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The Swimming Pool
Desperately afraid, Judith Chandler barricades herself in her bedroom. Her sister, detective novelist Lois, has no patience for Judith's bizarre behavior. However, a real-life mystery unfolds when Judith disappears from her locked room without a trace.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
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684 people want to read
About the author
Mary Roberts Rinehart
553 books428 followersMysteries of the well-known American writer Mary Roberts Rinehart include
The Circular Staircase
(1908) and
The Door
(1930).
People often called this prolific author the American version of Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," though the exact phrase doesn't appear in her works, and she invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing.
Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues, and special articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers (1930), and The Bat (1959). Critics most appreciated her murder mysteries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ro...
People often called this prolific author the American version of Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," though the exact phrase doesn't appear in her works, and she invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing.
Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues, and special articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers (1930), and The Bat (1959). Critics most appreciated her murder mysteries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ro...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
March 22, 2020
A tense and moody affair. A body in the swimming pool. A heroine who knows little but steps up bravely, each and every time. An atmospheric setting. The glamorous past revisited, deconstructed, glossed over, forgotten and remembered and reevaluated, memories like yellowing photos in an album crumbling when you pull them out for a closer look. A beautiful woman, a woman defined by her beauty, a woman of much ugliness within, a woman much like her mother, trained carefully by that mother for a life of perfect shallow uselessness. An intrepid teen, smoking at the dinner table with his relatives, this was definitely a different era. A hot cop whose swim trunk-clad body causes our heroine to drool time and time again. Get a grip sis!
The writing is fine and the characterization is sharp and often subtle. The mystery was nifty. I would have liked this so much more though if (1) the author didn't constantly try to ramp up the tension with strenuously ominous foreshadowing i.e. later she was to learn how wrong she was.. she pulls that in each chapter, sometimes multiple times, ugh so irritating; and (2) every other character besides the heroine knows something super important about the mystery and just point blank refuses to tell her. Every. single. other. character. I wanted to wring the neck of every single other character - and the heroine as well, for not wringing the necks of every single other character. There's a body in the damn swimming pool, you need to get these jokers to cough up some info!
The writing is fine and the characterization is sharp and often subtle. The mystery was nifty. I would have liked this so much more though if (1) the author didn't constantly try to ramp up the tension with strenuously ominous foreshadowing i.e. later she was to learn how wrong she was.. she pulls that in each chapter, sometimes multiple times, ugh so irritating; and (2) every other character besides the heroine knows something super important about the mystery and just point blank refuses to tell her. Every. single. other. character. I wanted to wring the neck of every single other character - and the heroine as well, for not wringing the necks of every single other character. There's a body in the damn swimming pool, you need to get these jokers to cough up some info!
August 10, 2025
I grew up in a reading household. One of my dad’s favorite genres was the mystery and his bedroom was cluttered with mystery paperbacks that held absolutely no appeal for me. One of his favorite writers, at least by the proportion of books by his bed, was Mary Roberts Rinehart. I prayed I would never reach the age where I would read a book by Ms Rinehart. I also prayed that I would never be older than the Pope. So here I am. Older than the Pope and reading Mary Roberts Rinehart.
I read “The Swimming Pool” by Rinehart. In a family of a brother and three sisters Judith was born with all the looks, the glamor girl whose home all the boys flocked to in order to swim in her pool at the summer home. But then the Market crashed in 1929 and the father who lost a great deal of wealth took his life. Afterwards the family lived in more straitened conditions, sold their home in the city but retained the home with the swimming pool in the country. Judith, due to her great beauty and fashion consciousness, married well and continued a lifestyle that landed her often on the equivalent of the New York Post Page 6 in the society pages, mostly without her husband.
Nowadays Judith seems to be running for her life and hiding away from the world. Her husband pays her sister Lois, also the book’s narrator, to keep an eye on her when she takes a trip to Reno. That’s when Judith goes off the deep end, pun intended, and hides out at the country house when she returns, convinced that someone was trying to kill her. And she may be right. Someone has followed her to the house and strange things begin to happen including the drowning of a complete stranger in the pool.
This is where the book went off the deep end for me, another pun intended. It goes back to a murder in NYC after the market crash and may have included Judith and the family’s butler. I knew it! Cliche number one. A police investigator has also been on the trail of suspects in the murder in order to, wait for it, avenge the death of his partner, the oldest cliche in the mystery genre. But this book was written in 1952 and maybe these weren’t cliches at that point.
Anyway, “The Swimming Pool” threw cliche after cliche at me when it wasn’t throwing new suspects at me and people dying in the swimming pool in every chapter. As the plot thickened I got very confused. Did I mention I’m older than the Pope? So I give “The Swimming Pool” two stars, one from me and one from my dad. And since I was able to get two Mary Roberts Rinehart books for free on Audible I will read (listen) to another one even though I can’t say that the first one went very swimmingly.
I read “The Swimming Pool” by Rinehart. In a family of a brother and three sisters Judith was born with all the looks, the glamor girl whose home all the boys flocked to in order to swim in her pool at the summer home. But then the Market crashed in 1929 and the father who lost a great deal of wealth took his life. Afterwards the family lived in more straitened conditions, sold their home in the city but retained the home with the swimming pool in the country. Judith, due to her great beauty and fashion consciousness, married well and continued a lifestyle that landed her often on the equivalent of the New York Post Page 6 in the society pages, mostly without her husband.
Nowadays Judith seems to be running for her life and hiding away from the world. Her husband pays her sister Lois, also the book’s narrator, to keep an eye on her when she takes a trip to Reno. That’s when Judith goes off the deep end, pun intended, and hides out at the country house when she returns, convinced that someone was trying to kill her. And she may be right. Someone has followed her to the house and strange things begin to happen including the drowning of a complete stranger in the pool.
This is where the book went off the deep end for me, another pun intended. It goes back to a murder in NYC after the market crash and may have included Judith and the family’s butler. I knew it! Cliche number one. A police investigator has also been on the trail of suspects in the murder in order to, wait for it, avenge the death of his partner, the oldest cliche in the mystery genre. But this book was written in 1952 and maybe these weren’t cliches at that point.
Anyway, “The Swimming Pool” threw cliche after cliche at me when it wasn’t throwing new suspects at me and people dying in the swimming pool in every chapter. As the plot thickened I got very confused. Did I mention I’m older than the Pope? So I give “The Swimming Pool” two stars, one from me and one from my dad. And since I was able to get two Mary Roberts Rinehart books for free on Audible I will read (listen) to another one even though I can’t say that the first one went very swimmingly.
February 16, 2018
This was a wonderful story that was hard to put down. And I admit I cheated and read the end to find out who the killer was. It didn't spoil the story though. For I still had to find out how it was done.
July 28, 2025
How many female mystery writers owe a debt to Mary Roberts Rinehart? Starting at the turn of the 20th century, Mary Roberts Rinehart penned dozens of novels, most of which featured an intelligent, intrepid heroine who helps to solve the crime — a staple in today’s crime fiction.
In The Swimming Pool, Lois Maynard is the spinster younger sister of a gorgeous blonde who married into New York’s old money. Judith Chandler was a regular in the society pages for 20 years, staying out late, drinking and living the good life. All of a sudden, Judith becomes terrified, heads to Reno, Nev., and divorces her patrician husband, and returns to her now-down-at-heel childhood home, The Birches. She locks herself into her bedroom and is obviously terrified. What has happened? And who is the man who Judith is going to kill her?
I enjoyed this book immensely, although it was no The Yellow Room, Miss Pinkerton or The Album. Still, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: A four-star read by Mary Roberts Rinehart is better than some people’s best.
In The Swimming Pool, Lois Maynard is the spinster younger sister of a gorgeous blonde who married into New York’s old money. Judith Chandler was a regular in the society pages for 20 years, staying out late, drinking and living the good life. All of a sudden, Judith becomes terrified, heads to Reno, Nev., and divorces her patrician husband, and returns to her now-down-at-heel childhood home, The Birches. She locks herself into her bedroom and is obviously terrified. What has happened? And who is the man who Judith is going to kill her?
