprise.

This was originally published in 1922 when the cliched mystery novel elements this story abounds in were all fresh and new. For the most part the story holds up well although at times it does begin to drag a bit. It is worth the effort to push on through the slower bits to get to the charming finale - and to try to spot any forerunners of Christopher Robin's friends.

(3.5 stars) It's great fun reading a murder mystery by the author of the Winnie the Pooh. Set at Red House, the country home of Mark Ablett, the novel opens on a party weekend, with most of the houseguests away from the house playing golf or tennis. Ablett has just received a letter from his brother Robert, who has been living in Australia for the past fifteen years, and "when a gentleman goes to Australia, of course, he has his reasons..." Robert, the family embarrassment, intends to visit Mark that afternoon. Shortly after Robert's arrival, shots are heard inside Mark's locked office.

By coincidence, Antony Gillingham has just arrived at the house to visit with his friend Bill Beverley, who is a guest at Red House. When Antony hears the shots and learns that the office is locked, he and Matthew Cayley, Mark's distant cousin who acts as his secretary, rush around to the back of the house to peer in the window, where they see the prone body of Mark Ablett. Antony, always looking for exciting new activities to occupy the times that he is not traveling, teams up with Bill Beverley, who has been away from the house at the time of the murder, to try to catch the killer.

A typical "locked room mystery," the novel features characters who may not be all they seem to be, acting for mysterious motives, which range from love to revenge. Servants overhear bits of conversation which offer clues. The discovery of a secret passage, the appearance of a ghost, and a convenient lake to hide evidence all become part of the plot, which is more cerebral than action-packed. Antony's photographic memory aids him in getting at the truth about the murder, well before the local constabulary.

Written in 1922, before Winnie the Pooh was even "born," the book was a gift for Milne's father, a retired headmaster who loved mysteries. Milne had written twelve plays, at this point in his life, and that background serves him in good stead here, as the book has the feel of a long play, depending more on dialogue than on action, and featuring many of the clichés of locked room mysteries. Avoiding the need for difficult transitions between scenes, Milne often addresses the reader directly to offer information, an awkward conceit which keeps the reader at a distance. At one point, Bill Beverley affectionately teases Antony Gillingham. "Silly old ass," he chides, reminding the reader instantly of the "silly old bear" who will make his debut in just four years. n Mary Whipple

Winnie the Pooh 80th Anniversary Edition
Now We Are Six Deluxe Edition
Sunny Side: Short Stories and Poems for Proper Grown-Ups
First Plays of A A Milne (Dodo Press)
Second Plays by A. A. Milne

The Red House Mystery is an amateur detective story written by the author of the Winnie the Pooh books. Milne wrote his only novel for his father, an avid reader of mysteries. Could the children's book author really write an entertaining mystery? Not especially.

Set in an English country house, the story begins by introducing the owner, Mark, having breakfast with his guests while complaining about a later meeting to be had with his estranged brother, Robert. Once the guests leave to play golf for the day, Anthony, a friend of one of the guests, wanders up to the house to discover Robert dead and Mark nowhere to be found. Anthony and his friend, Bill, one of the guests, take it upon themselves to investigate the mystery.

Antony is Sherlock Holmes-light; he shares some qualities with the famous sleuth (and even refers to his sidekick as "my Watson"), but he fails to really distinguish himself, hovering in Holmes' shadow. He knows he has a similar role; he just doesn't pull it off as masterly. After all, he's just playing detective for a little bit of adventure. The mystery itself seems intriguing initially, but the solving of it is pretty uninteresting. Antony makes some smart deductions along the way, but they're more tedious than exciting to read about. The stock characters added nothing except for Mark's cousin, whose interests aren't explained till the end. And once the mystery gets solved (in a rather cliche manner), there's little satisfaction to be had. Antony and Bill are just having fun with their first chance to solve a murder mystery, but the plot and simple style fail to convey their fun, nor do they present anything that hasn't already been done.

