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Henry Gamadge #10
Somewhere in the House
Charming bibliophile and occasional sleuth Henry Gamadge is asked to cope with some greedy Clayborn relatives awaiting an inheritance and to find a valuable button collection and becomes involved in a case of murder
179 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
60 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Daly
36 books54 followersElizabeth Daly (1878-1967) was born in New York City and educated at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She was a reader in English at Bryn Mawr and tutored in English and French. She was awarded an Edgar in 1960. Her series character is Henry Gamadge, an antiquarian book dealer.
Daly works in the footsteps of Jane Austen, offering an extraordinarily clear picture of society in her time through the interactions of a few characters. In that tradition, if you knew a person's family history, general type, and a few personal quirks, you could be said to know everything worth knowing about that person. Today the emphasis is on baring the darkest depths of psycho- and socio-pathology; contemporary readers raised on this style may find Ms. Daly both elitist and somewhat facile. But fans of classic movies and whodunits know that a focus on polished surfaces brings with it the possibility of hidden secrets and things unsaid; for those who disdain the obvious confessional style of today, the Gamadge books have much to recommend them.
Elizabeth Daly now seems sadly forgotten by many which a shame as all her books are superbly crafted and plotted, indeed she counted none other than Agatha Christie as one of her fans. She published sixteen books all of which featured her main series character Henry Gamadge. He is a bibliophile and expert on rare books and manuscripts which makes her books particularly appealing to fans of the bibliomystery. There was some disparity between UK and US releases some being published out of sequence, the bibliography shown follows the US editions which are the true firsts. Murder Listens In and Shroud for a Lady are re-titled reissues of earlier books.
Daly works in the footsteps of Jane Austen, offering an extraordinarily clear picture of society in her time through the interactions of a few characters. In that tradition, if you knew a person's family history, general type, and a few personal quirks, you could be said to know everything worth knowing about that person. Today the emphasis is on baring the darkest depths of psycho- and socio-pathology; contemporary readers raised on this style may find Ms. Daly both elitist and somewhat facile. But fans of classic movies and whodunits know that a focus on polished surfaces brings with it the possibility of hidden secrets and things unsaid; for those who disdain the obvious confessional style of today, the Gamadge books have much to recommend them.
Elizabeth Daly now seems sadly forgotten by many which a shame as all her books are superbly crafted and plotted, indeed she counted none other than Agatha Christie as one of her fans. She published sixteen books all of which featured her main series character Henry Gamadge. He is a bibliophile and expert on rare books and manuscripts which makes her books particularly appealing to fans of the bibliomystery. There was some disparity between UK and US releases some being published out of sequence, the bibliography shown follows the US editions which are the true firsts. Murder Listens In and Shroud for a Lady are re-titled reissues of earlier books.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 2, 2021
Somewhere in the House by Elizabeth Daly is a 1984 Bantam Books publication. (Originally published in 1946)
Henry Gammadge has been commissioned to attend a most unusual event. The Clayborn family has been awaiting the moment when they can finally open a sealed room in their mansion, which will free them up to receive their inheritances, at long last. Henry's role is to see that there's no sleight of hand amongst the gathered relatives.
Although this is highly irregular, Henry is accepted by the family, and their attorney, who will oversee the unveiling, if you will.
Henry’s client is mainly concerned about a button collection she feels could be in the room and might be of some value. What they discover instead is not only the macabre wax figure of a long-dead relative, but a murder victim. The question is… how was she murdered when the room has been sealed for twenty-five years?
As legend would have it, Elizabeth Daly was supposedly Agatha Christie’s favorite mystery writer. Daly was once dubbed ‘The grand dame of women mystery writer’s’.
Today, Daly has faded into relative obscurity, which is a real shame. So, for the record, Hoopla has most of her Henry Gammagde collection in digital format, so if you enjoy Golden Age mysteries, you should check them out.
As for this book-
Locked room mysteries are very common, of course, but this one is especially unique. I can’t say I’ve encountered a mystery plot quite like it.
A shrine to a lost loved one, in the form of a wax figure, an unusual codicil to a will, a sealed-up room, and twenty-five years of too much togetherness for a family loaded with secrets and in dire need of their inheritance is a strange premise, but it certainly kept me turning pages.
Gammadge is an understated sort of amateur sleuth, and of course his book knowledge makes him very interesting.
The cast of characters are not likeable- with one or two exceptions- but, the mystery was certainly a head scratcher and I can’t say that I ever fully suspected any one person for very long.