I enjoyed this book immensely, although it was no The Yellow Room, Miss Pinkerton or The Album. Still, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: A four-star read by Mary Roberts Rinehart is better than some people’s best.
April 29, 2020
From 1952
Rinehart was born in 1876, so she was like 75 when this came out.
A family/financial mystery going back 20 years.
I was gripped by the scene where Lois, the main character, went to the home of the dead woman in her swimming pool and had to break in to save a cat.
Rinehart was born in 1876, so she was like 75 when this came out.
A family/financial mystery going back 20 years.
I was gripped by the scene where Lois, the main character, went to the home of the dead woman in her swimming pool and had to break in to save a cat.
June 6, 2019
I was not really familiar with the works of Mary Roberts Rinehart. I thought she wrote corny melodrama type Victorian novels. Nope. This is a good, old fashioned Golden Age detective novel, quite an enjoyable one at that. It's mainly concerned with a family of grown children whose parents lost pretty much everything in the depression, and whose mother stopped at nothing to cover up a scandal involving the middle sister. Twenty years later it all comes back to haunt them and bodies start piling up near the old swimming pool.
August 27, 2019
Lois Maynard and her brother Phil live in genteel poverty at The Birches, the family estate. The estate is all that is left to them after the family fortunes took a decided dip after the crash of 1929 and their father's suicide shortly thereafter. Between Phil's job as a middling sort of lawyer and Lois's income as a writer of detective fiction, they just manage to get by. Their sister Judith, the spoiled family beauty, had escaped with a timely marriage to the rich and eligible Ridgely Chandler. She has the world at her feet and Ridgely seems content to let her do as she pleases. So...why on earth does she suddenly decide to divorce him after 20-some years of marriage?
That's what Lois wants to know when Ridge asks her to chaperone Judith on the trip to Reno. But Judith isn't talking and on top of that she seems to be deathly afraid of something or somebody...to the point of fainting on the train when she looks out over the people standing about at the station. And still she won't talk--except to say that she's decided to cash in on her share of the family homestead and come to stay at The Birches for an indefinite amount of time. Having never been close to Judith, neither Lois nor Phil think this is a spectacular idea, but they can't tell her no.
From the moment she arrives at the estate, she behaves like a woman with demons on her heels--keeping herself indoors, installing extra locks on her bedroom doors, and insisting that Phil board up the windows that look out on the roof of the porch. Soon a policeman on leave has taken up residency in the cottage they've had up for lease, there are people lurking in the bushes, people taking potshots with guns, and....there's a woman's body floating in the swimming pool. Lieutenant O'Brien is certain that Judith's troubles and the woman's death have links to murder case from the past which included the shooting death of his mentor on the force. He and Lois work along their own lines while the local police and State Troopers try to figure out who the woman is and why she was killed on the grounds of The Birches. What Lois really finds out is just how little she knows about her family and the events of the last twenty-five years.
This book is a bit of a mixed bag--mostly good with a few annoying bits thrown in. First, the good: Rinehart is doing what she does best. The Gothic undertones in the isolated mansion. The heroine/s in danger. The misunderstood family motives and mysterious strangers doing who-knows-what and for who-knows-what-reason. Unidentified terror building up suspense. Foreshadowing and flashbacks. All good fun. The annoying bits: at 334 pages, Rinehart runs on for just a bit too long--we get several rounds of somebody (Lois, Phil, the family lawyer [who is not Phil], the cops, etc.) questioning Judith about what's wrong and why she's terrified and Judith insisting that there's nothing wrong (because obviously everybody wants extra locks for no reason and windows boarded up just because...). Phil is pretty much the most clueless lawyer ever and doesn't seem to be aware of much that goes on in the house unless Lois waves it under his nose in neon lights. And Lois seems remarkably naive when it comes to the $50,000 that her mother mysteriously received at time when cash wasn't all that plentiful. But--even with those annoying bits, Rinehart spins a good tale and I found myself enjoying myself a great deal. ★★★ and a half.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
That's what Lois wants to know when Ridge asks her to chaperone Judith on the trip to Reno. But Judith isn't talking and on top of that she seems to be deathly afraid of something or somebody...to the point of fainting on the train when she looks out over the people standing about at the station. And still she won't talk--except to say that she's decided to cash in on her share of the family homestead and come to stay at The Birches for an indefinite amount of time. Having never been close to Judith, neither Lois nor Phil think this is a spectacular idea, but they can't tell her no.
From the moment she arrives at the estate, she behaves like a woman with demons on her heels--keeping herself indoors, installing extra locks on her bedroom doors, and insisting that Phil board up the windows that look out on the roof of the porch. Soon a policeman on leave has taken up residency in the cottage they've had up for lease, there are people lurking in the bushes, people taking potshots with guns, and....there's a woman's body floating in the swimming pool. Lieutenant O'Brien is certain that Judith's troubles and the woman's death have links to murder case from the past which included the shooting death of his mentor on the force. He and Lois work along their own lines while the local police and State Troopers try to figure out who the woman is and why she was killed on the grounds of The Birches. What Lois really finds out is just how little she knows about her family and the events of the last twenty-five years.
This book is a bit of a mixed bag--mostly good with a few annoying bits thrown in. First, the good: Rinehart is doing what she does best. The Gothic undertones in the isolated mansion. The heroine/s in danger. The misunderstood family motives and mysterious strangers doing who-knows-what and for who-knows-what-reason. Unidentified terror building up suspense. Foreshadowing and flashbacks. All good fun. The annoying bits: at 334 pages, Rinehart runs on for just a bit too long--we get several rounds of somebody (Lois, Phil, the family lawyer [who is not Phil], the cops, etc.) questioning Judith about what's wrong and why she's terrified and Judith insisting that there's nothing wrong (because obviously everybody wants extra locks for no reason and windows boarded up just because...). Phil is pretty much the most clueless lawyer ever and doesn't seem to be aware of much that goes on in the house unless Lois waves it under his nose in neon lights. And Lois seems remarkably naive when it comes to the $50,000 that her mother mysteriously received at time when cash wasn't all that plentiful. But--even with those annoying bits, Rinehart spins a good tale and I found myself enjoying myself a great deal. ★★★ and a half.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
July 31, 2020
While it dragged a bit in the middle, I really liked it. And I didn't figure it out until the very end.
However, the plot summary is completely wrong - this is not a locked room mystery.
However, the plot summary is completely wrong - this is not a locked room mystery.
January 16, 2025
Mary Roberts Rinehart is supposed to have invented the "had I but known" style of mystery novel; it's a very old-fashioned style and I believe comes of the time period in which she started writing. Her first book was published in 1908, and the "had I but known" is very much in line with other works from that time.
Which launches me into what I love about MRR but might make some readers crazy: her works are very conversational. Often, books that are described that way fall into slang or are trying to hard to relate to readers; not so Mary Roberts Rinehart. Her books read as though you are sitting down with a friend and she was telling you all about this crazy thing that happened to her. And just like a real person telling a story, that means there are digressions, circling back to fill in earlier gaps, and commentary on how the storyteller feels about everything. And that means lots of words.
This book uses all of those mannerisms heavily, though set in a more recent time period, which makes them sometimes feel awkward or out of place. But there are happenings a-plenty, engaging characters, and of course a romance.
Which launches me into what I love about MRR but might make some readers crazy: her works are very conversational. Often, books that are described that way fall into slang or are trying to hard to relate to readers; not so Mary Roberts Rinehart. Her books read as though you are sitting down with a friend and she was telling you all about this crazy thing that happened to her. And just like a real person telling a story, that means there are digressions, circling back to fill in earlier gaps, and commentary on how the storyteller feels about everything. And that means lots of words.
This book uses all of those mannerisms heavily, though set in a more recent time period, which makes them sometimes feel awkward or out of place. But there are happenings a-plenty, engaging characters, and of course a romance.