This is a classic post WWI English mystery involving a murder at a country house with an amateur detective, Andrew, and friendly sidekick. Andrew is a man of moderate means who travels from place to place seeking interesting jobs and experiences. He happens to be visiting his friend staying at the manor house when he arrives just after the commission of the crime. The pair must figure out a murder and the disappearance of the most likely suspect. My favorite part was the preface written by the author, A.A. Milne. It was charming, delightful, and informative, and gave a really nice insight into an author best known for his children’s books.

The only mystery Milne ever wrote is quite a tale.A play on the Holmes Watson style with more humor.For a first time detective Gillingham does a heck of a job-this is a dance between only three characters,pretty much,so the story is narrowly focused.No extraneous characters bog up the landscape.Enjoyed and recommend.

How many of us knew the creator of Winnie the Pooh also wrote a classic whodunit? Well he did, and the book is surprisingly good. It is a classic "golden age" mystery. The book is a mixture of Christie and Doyle, with a pinch of Carr thrown in. It isn't classic literature, but it is entertaining.

The author is everybody’s favourite because he wrote the Winnie-the-Pooh series and it is really sad having to write a negative review but unfortunately this book is terrible.
I know that when you read British cosy mysteries you have to suspend disbelief to a certain point (I have read quite a lot of them and usually I love them) but this is just ridiculous!! I do not what to spoil it but the solution, which by the way you can see it coming from about mid-book, is very far-fetched and can only be possible if everybody involved in the story is brain-dead and the police is completely incompetent and fails to do the most basic research. Really silly!

When I was a child I read all the Hardy Boys mysteries I could get my hands on. They were written for a very young adult audience and, being a young adult then, I enjoyed them. This is also the case with this work. It seems to be written for an even younger audience and for me, now, I found it dragged and was VERY repetitive. The interplay between Bill and Anthony was annoying and had an almost homoerotic element to it (not that there's anything wrong with that!). A.A. Milne wrote great children's books and, in my opinion, that's what he should have stuck to.

During a weekend party at the Red House, guests become amateur sleuths when a murder is discovered. An eccentric host holds court over his guests as secrets are revealed, estranged siblings meet for the first time,while murder and mayhem abounds.

Fun and lighthearted mystery by the author of Winnie-the-Pooh.

The Red House Mystery by A.A Milne was a mystery set in the late 1900's. The story was about a lady named Miss Stevens in the red house. There is a man or a woman that is killing people, so the public has to try and figure out who did it, when and how. This is probably one of the best mystery stories I have ever read. This book really had a lot of suspense and surprising points. I think you'll be very shocked about what happens at the end. I recommend this book to whoever likes mysteries or who is at a high school level.

I only read it as it was in my Book Club but I can't see why t was chosen, Pleasant enough and of its (1920's) time. Rather simple and unlikely, with little character development and not much satisfactory reasoning in my mind. Life is too short to read such books- Don't bother.

This is the only known murder mystery written by AA Milne and it doesn’t even take place in the “Hundred Acre Wood.” I had to read it for that reason only, if for no other. It is typical of the mysteries written in the early 1900’s by Agatha Christie and Mary Roberts Rinehart. But it is told in a very light hearted manner that is highly entertaining.

Kind of a surprise from the author of "Winnie The Pooh". Like discovering Ian Fleming wrote "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".
Not too many characters, lots of "stiff upper lip" dialogue and a plot that's plausible. A good read. I wish there were more.

This is a well written mystery with great characters and fun dialogue between the two major roles. Interesting perspective,sort of putting the reader in the amateur detective position. Not a modern tale, but an old classic "whodunit"' '.

My wife is a teacher and is a huge fan of Mr. Milne's shall we say more mild work. She even quotes something from Winnie-the-Pooh as her favorite inspirational quote! He is a genious and this just shows how versatile Mr. Milne really is.