The story is rather brief- barely over two hundred pages, so it didn't take me long to read it- but it did require my undivided attention.
This was my only physical copy of Daly’s work- which is why I started with book ten. I didn’t know Hoopla had the collection before I started reading this one or I might have tried to read them in order.
I’m not sure if this installment is the best representation of Daly’s work, but this plot was original enough, I am anxious to read through her entire library.
Overall, a strange, but well executed mystery!
3.5 stars
Henry Gammadge has been commissioned to attend a most unusual event. The Clayborn family has been awaiting the moment when they can finally open a sealed room in their mansion, which will free them up to receive their inheritances, at long last. Henry's role is to see that there's no sleight of hand amongst the gathered relatives.
Although this is highly irregular, Henry is accepted by the family, and their attorney, who will oversee the unveiling, if you will.
Henry’s client is mainly concerned about a button collection she feels could be in the room and might be of some value. What they discover instead is not only the macabre wax figure of a long-dead relative, but a murder victim. The question is… how was she murdered when the room has been sealed for twenty-five years?
As legend would have it, Elizabeth Daly was supposedly Agatha Christie’s favorite mystery writer. Daly was once dubbed ‘The grand dame of women mystery writer’s’.
Today, Daly has faded into relative obscurity, which is a real shame. So, for the record, Hoopla has most of her Henry Gammagde collection in digital format, so if you enjoy Golden Age mysteries, you should check them out.
As for this book-
Locked room mysteries are very common, of course, but this one is especially unique. I can’t say I’ve encountered a mystery plot quite like it.
A shrine to a lost loved one, in the form of a wax figure, an unusual codicil to a will, a sealed-up room, and twenty-five years of too much togetherness for a family loaded with secrets and in dire need of their inheritance is a strange premise, but it certainly kept me turning pages.
Gammadge is an understated sort of amateur sleuth, and of course his book knowledge makes him very interesting.
The cast of characters are not likeable- with one or two exceptions- but, the mystery was certainly a head scratcher and I can’t say that I ever fully suspected any one person for very long.
The story is rather brief- barely over two hundred pages, so it didn't take me long to read it- but it did require my undivided attention.
This was my only physical copy of Daly’s work- which is why I started with book ten. I didn’t know Hoopla had the collection before I started reading this one or I might have tried to read them in order.
I’m not sure if this installment is the best representation of Daly’s work, but this plot was original enough, I am anxious to read through her entire library.
Overall, a strange, but well executed mystery!
3.5 stars
December 18, 2023
Buttons. It all started with buttons.
Harriet Clayborn Leeder, member of a formerly wealthy, formerly prominent family, calls Henry Gamadge up out of the blue one day to ask for his assistance.
Thirty years earlier, Harriet's aunt Nonie had died. Nonie's grief-stricken mother had commissioned a life-sized wax portrait mannequin of Nonie and installed it in the music room, forever seated at the piano she loved to play.
The lifelike dummy unnerved the rest of the family, much to the fury of old Mrs Clayborn. The elderly lady got her revenge by leaving a very restrictive will: her surviving children and grandchildren must live in the house, nothing in the house can be changed or removed, and only necessary repairs can be done with the permission of the executor of the estate. This will continue until Harriet's nephew, Garth, turns 25. His birthday is the day after Gamadge's visit.
The surviving Clayborns bend the rules, though, after Mrs Clayborn's death, by deciding to seal off the music room with its dreadful wax zombie. The room is already soundproof. They decide to completely seal it off from the rest of the house. Mr Alsop, the executor, has no problem with the idea since everything in the room will remain undisturbed - and he probably doesn't want to see Nonie either.
For 20 years, the Clayborns remain in the house. It never occurs to any of them to actually work for a living. They simply live off the allowances left by Mrs Clayborn. Though not destitute, they do need money and look forward to Garth's 25th birthday with great expectation. Harriet is concerned, though, by three thefts that have taken place over the years. She worries about a possibly valuable button collection that belonged to her grandmother and aunt, a collection that may rest inside the sealed room.
Harriet wants Henry Gamadge as a disinterested observer when the sealed music room is open. He agrees, curious about this eccentric family and the strange, mysterious room with its life-sized wax doll. However, things don't go quite the way that Gamadge, Harriet, or the rest of the Clayborns expect -
Harriet Clayborn Leeder, member of a formerly wealthy, formerly prominent family, calls Henry Gamadge up out of the blue one day to ask for his assistance.