March 3, 2018
2018 Review
I pulled this from my shelf because I wanted something to read that wouldn't make my brain hurt and it's been a while since I've read this. Mary Roberts Rinehart is an excellent suspense/mystery/romance writer. Even though she wrote during the 1940s-1970s (my rough estimate), her books don't feel dated. The dialogue and the characters could still probably drop into modern America and be only slightly out of place. What's usually a little more jarring is the much more regimented social order of the 1940s/50s, the excessive cigarette smoking, and the overt sexism of the male-dominated culture of that time (not to be confused with our male-dominated modern culture). But the mysteries are usually pretty good, the heroines fairly intelligent and not too prone to fainting into the big strong arms of the heroes, and Rinehart is a skilled writer.
Lois Maynard lives with her older brother Phil at The Birches, the country home. It was once a grand estate run by several servants, but the 1929 market crash and two world wars have taken their toll on the Maynard family fortunes. Lois earns money as a struggling author of female-sleuth mysteries and Phil is an unsuccessful lawyer. However, they live peacefully in their genteel poverty (with only one maid and one housekeeper/cook) until Judith, their sister, comes to live with them. Judith is the beauty of the family. She married very well and has been the darling of the society pages for years. Now, for no reason, she recklessly divorces her millionaire husband and decides to stay at The Birches with her siblings for a "rest." Lois and Phil are horrified. Their peaceful, relaxed lives are thrown into chaos soon after Judith's arrival. Not only does she demand Lois's room, but rarely goes outside during the day and locks herself in at night. Aside from the internal chaos, there's a man lurking around the grounds and a woman's body is found floating in the swimming pool. When a handsome Irish police officer rents out their cottage, Lois finds herself being drawn into his search for justice for a murdered fellow office and wondering why his search is connected to her sister and her increasingly bizarre behavior.
I'm not really going to get into the novel that much because either these types of romantic suspense novels work for you or they don't. Lois is a smart, highly capable woman who doesn't immediately fall into the muscular arms of Detective Terrence O'Brien, although, as is required of these books, she does fall in love with him rather quickly. What's refreshing however is that he expresses his love for her first and there are none of "misunderstandings" or mind games that modern romances are fond of. The mystery of Judith's odd behavior and the murder of a police detective twenty years ago are connected and the investigation is very well done. Upon this rereading of the novel (my fourth reading or so), I found that information is repeated too often, that Lois learns something and then has to repeat it two or three times to different characters and that got tedious. The end was one of those "all the suspects are here and I will now tell the long story from the beginning and reveal the criminal" and seemed a bit unnecessary.
Because this book was published (initially) in 1952, you cannot hold the rather paternalistic view of the world against it. O'Brien, the detective, is rather sensible (he thinks women have brains and should use them) but there's a psychiatrist in the book that Lois consults with because he has been counseling her sister. They are discussing why Judith is being so weird and he thinks it's because she's divorced now and is out of her normal routine:
The Swimming Pool is a decent novel and it's interesting to read about a world of enforced social roles and glamor that no longer exists. Although I would probably drop it down to 3.5 stars.
Older Review
I've read this book many times and I always enjoy it. It's suspenseful, has a good mystery, and just a hint of romance. Very enjoyable.
I pulled this from my shelf because I wanted something to read that wouldn't make my brain hurt and it's been a while since I've read this. Mary Roberts Rinehart is an excellent suspense/mystery/romance writer. Even though she wrote during the 1940s-1970s (my rough estimate), her books don't feel dated. The dialogue and the characters could still probably drop into modern America and be only slightly out of place. What's usually a little more jarring is the much more regimented social order of the 1940s/50s, the excessive cigarette smoking, and the overt sexism of the male-dominated culture of that time (not to be confused with our male-dominated modern culture). But the mysteries are usually pretty good, the heroines fairly intelligent and not too prone to fainting into the big strong arms of the heroes, and Rinehart is a skilled writer.
Lois Maynard lives with her older brother Phil at The Birches, the country home. It was once a grand estate run by several servants, but the 1929 market crash and two world wars have taken their toll on the Maynard family fortunes. Lois earns money as a struggling author of female-sleuth mysteries and Phil is an unsuccessful lawyer. However, they live peacefully in their genteel poverty (with only one maid and one housekeeper/cook) until Judith, their sister, comes to live with them. Judith is the beauty of the family. She married very well and has been the darling of the society pages for years. Now, for no reason, she recklessly divorces her millionaire husband and decides to stay at The Birches with her siblings for a "rest." Lois and Phil are horrified. Their peaceful, relaxed lives are thrown into chaos soon after Judith's arrival. Not only does she demand Lois's room, but rarely goes outside during the day and locks herself in at night. Aside from the internal chaos, there's a man lurking around the grounds and a woman's body is found floating in the swimming pool. When a handsome Irish police officer rents out their cottage, Lois finds herself being drawn into his search for justice for a murdered fellow office and wondering why his search is connected to her sister and her increasingly bizarre behavior.
I'm not really going to get into the novel that much because either these types of romantic suspense novels work for you or they don't. Lois is a smart, highly capable woman who doesn't immediately fall into the muscular arms of Detective Terrence O'Brien, although, as is required of these books, she does fall in love with him rather quickly. What's refreshing however is that he expresses his love for her first and there are none of "misunderstandings" or mind games that modern romances are fond of. The mystery of Judith's odd behavior and the murder of a police detective twenty years ago are connected and the investigation is very well done. Upon this rereading of the novel (my fourth reading or so), I found that information is repeated too often, that Lois learns something and then has to repeat it two or three times to different characters and that got tedious. The end was one of those "all the suspects are here and I will now tell the long story from the beginning and reveal the criminal" and seemed a bit unnecessary.
Because this book was published (initially) in 1952, you cannot hold the rather paternalistic view of the world against it. O'Brien, the detective, is rather sensible (he thinks women have brains and should use them) but there's a psychiatrist in the book that Lois consults with because he has been counseling her sister. They are discussing why Judith is being so weird and he thinks it's because she's divorced now and is out of her normal routine:
"[Divorced women have been sheltered], at least there was someone around they could depend on, in case of burglars, for instance! Someone to keep house for, to order food for, even to dress for. If they marry again, all right. At least they are back in a familiar groove. If they do not, what have they? They haunt the movies and the beauty shops, they gamble frantically, and some of them end up in this office, out of sheer loneliness and despair." (56)Now I know this man is expressing the approved theory of women from oh, 1948, so I am not irritated but it is rather amusing? Stupifying? Whatever. But apparently women without men wander around like brainless hunks of flesh on two legs, no direction in their lives and nothing else to think about.
The Swimming Pool is a decent novel and it's interesting to read about a world of enforced social roles and glamor that no longer exists. Although I would probably drop it down to 3.5 stars.
Older Review
I've read this book many times and I always enjoy it. It's suspenseful, has a good mystery, and just a hint of romance. Very enjoyable.
May 16, 2025
Lois Maynard lives with her brother, Phil, in The Birches, once the family mansion but now rather dilapidated and rundown since the Great Crash that bankrupted her father and drove him to suicide while Lois was still a child. Now Phil is a lawyer and Lois writes detective novels, so they just about scrape by and recently even managed to renovate the long unused swimming pool. Lois has also had a little cottage in the grounds renovated and hopes to rent it out to give them some extra income. Lois’ sister Judith is rich, though. The beauty of the family and her mother’s favourite, she was brought up to find a rich husband and succeeded, marrying old money in the shape of Ridgely Chandler, who seems to have remained devoted to her despite her careless treatment of him. So Lois is surprised when Ridgely visits to tell her that Judith has announced her intention of going to Reno and getting a divorce. Ridgely doesn’t know why, and he’s worried about her, so he asks Lois to go with her. Relations have always been strained between the two sisters, but Lois agrees. She soon realises that Judith is scared of someone or something, but she won’t admit it. When they get back from Reno she asks if she can come live at The Birches for a while, and reluctantly Lois agrees. It’s not long after that the body of an unknown woman is found floating in the swimming pool…
This is only the second Rinehart I’ve read, and the two books could hardly be more different. The Circular Staircase, first published in 1908, was full of humour and melodrama, with a cliffhanger ending to nearly ever chapter forcing the reader to keep those pages turning. This one, from 1952, is slower, more serious, veering towards noir, and with a kind of world-weariness in Lois’ narration which I loved. Rinehart was still using her trademark ‘had I but known’ technique, but in the later book it too is toned down and rather more subtly done.
A man called O’Brien rents the cottage and we soon learn that he’s a police lieutenant, currently on leave to recover from his experiences in the war. Or so he says. Lois is desperately in need of some emotional support, what with the stress of Judith locking herself in her bedroom and refusing to say why, while the police are convinced that one of the family must have murdered the woman in the pool. So it seems quite natural when she turns to O’Brien and he seems happy enough to do a bit of investigating on her behalf. But maybe that’s putting the cart before the horse – maybe it’s because he knows more than he’s saying that has brought him to The Birches in the first place. Maybe he’s getting Lois mixed up in his affairs rather than the other way round…
The book is too long for its content and repeats itself frequently. It’s one of those situations where if only everyone had been willing to tell what they knew or what they feared, it could all have been sorted out quickly and probably with fewer bodies. The first person narration means we’re inside Lois’ head for the duration, so we only know what she knows and it seemed to me often that she was a bit naive and not picking up on stuff that should have been fairly obvious to her. I also wanted her to be a bit more forceful about demanding to know who or what Judith was hiding from, but then that would have destroyed the mystery. And I got very tired of various women fainting every time anything happened!
Despite all that, I enjoyed it very much. Lois got all my sympathy – Phil is a bit useless and leaves everything to her, so she’s had all the strain of trying to hold The Birches together with very little money, and now she has the added problem of her neurotic and spoiled sister to contend with. She’s not exactly envious of Judith, but she does bear emotional baggage from her mother’s clear favouritism of her elder sister, and now Judith is throwing away what seems to be a perfectly acceptable marriage while Lois hasn’t even got a husband. It wouldn’t be natural if Judith’s charmed and pampered existence hadn’t left Lois feeling a little resentful. I thought Rinehart did a great job with her voice – tired and a little depressed, perhaps, but not whiny. She’s a strong and capable woman, but just occasionally she wishes she didn’t always have to be. The audiobook narrator, Laurel Lefkow, does a brilliant job of getting that tone just right and that keeps it compelling even through the repetitive parts.
The mystery is interesting, and quite dark. I didn’t feel it was really a whodunit, as such – too much of it is hidden until we’re told it, so it wouldn’t be easy for the reader to solve. But there are some clues to spot along the way, and anyway the slow reveal of all the mysteries works well, even if it takes too long. I didn’t find it as much romping fun as The Circular Staircase, but I actually think it might be a better book. Whatever, I enjoyed it a lot and am keen to read more – maybe I’ll pick one from the middle of her career next time.
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This is only the second Rinehart I’ve read, and the two books could hardly be more different. The Circular Staircase, first published in 1908, was full of humour and melodrama, with a cliffhanger ending to nearly ever chapter forcing the reader to keep those pages turning. This one, from 1952, is slower, more serious, veering towards noir, and with a kind of world-weariness in Lois’ narration which I loved. Rinehart was still using her trademark ‘had I but known’ technique, but in the later book it too is toned down and rather more subtly done.
A man called O’Brien rents the cottage and we soon learn that he’s a police lieutenant, currently on leave to recover from his experiences in the war. Or so he says. Lois is desperately in need of some emotional support, what with the stress of Judith locking herself in her bedroom and refusing to say why, while the police are convinced that one of the family must have murdered the woman in the pool. So it seems quite natural when she turns to O’Brien and he seems happy enough to do a bit of investigating on her behalf. But maybe that’s putting the cart before the horse – maybe it’s because he knows more than he’s saying that has brought him to The Birches in the first place. Maybe he’s getting Lois mixed up in his affairs rather than the other way round…
The book is too long for its content and repeats itself frequently. It’s one of those situations where if only everyone had been willing to tell what they knew or what they feared, it could all have been sorted out quickly and probably with fewer bodies. The first person narration means we’re inside Lois’ head for the duration, so we only know what she knows and it seemed to me often that she was a bit naive and not picking up on stuff that should have been fairly obvious to her. I also wanted her to be a bit more forceful about demanding to know who or what Judith was hiding from, but then that would have destroyed the mystery. And I got very tired of various women fainting every time anything happened!
Despite all that, I enjoyed it very much. Lois got all my sympathy – Phil is a bit useless and leaves everything to her, so she’s had all the strain of trying to hold The Birches together with very little money, and now she has the added problem of her neurotic and spoiled sister to contend with. She’s not exactly envious of Judith, but she does bear emotional baggage from her mother’s clear favouritism of her elder sister, and now Judith is throwing away what seems to be a perfectly acceptable marriage while Lois hasn’t even got a husband. It wouldn’t be natural if Judith’s charmed and pampered existence hadn’t left Lois feeling a little resentful. I thought Rinehart did a great job with her voice – tired and a little depressed, perhaps, but not whiny. She’s a strong and capable woman, but just occasionally she wishes she didn’t always have to be. The audiobook narrator, Laurel Lefkow, does a brilliant job of getting that tone just right and that keeps it compelling even through the repetitive parts.
The mystery is interesting, and quite dark. I didn’t feel it was really a whodunit, as such – too much of it is hidden until we’re told it, so it wouldn’t be easy for the reader to solve. But there are some clues to spot along the way, and anyway the slow reveal of all the mysteries works well, even if it takes too long. I didn’t find it as much romping fun as The Circular Staircase, but I actually think it might be a better book. Whatever, I enjoyed it a lot and am keen to read more – maybe I’ll pick one from the middle of her career next time.
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March 23, 2022
Now that I get Rinehart, I’m pretty sure I want to read all of these. Nearest I can compare to her is Barbara Vine (when Ruth Rendell set out to outdo Agatha Christie, did her Barbara Vine books intend to outdo MRR?), but somehow they are like Vine’s moody modern gothic mixed with Nancy Drew. I love the murky mystery and creepy atmospheres, but am not so fond of the repetitions, Had-I-But-Knowns, and spirited girl/stronger guy romance.
What turns Rinehart to the positive for me is the straightforwardness. Not just the absence of Latin phrases and untranslated French, but the real faded-genteel world in which the mysteries happen—full of chickens, cranky cab drivers, old houses in bad need of repair, and servants no longer differentiated much from the Family. My favorite scene inthis one is when Lois gets hit on the head by a newell post. She doesn’t swoon—she gets knocked silly and then has to run and throw up. Never read that in any classic English mystery.
What turns Rinehart to the positive for me is the straightforwardness. Not just the absence of Latin phrases and untranslated French, but the real faded-genteel world in which the mysteries happen—full of chickens, cranky cab drivers, old houses in bad need of repair, and servants no longer differentiated much from the Family. My favorite scene inthis one is when Lois gets hit on the head by a newell post. She doesn’t swoon—she gets knocked silly and then has to run and throw up. Never read that in any classic English mystery.
June 9, 2011
I'm wondering if you guys are getting sick of all the Mary Roberts Rinehart reviews lately. Especially since they are all so close together and all I do is rave about them. As of right now there is only one more after this one, so I promise to make this one short and sweet. I wish I could tell you that this review was going to be different, but it won't be. Actually this book so out performed the previous three books, I'm not sure what I can say about it.
First of all, the story was quite a bit longer than the others, being 330 pages. That meant that Rinehart was able to flesh out the characters and the plot lines in ways I had not seen her do before. Judith is a spoiled little rich girl who at a young age was basically sold off to an older man. Her older sister Ann had already married, her brother Phil was getting ready to start college, and Lois her youngest sister was still young enough to not fully realise what was going on. Their father had just committed suicide after the stock market crash and their mother, comfortable in the life she had, needed the money.
Judith was the darling of her mother's eye and that of everyone else. So years later when Judith comes back home to The Birches, the families Summer home in the country when times were good and now Lois and Phil's only home, and tells Lois that she is divorcing her husband and going abroad, Lois is at her wits end. She accompanies Judith to Reno to get the divorce and on the way back, things start to get scary. She faints, as in fear, as she is boarding the train. Lois is convinced she saw someone there, but has no clue who it was.
Back at The Birches, things slowly descend into chaos as Judith shuts herself up in her room. When the body of woman is found in the swimming pool, Judith and the entire situation gets worse. With the help of a policeman staying on the property, Lois is determined to find out why her sister is so scared and who killed the woman in the pool.
What Lois find outs will change her outlook and the way she feels about her family. She will discover not only why Judith married her husband, but why Judith and her mother took a surprise vacation out of town right before it. She will discover how a murder that happened when she was just a girl, ties into the events going on now. This is a story of revenge gone wrong and fear so overwhelming that is clouds all judgement. It's a wonderfully complicated, twisting story that kept me entranced the entire time.
Rinehart created such a complex series of events that occurred over such a long span of time that I never found myself bored, though I do now understand why she is credited with creating the "Had I But Know" plot device. This, and the next book I will review, both star female protagonists that are given the all the information they need to know to solve the crime. They never understand the significance of it at the time and almost always make decisions that prolong the outcome coming out. Since the books are told from their viewpoints after the fact, they oftentimes mention that if they had but know what the meaning was or how things happened, the situation may have turned out differently. Thankfully, they didn't know then what they know now. Otherwise the story wouldn't be as entertaining and thrilling.
First of all, the story was quite a bit longer than the others, being 330 pages. That meant that Rinehart was able to flesh out the characters and the plot lines in ways I had not seen her do before. Judith is a spoiled little rich girl who at a young age was basically sold off to an older man. Her older sister Ann had already married, her brother Phil was getting ready to start college, and Lois her youngest sister was still young enough to not fully realise what was going on. Their father had just committed suicide after the stock market crash and their mother, comfortable in the life she had, needed the money.
Judith was the darling of her mother's eye and that of everyone else. So years later when Judith comes back home to The Birches, the families Summer home in the country when times were good and now Lois and Phil's only home, and tells Lois that she is divorcing her husband and going abroad, Lois is at her wits end. She accompanies Judith to Reno to get the divorce and on the way back, things start to get scary. She faints, as in fear, as she is boarding the train. Lois is convinced she saw someone there, but has no clue who it was.
Back at The Birches, things slowly descend into chaos as Judith shuts herself up in her room. When the body of woman is found in the swimming pool, Judith and the entire situation gets worse. With the help of a policeman staying on the property, Lois is determined to find out why her sister is so scared and who killed the woman in the pool.
What Lois find outs will change her outlook and the way she feels about her family. She will discover not only why Judith married her husband, but why Judith and her mother took a surprise vacation out of town right before it. She will discover how a murder that happened when she was just a girl, ties into the events going on now. This is a story of revenge gone wrong and fear so overwhelming that is clouds all judgement. It's a wonderfully complicated, twisting story that kept me entranced the entire time.
Rinehart created such a complex series of events that occurred over such a long span of time that I never found myself bored, though I do now understand why she is credited with creating the "Had I But Know" plot device. This, and the next book I will review, both star female protagonists that are given the all the information they need to know to solve the crime. They never understand the significance of it at the time and almost always make decisions that prolong the outcome coming out. Since the books are told from their viewpoints after the fact, they oftentimes mention that if they had but know what the meaning was or how things happened, the situation may have turned out differently. Thankfully, they didn't know then what they know now. Otherwise the story wouldn't be as entertaining and thrilling.
April 2, 2017
Oh, I liked this. Mary Roberts Rinehart should still be every bit as popular as she once was, as popular as Agatha Christie and the rest of the Golden Agers. She knew what she was about. And her writing was a joy.
After all, the human individual universally has two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a chin. It is the assemblage of these features that counts, and believe me Jude's counted.
The Swimming Pool is a twisty, tricky mystery centered around Lois, the first-person narrator, and her family. She's a mystery writer …
"Don't tell me," he said. "I know. The guy is a private eye. He keeps a fifth of Scotch in a drawer of his desk, he's blackjacked and goes about his business instead of being taken to a hospital where he belongs, and he solves the crime when the cops are running in circles."
In spite of myself, I had to laugh.
"Not quite," I said. "My detective is a woman."
He looked really disgusted then…
… And she lives with her brother in what once was (before the crash) her formerly-well-off family's summer home in the country; their sister Judith has years ago married very well and gone off to take her particular brand of spoiled beauty to the social columns.
Except that epoch of Judith's life is coming to an end: she one day tells her patrician husband she's going to Reno to get a divorce, and said husband asks Lois to accompany her – which, reluctantly, she does. And on this trip something happens to push Judith over the edge from brittle but confident to the point of arrogance … to terrified.
I liked these folks. They're characters who are so well conceived and presented that they give every illusion that they were going about their business every day before the book, continued to do so during the book without deigning to take notice of the observer, and will certainly continue with their lives after the nosy reader has gone away.
After all, the human individual universally has two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a chin. It is the assemblage of these features that counts, and believe me Jude's counted.
The Swimming Pool is a twisty, tricky mystery centered around Lois, the first-person narrator, and her family. She's a mystery writer …
"Don't tell me," he said. "I know. The guy is a private eye. He keeps a fifth of Scotch in a drawer of his desk, he's blackjacked and goes about his business instead of being taken to a hospital where he belongs, and he solves the crime when the cops are running in circles."
In spite of myself, I had to laugh.
"Not quite," I said. "My detective is a woman."
He looked really disgusted then…
… And she lives with her brother in what once was (before the crash) her formerly-well-off family's summer home in the country; their sister Judith has years ago married very well and gone off to take her particular brand of spoiled beauty to the social columns.
Except that epoch of Judith's life is coming to an end: she one day tells her patrician husband she's going to Reno to get a divorce, and said husband asks Lois to accompany her – which, reluctantly, she does. And on this trip something happens to push Judith over the edge from brittle but confident to the point of arrogance … to terrified.
I liked these folks. They're characters who are so well conceived and presented that they give every illusion that they were going about their business every day before the book, continued to do so during the book without deigning to take notice of the observer, and will certainly continue with their lives after the nosy reader has gone away.
September 15, 2019
Well-written mystery. I did manage to get an idea who the killer was close to the end. But very good. Lois Maynard lives in the old estate with her brother Phil. He commutes to town to work- she writes mystery novels. They have a sister Anne who is married. Another sister, Judith, is married to a very wealthy man and does eactly what she pleases. The others think their mother spoiled her and now her husband spoils her. Judith was the beauty of the family and all their mother's time and effort were invested in her. Suddenly Judith decides she wants a divorce from her husband and gets one, with a nice alimony. On the train leaving Reno she sees something or someone that frightens her - in fact, she is terrorized. Judith intends to go abroad, but instead returns to The Birches, the old family estate and terrible things begin to happen. A woman is found drowned in their swimming pool and various attacks are made on people, including Lois and O'Brien to whom Lois has let the caretaker's cottage. And, in trying to figure things out, Lois learns some dreadful things about their past and why their father shot himself after the stockmarket crash. She also figures out things aren't as simple as they seem and their mother was obsessed with wealth and position.
January 22, 2020
"The Swimming Pool"is a novel written by Mary Roberts Rinehart and published in 1952. Rinehart was an American writer, she was often called the American Agatha Christie, even though her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1922. Although Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and articles, she is most known for her murder mysteries. There is no way I can't share this story; Rinehart maintained a vacation home in Bar Harbor, Maine, where in 1947 she was involved in a real-life almost murder mystery. Her Filipino chef, who had worked for her for 25 years, fired a gun at her and then attempted to slash her with knives, until other servants rescued her. The chef committed suicide in his cell the next day. Why in the world did he do that? Another mystery. I also think it is interesting that the phrase "The butler did it", which has become a cliché, came from Rinehart's novel"The Door", although that exact phrase does not appear in the work and I'm not telling you whether or not the butler really did do it, you'll have to read the book. But on to this book, "The Swimming Pool".
I'm not sure how to say what I didn't like about the book without giving away the mystery, but I'll give it a try. The story is very interesting, I was never bored, I was just frustrated. I love mysteries, but I love mysteries that I can figure out, or at least try to figure out the mystery. There simply weren't enough clues for me. The story begins with our narrator telling us about the swimming pool, this is the first line:
"One day last fall I ordered the swimming pool destroyed."
Our first person narrator is Lois Maynard. She is the youngest of four siblings, the oldest is Anne, then Phil, Judith and finally Lois, ten years younger than Judith. She tells us that they are leaving their family home "The Birches" where they have lived for many years, their asylum after the panic of '29. Lois and her brother Phil live there with two servants, Helga and Jennie. Anne is married to Martin Harrison an "unsuccessful architect" and Judith is married to much older and more important, much wealtier Ridge Chandler. Judith is beautiful and rich and famous, although I'm not sure what she is famous for, unless you are famous just for being beautiful and marrying someone rich. Lois tells us that as children, Judith was always popular, boys "gathered around Judith like flies" and their mother doted on her and could refuse her nothing. Everything seemed to be going along fine in their lives until the stock market crash of 1929, then they lost everything and their father shot himself in his office one night after one last dinner party. They had to sell their house in the city and their furniture and jewels and move to "The Birches" permanently. One of the things that puzzled me from the beginning, well from page 8 anyway was this:
"I know now it was Judith who wanted the pool, Judith to whom mother could refuse nothing. According to Anne, father objected."
So Judith gets her pool. Lois tells us that Judith either always got what she wanted or would sulk until she did. Just below this Lois tells us how Judith one day cut her long hair short and her mother was upset with her, then comes this:
"It suited her, however. It grew out into small blond curls all over her head, and she hated wetting it. Then, too, she swam badly. She could ride well. She could play the piano magnificently, but she hated the water. She was always afraid of the water. Perhaps that excuses her for what happened years later."
Now, if Judith was afraid of water and hated water, why in the world did she want a swimming pool? I'm still puzzling over that. Perhaps to give characters in the book something to throw things into, bodies or otherwise, it certainly happens often enough. However moving on, by the time of our story all the Maynard's are grown and Phil and Lois are still at the Birches which Anne calls "a shabby old ruin". Phil is a lawyer, and as Lois says "not a successful one" and Lois is writer of crime novels, also not all that successfully from what I gathered. At the beginning of our novel Judith decides to divorce her husband after twenty years of marriage, going to Reno for the divorce and taking Lois with her. I suppose the second mystery to me, after the why did she want a pool one, was why was she divorcing her husband? We are told she didn't love him, but she didn't love him twenty years ago either, so she certainly took her time leaving him. Now on the return train trip from Reno something "scares" her and she faints, then arriving at the Birches she locks herself in her bedroom never to emerge again. Well, almost never. She spends most of the book either locked in the room or running upstairs to lock herself in the room. She will tell no one what she is afraid of, she spends the entire book telling us that she won't tell us what she's afraid of. The only person in the book that seems to know what she is afraid of is the ex-cop who lives next door and he won't tell us either. I know by now she is afraid of taxi cabs which makes little sense to me because if what she is afraid of is a certain taxi-cab driver he certainly can't be in every city everywhere, so I personally wouldn't expect him to show up everywhere in every taxi.
Then there is the girl found dead in the swimming pool. She looks like Judith so almost everyone in the book assumes that whoever killed her thought she was Judith, including Judith. It would have been helpful to the police and me if she would have now told us why she thought someone would try to kill her, but no such luck. No one else bothered to share their thoughts on it either. The only two people who didn't seem to think that someone was trying to kill Judith was me and the detective, we thought Judith possibly killed the swimming pool lady, and I had no reason to think that, it was just a random guess. Oh, this made me smile:
"How's the book coming?"
"Book?" I said bitterly, "You don't write books in a lunatic asylum."
"She's not crazy Lois".
"Then I'm about to be."
This too I found amusing, Judith is sure they were trying to kill her, so she locks herself in the bathroom and slits her wrists:
"So she tries to hill herself!" he said. "That's jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire with a vengeance. I've been in this business a long time, Miss Maynard. I've seen a lot of death and some suicides. But I never heard of killing yourself to avoid being killed."
If only someone would have acted slightly suspicious I would have been having much more fun. If only taxi-cabs kept driving past the house, only in the middle of the night when it is raining of course. The servants spent all their time serving food and cooking food, if only they would have been sneaking in the house at midnight or down into the cellar at 3 a.m. Perhaps the therapist who seemed to be absolutely no help to Judith or anyone else would have smiled with a strange look on his face whenever her name was mentioned or stared at a mysterious statue on his desk, but no nothing. By the time anyone decided it may be a little bit helpful to share some of the clues they had with someone else so we could start piecing the whole thing together, I didn't care that much anymore. But that doesn't mean you won't enjoy it, so go ahead and read the book. Let me know why Judith insisted on having a pool in the first place.
I'm not sure how to say what I didn't like about the book without giving away the mystery, but I'll give it a try. The story is very interesting, I was never bored, I was just frustrated. I love mysteries, but I love mysteries that I can figure out, or at least try to figure out the mystery. There simply weren't enough clues for me. The story begins with our narrator telling us about the swimming pool, this is the first line:
"One day last fall I ordered the swimming pool destroyed."
Our first person narrator is Lois Maynard. She is the youngest of four siblings, the oldest is Anne, then Phil, Judith and finally Lois, ten years younger than Judith. She tells us that they are leaving their family home "The Birches" where they have lived for many years, their asylum after the panic of '29. Lois and her brother Phil live there with two servants, Helga and Jennie. Anne is married to Martin Harrison an "unsuccessful architect" and Judith is married to much older and more important, much wealtier Ridge Chandler. Judith is beautiful and rich and famous, although I'm not sure what she is famous for, unless you are famous just for being beautiful and marrying someone rich. Lois tells us that as children, Judith was always popular, boys "gathered around Judith like flies" and their mother doted on her and could refuse her nothing. Everything seemed to be going along fine in their lives until the stock market crash of 1929, then they lost everything and their father shot himself in his office one night after one last dinner party. They had to sell their house in the city and their furniture and jewels and move to "The Birches" permanently. One of the things that puzzled me from the beginning, well from page 8 anyway was this:
"I know now it was Judith who wanted the pool, Judith to whom mother could refuse nothing. According to Anne, father objected."
So Judith gets her pool. Lois tells us that Judith either always got what she wanted or would sulk until she did. Just below this Lois tells us how Judith one day cut her long hair short and her mother was upset with her, then comes this:
"It suited her, however. It grew out into small blond curls all over her head, and she hated wetting it. Then, too, she swam badly. She could ride well. She could play the piano magnificently, but she hated the water. She was always afraid of the water. Perhaps that excuses her for what happened years later."
Now, if Judith was afraid of water and hated water, why in the world did she want a swimming pool? I'm still puzzling over that. Perhaps to give characters in the book something to throw things into, bodies or otherwise, it certainly happens often enough. However moving on, by the time of our story all the Maynard's are grown and Phil and Lois are still at the Birches which Anne calls "a shabby old ruin". Phil is a lawyer, and as Lois says "not a successful one" and Lois is writer of crime novels, also not all that successfully from what I gathered. At the beginning of our novel Judith decides to divorce her husband after twenty years of marriage, going to Reno for the divorce and taking Lois with her. I suppose the second mystery to me, after the why did she want a pool one, was why was she divorcing her husband? We are told she didn't love him, but she didn't love him twenty years ago either, so she certainly took her time leaving him. Now on the return train trip from Reno something "scares" her and she faints, then arriving at the Birches she locks herself in her bedroom never to emerge again. Well, almost never. She spends most of the book either locked in the room or running upstairs to lock herself in the room. She will tell no one what she is afraid of, she spends the entire book telling us that she won't tell us what she's afraid of. The only person in the book that seems to know what she is afraid of is the ex-cop who lives next door and he won't tell us either. I know by now she is afraid of taxi cabs which makes little sense to me because if what she is afraid of is a certain taxi-cab driver he certainly can't be in every city everywhere, so I personally wouldn't expect him to show up everywhere in every taxi.
Then there is the girl found dead in the swimming pool. She looks like Judith so almost everyone in the book assumes that whoever killed her thought she was Judith, including Judith. It would have been helpful to the police and me if she would have now told us why she thought someone would try to kill her, but no such luck. No one else bothered to share their thoughts on it either. The only two people who didn't seem to think that someone was trying to kill Judith was me and the detective, we thought Judith possibly killed the swimming pool lady, and I had no reason to think that, it was just a random guess. Oh, this made me smile:
"How's the book coming?"
"Book?" I said bitterly, "You don't write books in a lunatic asylum."
"She's not crazy Lois".
"Then I'm about to be."
This too I found amusing, Judith is sure they were trying to kill her, so she locks herself in the bathroom and slits her wrists:
"So she tries to hill herself!" he said. "That's jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire with a vengeance. I've been in this business a long time, Miss Maynard. I've seen a lot of death and some suicides. But I never heard of killing yourself to avoid being killed."
If only someone would have acted slightly suspicious I would have been having much more fun. If only taxi-cabs kept driving past the house, only in the middle of the night when it is raining of course. The servants spent all their time serving food and cooking food, if only they would have been sneaking in the house at midnight or down into the cellar at 3 a.m. Perhaps the therapist who seemed to be absolutely no help to Judith or anyone else would have smiled with a strange look on his face whenever her name was mentioned or stared at a mysterious statue on his desk, but no nothing. By the time anyone decided it may be a little bit helpful to share some of the clues they had with someone else so we could start piecing the whole thing together, I didn't care that much anymore. But that doesn't mean you won't enjoy it, so go ahead and read the book. Let me know why Judith insisted on having a pool in the first place.
June 12, 2020
How can you possibly dislike the woman that came up with the idea of the butler doing it? Often called the American Christie, which is strange considering she predates Agatha. A lot of Roberts-Rinehart's books are sort of hit or miss depending on whether she was writing a mystery or a melodrama. This is one of the good ones. It is a bit dated, but there are so many elements that I love in a mystery within this book that I gave it 4 stars. It has the wonderful old estate setting, the fallen on hard times family, and the feisty heroine giving it her all. If you do not like old mysteries, then it definitely is not the book for you. It also takes a bit too long to get to the point. A good 100 pages just danced around the same issues over and over again, but I love a good golden age mystery. Plus I am trying to not read books with the word girl in the title, so it fit the bill for a fun summer read.
April 26, 2022
A classy, old-fashioned mystery. Slow paced with intriguing characters, which include a chicken named Henrietta. Mary Roberts Rinehart bas been described as the American Agatha Christie, which is spot on. A shame she has fallen into obscurity. I am already reading my next one!
February 27, 2024
I don't know why I loved this book so much, but I couldn't put it down. It was often repetitive, yet I couldn't stop reading.
It felt very different from other Rinehart books I'd read, and it gave "Woman in White" meets "Rebecca" vibes.
It felt very different from other Rinehart books I'd read, and it gave "Woman in White" meets "Rebecca" vibes.
March 6, 2021
Rinehart's books are usually hit or miss for me, but this one was definitely a hit. I was in need of a cozy-mystery, and I must say, I didn't have a clue who the murderer was.
September 1, 2021
Plays in your head like a classic movie while reading! Fairly predictable if you're a mystery fan but lots of clues and details to make it interesting. Good classic "chemistry" between the main characters. A bit dated compared to more modern views of societal norms. A good read all-in-all!
March 22, 2012
My mom read this book in a day! My father brought it to her in the hospital when she gave birth to my brother in 1952. So, I wanted to read it for sentimental reasons.
I, did, however, really enjoy it. It takes place after the stock crash in the 1920's and the family that the book is written about was very much affected by it. It was interesting to hear about this time in history.
My mom loves murder mysteries, so I can see why she liked this one! :) Lots of those included, but all-in-all an upbeat mystery. I didn't even feel that bad for the deceased. Almost as if they were willing to die to add to the story!
I, did, however, really enjoy it. It takes place after the stock crash in the 1920's and the family that the book is written about was very much affected by it. It was interesting to hear about this time in history.
My mom loves murder mysteries, so I can see why she liked this one! :) Lots of those included, but all-in-all an upbeat mystery. I didn't even feel that bad for the deceased. Almost as if they were willing to die to add to the story!
May 10, 2023
Had I but known our latter chapters would be repeating that same sordid tale of the past to every member of my household individually, I would have skipped straight to the gather-the-suspects scene. But that was the summer I fell for the hot cop. If only he had filled me in on the story before sending me to gather clues for him. If only I had known, I should have poured myself another highball.
April 27, 2018
Good read
I like stories set in NYC in this time period. Good whodunit but not entirely believable. Who strolls around at night when there's a killer on the loose?
I like stories set in NYC in this time period. Good whodunit but not entirely believable. Who strolls around at night when there's a killer on the loose?
October 28, 2023
Here I'm going to repeat some of my review of "The Great Mistake" by the same author, but only some!
Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote mystery novels and other forms of fiction and non-fiction, between 1908 and the mid 1950s. I'm not sure how I discovered her, possibly through my mother? I got my hands on Rinehart's novel "The Album" when I was a teenager, and fell for it with every fiber of my Agatha Christie-obsessed nerdy little heart. The Album opens with an ax murder that happens in broad daylight in a home on a street mostly inhabited by families who still live as if it's 1897, though in the book it's more like the 1920s. I love The Album so much!
There are very few modern books that can get away with this, but in Rinehart I adore it for some reason, and that's the "had I but known" style! "If I had only known what was to happen next." "The next day revealed my mistake." "That night was the last time I would...." It's so dumb, but in Rinehart, I lap it up and love it!
In The Swimming Pool, Lois is the first person narrator. Her family lost all their wealth in 1929, and her father shot himself soon after. Lois's mother "sold" her middle daughter, Judith, in marriage to a guy called Chandler because he had lots of money. Judith has since been a society fixture with the house, clothes, parties, and society page photos. In the book, it's now 20 years later. Lois and her brother Phil still live in genteel poverty at the family home, The Birches, which is beginning to show its age. They have only two servants (horrors)! Phil is a hard working lawyer and Lois makes some money by being a crime novelist. (Love that self-referential stuff from Rinehart!) Then Judith shows up, determined to divorce Chandler, and disrupts quiet life at The Birches. On returning from her Reno divorce trip, she locks herself in her room and appears to be in fear for her life. Not long after, a woman who looks a lot like Judith shows up dead in the swimming pool. Things proceed from there.
The best fun is the relationship between Lois and the semi-retired cop who conveniently decides to rent a cottage on The Birches' property - him and his muscles and his swimming trunks closely observed by Lois, and his chicken named Henrietta! There's also 19-year-old nephew Bill who comes to stay, lending a young man's sense of adventure and invincibility to the proceedings.
Very much a classic mystery, that I can easily see as a 1940s movie starring Teresa Wright, Anne Baxter, and - hm - maybe Burt Lancaster?
Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote mystery novels and other forms of fiction and non-fiction, between 1908 and the mid 1950s. I'm not sure how I discovered her, possibly through my mother? I got my hands on Rinehart's novel "The Album" when I was a teenager, and fell for it with every fiber of my Agatha Christie-obsessed nerdy little heart. The Album opens with an ax murder that happens in broad daylight in a home on a street mostly inhabited by families who still live as if it's 1897, though in the book it's more like the 1920s. I love The Album so much!
There are very few modern books that can get away with this, but in Rinehart I adore it for some reason, and that's the "had I but known" style! "If I had only known what was to happen next." "The next day revealed my mistake." "That night was the last time I would...." It's so dumb, but in Rinehart, I lap it up and love it!
In The Swimming Pool, Lois is the first person narrator. Her family lost all their wealth in 1929, and her father shot himself soon after. Lois's mother "sold" her middle daughter, Judith, in marriage to a guy called Chandler because he had lots of money. Judith has since been a society fixture with the house, clothes, parties, and society page photos. In the book, it's now 20 years later. Lois and her brother Phil still live in genteel poverty at the family home, The Birches, which is beginning to show its age. They have only two servants (horrors)! Phil is a hard working lawyer and Lois makes some money by being a crime novelist. (Love that self-referential stuff from Rinehart!) Then Judith shows up, determined to divorce Chandler, and disrupts quiet life at The Birches. On returning from her Reno divorce trip, she locks herself in her room and appears to be in fear for her life. Not long after, a woman who looks a lot like Judith shows up dead in the swimming pool. Things proceed from there.
The best fun is the relationship between Lois and the semi-retired cop who conveniently decides to rent a cottage on The Birches' property - him and his muscles and his swimming trunks closely observed by Lois, and his chicken named Henrietta! There's also 19-year-old nephew Bill who comes to stay, lending a young man's sense of adventure and invincibility to the proceedings.
Very much a classic mystery, that I can easily see as a 1940s movie starring Teresa Wright, Anne Baxter, and - hm - maybe Burt Lancaster?
September 7, 2020
Mary Roberts Rinehart is famous for being the source of the phrase The Butler did it" and also for inventing the "Had-I-but-Known" school of mystery writing. As other reviewers have mentioned, she dips into that well too much for this book. Almost every chapter has an "I should have known" or "as it turned out" which didn't add to the suspense. In fact, it happened so often you couldn't tell what she had referred to by the actual events were unfolding.
I had already known about the author, having read some of her short stories in anthologies, so I was eager to read this when it came to my attention thanks to BookBub. After the first third of the book I was wondering what the fuss was about. Nothing happens for quite some time, and even as things heat up and become more exciting, there is still too much exposition. Lois spends too much time explaining what has happened to other family members, speculating on events, or questioning her own motives.
So pacing was bad, and I attribute that to the time period in which, and for which, it was written. But with the exception of Lois and O'Brien, everyone is pretty dreadful. ALL the characters keep holding back details, which helps keep everyone in the dark and probably allowed a few people to die who wouldn't have if they all acted like real people. Judith was the most infuriating and in a real world scenario, would have been browbeaten by family members until she gave up what she knew.
Don't get me wrong, there's lots to like, it's just spread too thinly over the course of the book, so I'm giving this a low rating because I really had to slog through (but I really wanted to know the ending, so Rinehart was at least doing something right.
I also learned after buying this, that it was the last mystery the author wrote. Perhaps I should have started with an earlier work.
I had already known about the author, having read some of her short stories in anthologies, so I was eager to read this when it came to my attention thanks to BookBub. After the first third of the book I was wondering what the fuss was about. Nothing happens for quite some time, and even as things heat up and become more exciting, there is still too much exposition. Lois spends too much time explaining what has happened to other family members, speculating on events, or questioning her own motives.
So pacing was bad, and I attribute that to the time period in which, and for which, it was written. But with the exception of Lois and O'Brien, everyone is pretty dreadful. ALL the characters keep holding back details, which helps keep everyone in the dark and probably allowed a few people to die who wouldn't have if they all acted like real people. Judith was the most infuriating and in a real world scenario, would have been browbeaten by family members until she gave up what she knew.
Don't get me wrong, there's lots to like, it's just spread too thinly over the course of the book, so I'm giving this a low rating because I really had to slog through (but I really wanted to know the ending, so Rinehart was at least doing something right.
I also learned after buying this, that it was the last mystery the author wrote. Perhaps I should have started with an earlier work.
January 3, 2024
If I had but known...
The narrator, apparently a professional mystery writer, seems very repetitive, not necessarily with elements of the plot, but just with people's minor actions and inconsequential details.
People are frequently attacked, shots are fired here and there, but no one feels the need to report such "everyday occurrences" to the police or even to each other ("Oh, I forgot to mention the murder earlier..."). The whole lot should have been sent "to the pen" (using the book's vernacular) for withholding evidence.
A lot of characters are stunned and astonished but don't really show it to any extent.
They sure drink a lot of highballs. A whiskey and soda here and there. Maybe all the alcohol has dulled their senses somewhat.
This story should have been about a third of its actual length. Maybe less than three stars.
The narrator, apparently a professional mystery writer, seems very repetitive, not necessarily with elements of the plot, but just with people's minor actions and inconsequential details.
People are frequently attacked, shots are fired here and there, but no one feels the need to report such "everyday occurrences" to the police or even to each other ("Oh, I forgot to mention the murder earlier..."). The whole lot should have been sent "to the pen" (using the book's vernacular) for withholding evidence.
A lot of characters are stunned and astonished but don't really show it to any extent.
They sure drink a lot of highballs. A whiskey and soda here and there. Maybe all the alcohol has dulled their senses somewhat.
This story should have been about a third of its actual length. Maybe less than three stars.
November 7, 2020
2.5
I'd heard of Mary Roberts Rinehart for years and, when an online book group chose this as a monthly read and I found it on Hoopla, I dove in (so to speak).
Sadly, I was disappointed.
For me, the book did not age well. The main character didn't have much...character. None of them did, really. Her love interest, an "Irish cop," does not act like any reasonable cop ever would, putting her and himself and, by the end, nearly every character in the book, in pointless danger. The first person narration is endlessly repetitive.
I did not guess the ending. But by then, I also didn't care.
I'd heard of Mary Roberts Rinehart for years and, when an online book group chose this as a monthly read and I found it on Hoopla, I dove in (so to speak).
Sadly, I was disappointed.
For me, the book did not age well. The main character didn't have much...character. None of them did, really. Her love interest, an "Irish cop," does not act like any reasonable cop ever would, putting her and himself and, by the end, nearly every character in the book, in pointless danger. The first person narration is endlessly repetitive.
I did not guess the ending. But by then, I also didn't care.
November 10, 2021
When I was a child, Mary Roberts Rinehart was my favorite author (that gives you an idea of how old I am), and I am always delighted when I find one of her books on special, like "The Swimming Pool". The writing style really took me back and kept me reading. Lois, the main character is living in a family estate, along with various other family members, when a number of murders and strange happenings occur there. I did guess the culprit early on but still enjoyed the story.
As a love story, it was rather strange, but I can appreciate the lack of suggestive dialogue and action! It was a much cleaner atmosphere back then!
As a love story, it was rather strange, but I can appreciate the lack of suggestive dialogue and action! It was a much cleaner atmosphere back then!
January 6, 2018
Twists and turns
I thought I guessed the answers in the book several times, but each time I was wrong. Lois is a great storyteller, as a wonderful heroine as well. The story of a wealthy family, before and after the great crash of '29, are always interesting to read. I found myself really disliking different members of the family, while really enjoying others. Once we got really involved in the murders, I knew exactly who I wanted to see end well, and who I wanted to get what they deserved.....and I wasn't disappointed.
I thought I guessed the answers in the book several times, but each time I was wrong. Lois is a great storyteller, as a wonderful heroine as well. The story of a wealthy family, before and after the great crash of '29, are always interesting to read. I found myself really disliking different members of the family, while really enjoying others. Once we got really involved in the murders, I knew exactly who I wanted to see end well, and who I wanted to get what they deserved.....and I wasn't disappointed.
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