Thirty years earlier, Harriet's aunt Nonie had died. Nonie's grief-stricken mother had commissioned a life-sized wax portrait mannequin of Nonie and installed it in the music room, forever seated at the piano she loved to play.
"A blonde, awful, simpering creature, so like the original that Mother had always said the man had been allowed to take a death mask. She's sitting at the piano with her hands spread out on the keys, and one foot in a white slipper on a pedal. I used to try to just think of it as a dummy from shop window; but I never could. To me it was Nonie's corpse."
The lifelike dummy unnerved the rest of the family, much to the fury of old Mrs Clayborn. The elderly lady got her revenge by leaving a very restrictive will: her surviving children and grandchildren must live in the house, nothing in the house can be changed or removed, and only necessary repairs can be done with the permission of the executor of the estate. This will continue until Harriet's nephew, Garth, turns 25. His birthday is the day after Gamadge's visit.
The surviving Clayborns bend the rules, though, after Mrs Clayborn's death, by deciding to seal off the music room with its dreadful wax zombie. The room is already soundproof. They decide to completely seal it off from the rest of the house. Mr Alsop, the executor, has no problem with the idea since everything in the room will remain undisturbed - and he probably doesn't want to see Nonie either.
For 20 years, the Clayborns remain in the house. It never occurs to any of them to actually work for a living. They simply live off the allowances left by Mrs Clayborn. Though not destitute, they do need money and look forward to Garth's 25th birthday with great expectation. Harriet is concerned, though, by three thefts that have taken place over the years. She worries about a possibly valuable button collection that belonged to her grandmother and aunt, a collection that may rest inside the sealed room.
Harriet wants Henry Gamadge as a disinterested observer when the sealed music room is open. He agrees, curious about this eccentric family and the strange, mysterious room with its life-sized wax doll. However, things don't go quite the way that Gamadge, Harriet, or the rest of the Clayborns expect -
"What [Allsop] saw was so grotesque and startling that for a moment he could only stand staring at it. The white figure, demurely clad in its white dress, with its yellow hair and it's simpering smile, was in itself mildly horrifying; what made it terrible was the fact of it having been swung about on the revolving piano stool to face the door. Its hands, spread as if playing upon a keyboard, now clutched the air with crooked fingers that looked ready to claw and rend."/blockquote>
And Nonie is not alone. There's a dead body in there with her.
So much for buttons.
I've read about half a dozen Gamadge mysteries, but I think this is my favorite - the creepy sealed room with its horrific wax dummy, the two old murder cases - one still unsolved after 20 years and the other just discovered - and the decaying patrician family that is slowly falling apart. This would make a good read for Halloween. I was also taken totally by surprise when the murderer was revealed. Elizabeth Daly was Agatha Christie's favorite mystery writer and it's obvious why.
Henry Gamadge is a nice, respectable bibliophile, cat lover, and expert on antique books and inks. Kind, easygoing, and interested in people, he finds himself increasingly involved in rather strange murder cases. In a lot of ways, this is like an American cozy version of the classic British mystery. Very enjoyable and just the thing when you're cooped up inside.
March 13, 2021
I was pleased to see books again being important in the plot! And the readers finally get to meet (extremely briefly) the young scion of the family :)
May 20, 2025
Somewhere in the House by Elizabeth Daly continues the adventures of Henry Gamadge, rare book expert and amateur sleuth. He's called upon by Mrs. Harriet Clayborn Leeder to witness the opening of a room in her house, shared by a motley group of relatives, that has been sealed for 20 years. The room was sealed because her late grandmother had made a creepy wax effigy of her late daughter playing the piano in the room.
The reason grandma's family didn't get rid of the ghastly wax effigy is because her will stipulated that for 20 years nothing could change in the house. Only after the 20 years had passed and the family had not changed the furnishings did the heirs fully inherit. Therefore, they sealed up the room. Well, the 20 years are now up and the family is all set to inherit. Unfortunately, murder pokes its ugly head into the inheritance plan and nothing can be settled until Henry Gamadge finds out "who dunnit."
I really enjoy the Henry Gamadge books because the author does such a great job of setting up a very realistic cast of characters for each mystery. Clearly, Elizabeth Daly understood human nature.
Now on to the next Henry Gamadge novel, The Wrong Way Down.
Family corner: Nothing really objectionable and even the murder(s) are not detailed or graphic.
The reason grandma's family didn't get rid of the ghastly wax effigy is because her will stipulated that for 20 years nothing could change in the house. Only after the 20 years had passed and the family had not changed the furnishings did the heirs fully inherit. Therefore, they sealed up the room. Well, the 20 years are now up and the family is all set to inherit. Unfortunately, murder pokes its ugly head into the inheritance plan and nothing can be settled until Henry Gamadge finds out "who dunnit."
I really enjoy the Henry Gamadge books because the author does such a great job of setting up a very realistic cast of characters for each mystery. Clearly, Elizabeth Daly understood human nature.
Now on to the next Henry Gamadge novel, The Wrong Way Down.
Family corner: Nothing really objectionable and even the murder(s) are not detailed or graphic.
March 4, 2023
Early Bird Book Deal | Unique plot, but the killer is clear awfully early | Daly seems to have had a real creative brainstorm as she got to the second half of her career, the story aspects of these later books have far fewer standard tropes than the early books did. There was only one sensible or logical suspect here, so the book was just a matter of waiting for confirmation, but that doesn't detract from the reading experience.
July 10, 2017
This is a classic mystery involving a family trapped under an old will into living together until its youngest member attained his majority and the trust ended. Henry Gamadge, lately freed of war service, is recommended to Mrs. Leeder, a member of the Clayborn family. She has a strange request--she needs an outside party to "referee" the unsealing of a room sealed 20 years ago following the death of the family matriarch. Gamadge agrees, and after the family accedes to his presence, he goes home until the grand reopening on the following day… but he has a sense of dread that there will be things found in that room that will lead to dark secrets and reopened wounds. So readers will be unsurprised when Gamadge's intuition is proved correct, and a body turns up.
A blurb in the back of my copy of Somewhere in The House states that Henry Gamadge was once called "the American Peter Wimsey." As a Dorothy L. Sayers fan, I can't see the resemblance. The strength of Elizabeth Daly's series is not her detective, but her mystery plots. I have yet to suss out the murderer ahead of Gamadge, and the tales often take unexpected twists. Compared to many modern mystery writers, the prose is distinguished and the wonderful descriptive passages give a good sense of period and place. I also like that Daly does not make her policemen dull-witted foils to her detective. In the conclusion of this volume, Gamadge explained that he caught the killer because that person assumed his mind would work according to how normal people think--but Gamadge's mind tends to see the discrepancies and pursue paths that aren't the norm. Daly and her detective fooled me again, and I'll keep reading.
A blurb in the back of my copy of Somewhere in The House states that Henry Gamadge was once called "the American Peter Wimsey." As a Dorothy L. Sayers fan, I can't see the resemblance. The strength of Elizabeth Daly's series is not her detective, but her mystery plots. I have yet to suss out the murderer ahead of Gamadge, and the tales often take unexpected twists. Compared to many modern mystery writers, the prose is distinguished and the wonderful descriptive passages give a good sense of period and place. I also like that Daly does not make her policemen dull-witted foils to her detective. In the conclusion of this volume, Gamadge explained that he caught the killer because that person assumed his mind would work according to how normal people think--but Gamadge's mind tends to see the discrepancies and pursue paths that aren't the norm. Daly and her detective fooled me again, and I'll keep reading.
August 30, 2012
Daly was Agatha Christie's favorite American author. "Somewhere in the House" may provide the reader with some clues as to why that should be so. It's well-plotted and beautifully written; Daly was an expert at creating memorable characters and wrote with a dry, understated kind of humor. The plot is macabre, the misdirection is first-rate, and the reader will be delighted and surprised by the story's twists and turns.
March 5, 2026
Hard to Follow
A bit of a long confusing mystery. I had a hard time following along. Took me quite a while to understand some ofit.
A bit of a long confusing mystery. I had a hard time following along. Took me quite a while to understand some ofit.
March 18, 2023
Okay, this is the one that will make me want to go to this author more often. I had only bothered with Daly’s Henry Gamadge series a few times over a period of several decades, and what I needed to accelerate interest and frequency of indulgence, would be a corker of a whodunit. Somewhere in the House is more my Daly jam.
Advisory: it is true that the assets on offer here are of the traditional, Golden Age variety (this isn’t some kind of genre game-changer; it’s just very, very well done, and a stand-out in the 1920-1940 crowd):
A strange house with rooms hiding secrets. For sure, one particular room - the music-room - is the best room promising the juiciest secrets; it has been sealed up ages ago with the effigy of a deceased loved one sitting at the piano. And that’s not the main reason to break down the fancy barricade and have a look for a ghost that could be haunting the wax(?) figure entombed. No…there’s treasure involved…
A wonderful extended family of potential suspects for a cold case, a colder case, and any new skullduggery.
A near-Great Detective (they can’t all make it to Great, right?). In fact, this is the book where I bonded with Gamadge and will come away with some ideas of who the man is. I don’t think he was a boring cipher in the other two books I sampled - I just think the author is not trying to compete with the electrifying sleuth superstars from the Golden Age and earlier, and Gamadge needs to grow on a reader, quietly, over a few books. So, my occasional visits have really stretched this process out. But I get this guy now, I would say, and I like him.
A lot packed into relatively few pages, including a pretty intricate whodunit that reveals itself in satisfying segments, and delivers an ultimate twist followed by clear explanation of a last few things dangling.
A bit of extra punch beyond the puzzle. Thinking afterwards about human nature, what people are capable of, how long they are happy to hide, and what they might do if doors to cobwebbed secrets are scheduled to be torn away. Cold cases include all those years nothing was fixed…
This one is the Daly dazzle. I’ll file it at 4 stars, only because I know when I come out of a Mystery rocked, shocked, socked, and shook. This was almost that. I wonder if she’s got This Plus? That’s to be found out; for now, I’m quite happy with what I got.
Advisory: it is true that the assets on offer here are of the traditional, Golden Age variety (this isn’t some kind of genre game-changer; it’s just very, very well done, and a stand-out in the 1920-1940 crowd):
A strange house with rooms hiding secrets. For sure, one particular room - the music-room - is the best room promising the juiciest secrets; it has been sealed up ages ago with the effigy of a deceased loved one sitting at the piano. And that’s not the main reason to break down the fancy barricade and have a look for a ghost that could be haunting the wax(?) figure entombed. No…there’s treasure involved…
A wonderful extended family of potential suspects for a cold case, a colder case, and any new skullduggery.
A near-Great Detective (they can’t all make it to Great, right?). In fact, this is the book where I bonded with Gamadge and will come away with some ideas of who the man is. I don’t think he was a boring cipher in the other two books I sampled - I just think the author is not trying to compete with the electrifying sleuth superstars from the Golden Age and earlier, and Gamadge needs to grow on a reader, quietly, over a few books. So, my occasional visits have really stretched this process out. But I get this guy now, I would say, and I like him.
A lot packed into relatively few pages, including a pretty intricate whodunit that reveals itself in satisfying segments, and delivers an ultimate twist followed by clear explanation of a last few things dangling.
A bit of extra punch beyond the puzzle. Thinking afterwards about human nature, what people are capable of, how long they are happy to hide, and what they might do if doors to cobwebbed secrets are scheduled to be torn away. Cold cases include all those years nothing was fixed…
This one is the Daly dazzle. I’ll file it at 4 stars, only because I know when I come out of a Mystery rocked, shocked, socked, and shook. This was almost that. I wonder if she’s got This Plus? That’s to be found out; for now, I’m quite happy with what I got.
November 2, 2022
Maybe 3.5 stars
This is a classic, golden age detective novel from an American author. Apparently Agatha Christie enjoyed reading her works. I enjoyed it enough that I would seek more. However, I'm not completely surprised that she fell into obscurity.
This is one of those mysteries that liberally sprinkles clues throughout the story and allows the reader to play along. I particularly appreciated that any time I went "well, that doesn't make sense", there was a reason it didn't make sense. Trust your instincts on this one.
It wasn't so much a twist ending as a "did you catch all the clues that led us here?" I think I would have appreciated some of the personalities better if I had more familiarity with earlier adventures. Worth a read, though perhaps not worth going out of your way to find.
This is a classic, golden age detective novel from an American author. Apparently Agatha Christie enjoyed reading her works. I enjoyed it enough that I would seek more. However, I'm not completely surprised that she fell into obscurity.
This is one of those mysteries that liberally sprinkles clues throughout the story and allows the reader to play along. I particularly appreciated that any time I went "well, that doesn't make sense", there was a reason it didn't make sense. Trust your instincts on this one.
It wasn't so much a twist ending as a "did you catch all the clues that led us here?" I think I would have appreciated some of the personalities better if I had more familiarity with earlier adventures. Worth a read, though perhaps not worth going out of your way to find.
June 17, 2022
Great premise—weird will provisions are always interesting and this one was unique. My issues were two: why doesn’t Gamadge do more to prevent the second murder (this one he tries, but not very hard or very well, and he doesn’t seem to care when he knows the second person is in danger but he doesn’t prevent that murder)? And why would the murderer call in Gamadge in the first place? Why wouldn’t she hide the book/box in the first place, knowing that he would pick up on it? And (I guess this is all part of the second question, why would she steal the buttons?) Great setup but too much implausibility…..
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 7, 2025Just alright. Hard to get into at first. The middle was interesting, the end was too fast paced. A short book and a fast read.
The premise was interesting, especially about the body being found 20 years later. I think a lot of the plot choices by the end were unnecessary. This is one where I knew the murderer about half way through.
Doesn’t really tempt me to read any more Elizabeth Daly, but I’m sure I’ll give her another chance at some point.
The premise was interesting, especially about the body being found 20 years later. I think a lot of the plot choices by the end were unnecessary. This is one where I knew the murderer about half way through.
Doesn’t really tempt me to read any more Elizabeth Daly, but I’m sure I’ll give her another chance at some point.
August 3, 2017
A wax figurine of a dead girl playing the piano, a missing button collection, a corpse in a sealed room, a chorus girl shot dead years ago, drugs, and a family steeped in tradition. Gamadge was summoned to watch over the unsealing of a locked-up room, but found himself involved in murder. Another solid mystery.
January 24, 2022
The setting is a fine old house in Manhattan, the characters are a once wealthy family in decline, the atmosphere is grim. Daly did not romanticize her characters, unlike Agatha Christie. Rare book expert and amateur gentleman sleuth Henry Gamadge has to unravel a most shocking chain of events.
March 17, 2023
This is the best of the Henry Gamadge books so far. The set-up was interesting and unusual: a locked room in an old New York mansion, locked for 20 years while the family members wait for their share of the inheritance. I did not see the end coming at all.
July 11, 2024
An entertaining read. The older mysteries seemed to deal more with character analysis than with providing a solvable mystery. Often the clues are misleading or omitted, but the fun is experiencing the interaction among the actors in the drama.
July 6, 2025
Lovely macabre premise of a sealed up room with a wax mannequin. Now, according to a will, the room will be unsealed. Henry Gamadge, book hunter, is brought into this family to look for missing buttons, a family that likes making solanders, or boxes, out of old books, used to hide things.
October 30, 2018
Clever. I wasn't suspect the culprit. The beginning did drag a bit.
April 22, 2021
If this hadn’t been Gamage I probably wouldn’t have finished this. Too many relations, too unlikely a plot. It felt like the author was trying too hard.
November 24, 2021
Red herrings
The red herrings start at the beginning of this book and keep on coming, more so than in Daly's previous stories. Gamadge's literary skills are on display.
The red herrings start at the beginning of this book and keep on coming, more so than in Daly's previous stories. Gamadge's literary skills are on display.
June 14, 2022
I enjoyed this book. A good mystery is never dated.
March 4, 2023
Very engaging story and grand characters.
January 11, 2024
Very short, but extremely enjoyable. And the entire idea of the music room is incredibly creepy. Yikes.
August 31, 2024
4/5 stars!
My review here:
https://goldenageofdetectivefiction.c...
My review here:
https://goldenageofdetectivefiction.c...
March 3, 2025
Lovely period mystery set in New York. Twists and turns in the plot. Engaging characters.
October 13, 2009
The reclusive Clayborn family is finally dividing up the inheritance from their dead grandmother, who left her fortune tied up for years. But Harriet Clayborn Leeder has not trusted her family since they forced her to divorce her husband after he was named as a suspect in a murder case. She hires Henry Gamadge to make sure that none of the jointly owned valuables will be stolen. Instead, he discovers a body.
July 21, 2016
I read this some years ago but had totally forgotten the plot. There is a spare elegance to Daly's writing style, and I love the descriptions of life in 1940s New York. Restaurants not open on Sunday's!?
July 25, 2012
Wow, must say the set up to this story was fascinating. Very slippery mystery involving opening a sealed room before the final dispersal of a will.
October 21, 2019
Bizarre and unique premise, legitimately creepy, excellent cast of characters for a "cozy" mystery plus a detective with an unusual skillset. Kept me guessing and had a solid, enjoyable solution.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews