قضية ليفنوورث

Mr. Gryce #1

by Anna Katharine Green

روايةٌ بوليسيَّة تدور حول حادثِ قتلٍ غامض، راح ضحيتَه تاجرٌ ثريٌّ متقاعدٌ في مدينة نيويورك، تعيش معه ابنتا أخَوَيه اللتان انتقلَتا للعيش معه في سنٍّ مُبكِّرة بعد وفاة والِدَيهما في حادثٍ أليم. تَتطوَّر الأحداث وتَتعقَّد عندما يَتولَّى مُحامٍ شابٌّ ومحقِّقٌ مُحنَّكٌ مهمةَ حل خيوط هذا اللغز، وسطَ تنافسٍ بينهما على النجاح في كشف سرِّه. لم يَسلَم أحدٌ من أن تشير إليه أصابعُ الاتهام في هذه القضية، بدءًا من الفتاتين اللتَين نشَب بينهما خلافٌ كاد يُفرِّق بينهما، وحتى سكرتيرِه الشخصي، وخادمةٍ اختفَت في ظروف غامضة، وآخَرين منتفعين من موتِ ذلك التاجر. وطوال مُحاوَلات البحث والتَّحرِّيات، تَتكشَّف سلسلةٌ لا تنقطع من الحقائق المثيرة، وجوانب إنسانية خفيَّة. تُرى ما السرُّ الذي تنطوي عليه هذه الجريمة؟ ومَن القاتل؟ ومن سينجح في حل اللغز؟ هذا ما سنعرفه من خلل قراءة هذه الرواية المثيرة.

Genres: Mystery, Classics, Fiction, Audiobook, Crime, Mystery Thriller, 19th Century

357 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1877

About the author

Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. Born in Brooklyn, New York, her early ambition was to write romantic verse, and she corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, she produced her first and best known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878). She became a bestselling author, eventually publishing about 40 books. She was in some ways a progressive woman for her time-succeeding in a genre dominated by male writers-but she did not approve of many of her feminist contemporaries, and she was opposed to women's suffrage. Her other works include A Strange Disappearance (1880), The Affair Next Door (1897), The Circular Study (1902), The Filigree Ball (1903), The Millionaire Baby (1905), The House in the Mist (1905), The Woman in the Alcove (1906), The House of the Whispering Pines (1910), Initials Only (1912), and The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917).

Reviews

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dead Man in the Library

If there is anything classic detective stories have ever taught us, it is this – that libraries are probably the most likely non-combat-related places for you to get killed in, with private ones being even more dangerous than those of the public order. There are probably cruel and callous people out there who would think nothing of killing a man over a book – whereas it is doubtless more romantic to kill a man over a woman –, and that’s why libraries usually abound in dead bodies, and also why you should be very careful as to what books you read (especially when you are foolhardy enough to do your reading in a library). Imagine someone finding your body over a bad book – what a bad example this would set to posterity.

Being found dead, or preferably alive, over Anna Katharine Green’s novel The Leavenworth Case, which was published in 1878, is something I could live with (yes, I know there is something of a paradox included here), because it is a really entertaining detective novel and probably even has some literary value since Green can be seen as one of the earliest writers of detective novels. Therefore, when the wealthy businessman Horatio Leavenworth is found dead in his library, with a bullet in his head, his murderer is probably not guilty of cliché but of murder only. After all, up to 1878 there had not been too many dead bodies in libraries. The story involves two orphaned nieces, Eleanor and Mary, who were taken into the household by Mr. Leavenworth when they were children, and between whom a mysterious kind of estrangement has arisen. Can it have something to do with the fact that, due to a whim of their uncle’s, only one of them is supposed to inherit the family fortune, whereas the other one is to be left out in the cold? Then there is the English gentleman Mr. Clavering, who seems to be stalking the two young ladies and who even haunts some people’s dreams. And what has become of the Irish maidservant Hannah, who mysteriously disappeared in the night of the murder?

These are some of the questions in this generally well-written locked-room-mystery that our narrator, the decent and tactful lawyer (it is a piece of fiction, remember!) Mr. Raymond and the wry detective Ebenezer Gryce find themselves confronted with. By the way, Ebenezer Gryce is a recurrent character in Anna Katharine Green’s fiction, and one may regard him as one of the forerunners of Sherlock Holmes. After all, A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887, some ten years after Gryce had solved the Leavenworth Case and, en passant, displayed some of his quirks. Green’s style reminds me of typical Victorian literature: She has a way with words, but the words also have their way with her, and all in all, it is very readable. [1] A slight demerit, though, I will not conceal, and this is Green’s, or rather her narrator’s tendency to idealize the Leavenworth nieces, and Eleanor in particular. But since not even Dickens, the Champion, is above such kind of sentimental folderol, Green may be forgiven these trespasses against good taste, and let’s not forget: You will definitely be surprised by the solution to this murder mystery.

[1] The only thing that really got on my nerves after a while was her excessive use of the expression “in regard to”. This, after a while, made me jump more than any pistol shot could have done.

[Christmas Carol ꧁꧂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★

"Ah, ah!” he cried; “look at her! cold, cold; not one glance for me, though I have just drawn the halter from her neck and fastened it about my own!”

Not melodramatic enough for you? How about...?

“You have said that if I declared my innocence you would believe me,” she exclaimed, lifting her head as I entered. “See here,” and laying her cheek against the pallid brow of her dead benefactor, she kissed the clay-cold lips softly, wildly, agonisedly, then, leaping to her feet, cried, in a subdued but thrilling tone: “Could I do that if I were guilty? Would not the breath freeze on my lips, the blood congeal in my veins, and my heart faint at this contact?"

I'm not a big fan of Victorian mysteries & melodramas, but other than the above histrionics, this was well written if somewhat slow moving at the start. I didn't guess the murderer because I had forgotten all about him by the time of the great denouement! This was a very drawn out read for me, & (full disclosure) I was reading it on a computer screen, which is my least favourite way to read a book!

But this is an important book in the development of the crime novel & it is certainly better than The Red Thumb Mark, (this book is often mentioned in critiques of 19th century mysteries, even though it wasn't written till 1907) - which I have also read recently. I didn't think I was ever going to get through that one.

If you (O, Constant Reader!) are puzzled by the way a desk is mentioned, this is likely what the author was talking about;

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Panagiotis Tsakiridis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Όποτε άρχιζα να διαβάζω το βιβλίο ξαφνικά βρισκόμουν σε μια εντελώς διαφορετική εποχή από την δίκη μας πραγμα το οποίο μου κέντρισε το ενδιαφέρον, η πλοκή είναι πολύ καλύτερη από το αναμενόμενο διότι καθώς ήταν από τα πρώτα άστυνομικα μυθιστορήματα δεν θεωρούσα ότι θα είχε και ικανοποιητική υπόθεση. Παρολαυτα το βιβλίο είναι πολύ καλό. Ο συνδυασμός της εποχής που γράφτηκε και εξελίχθηκε το μυθιστόρημα με έναν πρωταγωνιστή πολύ έξυπνο θεωρώ πως άξιζε η ανάγνωση αυτού του βιβλίου.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a satisfying story! Nothing at all is as it seems here, making for great mystery reading. Another book I'm very, very happy to have read. Ahhhhhhhh.

Let me say the following to anyone who might be thinking of reading this book: There is a very good reason I don't read GR reviews before starting a book, and this time my reasoning proved sound -- after finishing this novel, I cruised through the reviews here, and discovered that there is one person writing about this book who gave away the whole show in the first paragraph and another who came close. I'm still shaking my head over why people do this without noting spoilers, but what can you do? Just don't go looking through the reviews here if you want to be surprised.

No look back at early crime/detective/mystery fiction would be complete without talking about The Leavenworth Case, which is a true landmark in the genre. In this book the author introduces the first American series detective, Ebenezer Gryce, of the New York Metropolitan Police force, who would go on to be involved in eleven more cases. But it is also, as Kate Watson notes in her book Women Writing Crime Fiction, 1860-1880,

"innovative in the introduction of a number of a number of themes and tropes, now familiar to the reader of crime fiction, but then new and exciting. The Leavenworth Case is original in its deployment of ballistics, science, medicine, and a coroner's inquest, the illustration of the crime scene, replica letters, and the inclusion of the locked room mystery. There is a diagram of the murder scene and the layout of the library, hall and bedroom, a ploy familiar to modern readers of the Golden Age detective fiction of Agatha Christie. While some of these elements had appeared in earlier criminography, the way in which Green cleverly combines them locates her text as the forerunner of what Knight has called the clue-puzzle mystery." (122)

In short, The Leavenworth Case occupies a sort of transitional space -- here we find a beginning in the movement toward the form taken by more modern mystery/crime/detective fiction. And by the way, Sherlock Holmes hasn't appeared on the scene yet and won't for nearly a decade, but as Watson tells us, "In the wake of Green, women writing crime became almost commonplace in America," listing several women authors, many of them now faded into the fabric of obscurity, who went on to contribute "to the form after The Leavenworth Case." (130)

This book is a true whodunit, and unlike my bad luck with modern crime novels, I had absolutely no clue as to the identity of the murderer until the very end. There is much to enjoy about this book -- a preponderance of clues that slowly appear, several people with motive to do away with the deceased, and a number of secrets to be unlocked as the story goes along. And then there are the numerous themes that Green works into her narrative, for example, as Michael Sims notes in his introduction, "female dependence and inheritance laws;" an examination of class constraints are also obvious here. If you enjoy books that turn on secrets then this a good one; I'm someone who just loves this sort of thing. I will admit that the reluctance of the characters to spill what they know got a bit frustrating after a time, and I will also say that some readers unfamiliar with writing during this period might become tired of the rather florid writing style in parts or the more melodramatic aspects of the story that crop up here and there. But in the long run, I found it to be a fine mystery, one I couldn't put down.

http://www.crimesegments.com/2017/12/...

[Vikas Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1878, it is the first full length detective and crime novel by a woman writer. In her autobiography Queen of Mystery, Agatha Christie writes that the novel was a big influence on her works. In fact, there are many similarities between her first novel- The Mysterious Affair at Style’s and Green’s novel. Despite having been written in 1800s, the novel seems fresh and contemporary. As a reader you can easily identify with the settings and the characters. Though not quite fast paced, it holds your attention till the last page. A thrilling read especially when you realize that she had to write this novel in secret!

[Eirini Proikaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*
Η Green θεωρείται η "μητέρα της αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας" και η Υπόθεση Λέβενγουορθ που εκδόθηκε το 1878 είναι το πρώτο της βιβλίο και ακολούθησαν πολλά ακόμα.
Διάβασα στο βιογραφικό της οτι ενώ η ίδια διακρίθηκε σε έναν ανδροκρατούμενο χώρο,ήταν κατά του φεμινισμού και του κινήματος για τα γυναικεία δικαιώματα και αυτο δυστυχώς φαίνεται και στο βιβλίο της.
Είναι ένα κλασικό μυστήριο τύπου "ποιος το έκανε;" οπου η υποψία περνάει απο τον ένα στον άλλο μεχρι να αποκαλυφθεί στο τέλος ο ένοχος και ομολογώ οτι παρόλο που σκέφτηκα αρκετές εκδοχές όσο το διάβαζα ,τελικα δεν καταφερα να λύσω το γρίφο.
Δεν με ξετρελανε πάντως.Η πλοκή είναι αρκετα ενδιαφέρουσα,αλλά οι ήρωες είναι λίγο αδιάφοροι και η φλυαρία κάποιες φορές είναι εξαντλητική.Λεπτομέρειες επαναλαμβάνονται ξανά και ξανά και πολλές φορές σκέφτηκα να το παρατήσω γιατί πραγματικά βαρέθηκα.
Είναι καλογραμμένο όμως και έχει ένα "ιστορικό" ενδιαφέρον ως ενα απο τα πρώτα αστυνομικά.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a super-excellent mystery, and I am awed by its existence. Author Green wrote and published this nearly a decade before Sherlock Holmes entered the world, and many of the conventions of the genre are present in this book. Green also throws in diagrams, codes, and passages written from alternate perspectives, complete with a shift in the tone of the prose. I am amazed that this is the kind of "sensationalist" reading that the public could pick up in the late-19th century. People probably didn't know what hit them when this gem landed.

[Sweet Jane]

Παραφράζοντας τα λόγια ενός φαφλατά θείου θα πω, "υπάρχουν βιβλία που τα διαβάζεις πριν τον ύπνο και υπάρχουν βιβλία που σε βάζουν για ύπνο, θες δεν θες". Ε, η Υπόθεση Λέβενγουορθ ανήκει ξεκάθαρα στην δεύτερη κατηγορία.

[♪ Kim N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1878, The Leavenworth Case is a classic murder mystery written by Anna Katharine Green. Green is credited with developing the modern detective genre with her series featuring NY police detective Ebenezer Gryce. This book is the first of the series and the best known. It has the feel of The Moonstone in its language, formality, and story complicated by Victorian manners and sensibilities. It's also a well-constructed mystery that features many of the devices we've come to recognize - a body in a locked room, a beautiful heiress with a dark secret, a missing maid, a forged confession, false identities - it's all there.

3.5 stars, well worth reading.

[Katerina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Παρ'όλο που υπήρχαν κάποια πράγματα που δε με έπεισαν και σε κάποια σημεία είχε πρόβλημα η μετάφραση η ιστορία μου άρεσε πάρα πολύ!

Είναι εύκολο να εντοπίσεις ποιος κρύβεται πίσω από το έγκλημα αν και δεν είναι πολύ προφανές!
Η ιστορία εξελίσσεται με ευχάριστο ρυθμό που δεν κουράζει ιδιαίτερα.
Σημαντικό ρόλο έπαιξε για μένα και η συμπάθεια που είχα προς το πρόσωπο του αφηγητή που παίρνει επίσης μέρος στις έρευνες!
Μου άρεσε το τέλος και το πως εξελίχθηκαν οι ήρωες της ιστορίες μέσω αυτής της περιπέτειας και γενικά θεωρώ πως υπήρξε δικαιοσύνη σε όλα τα θέματα!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting novel. You can see what would come out of it (the modern series mystery), but you can also see where it was coming from - the sensation novels of the 1860s, Dickens, and the American sentimental novel tradition.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m glad that British Library and Poisoned Pen Press have reissued what critics call Anna Katherine Green’s finest work, her first novel The Leavenworth Case. Published in 1878, it predates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, and Israel Zangwill’s The Big Bow Mystery. In short, Green’s detective novel is one of the first.

But I’m glad more for historical reasons than enjoyment. I loved Green’s Violet Strange stories, but this earliest work proves mediocre. The novel is narrated by young lawyer Everett Raymond, a man superficial, priggish and naïve to the point of fecklessness. How feckless? Here’s Raymond being questioned by New York Metropolitan police detective Ebeneezer Gryce on his presence when a woman, an important witness in a murder case, scribbled a letter in Raymond’s very presence:

“You never thought to look at its superscription before it was dropped into the box.”

“I had neither opportunity nor right to do so.”

“Was it not written in your presence?”

“It was.”

“And you never regarded the affair as worth your attention?”

“However I may have regarded it, I did not see how I could prevent Miss Leavenworth from dropping a letter into a box if she chose to do so.”

“That is because you are a gentleman. Well, it has its disadvantages,” he muttered broodingly.

What a blockhead! Just to seal the deal, Raymond insists that no refined woman could have shot the victim to death. As Gryce sardonically points out, one has only to read the newspaper to discover that pretty ladies can commit some ugly crimes.

I can only hope that Green was satirizing the Victorian notion of gentility, but I doubt that to be the case. Predictably, Raymond decides, based only on pretty looks, that the female suspect could not possibly be guilty, and he ventures on from there to try to prove her innocence. How much better this novel would have been if it had dispensed with Raymond and focused on Gryce and his master-of-disguise sidekick, Morris (nicknamed Q for “query” )!

Lastly, Green does not always play fair with clues, especially at the novel’s end.

The Leavenworth Case is definitely worth reading, if only to get a taste of early Victorian detective fiction; however, readers should keep their expectations in check.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, British Library and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very fun, old-time mystery/detective novel, much in the vein of Wilkie Collins (though not quite as well done). I had solved the mystery of who-done-it and why about half way in, but that did not keep me from wanting to finish the story and see all the loose ends tied up.

In the flavor of books of this era, it is a bit too neatly tied up and unrealistic by modern day standards. It is always important to think about these books in reference to the time in which they were written and without the benefit of all the stellar mystery fiction that has followed them. Green has a delightful writing style and her detective Gryce was wearing Columbo's trench coat for me throughout the tale. I couldn't help wondering if Green envisioned him as quick-witted and playing a part or as very dense but getting there in the end.

It is hard to particularly like Victorian women when they are painted as creatures with the expected sensibilities of their time. I found both Eleanor and Mary's actions incomprehensible, and even the lesser characters of Hannah and Mrs. Belden behaved in a way that mystified me but that I believe might fit perfectly with the expected behavior for women of the era. I suppose I expected a bit more depth in the female characters from a female writer, but I feel the male writers of the time might have portrayed women more realistically. Perhaps the prevailing conventions made Green need to stay within the formula or suffer derision herself.

Green has created the quintessential Victorian fiction, featuring contrivances such as shocked gentlemen, over the top reactions, implausible misdirections, sinister mustached strangers, burned and torn-up letters that can be miraculously reassembled, and mysterious keys that unlock both mysteries and doors. I took the ride with her willingly and did not feel cheated in the end.

[Gu Kun · Rating 1 out of 5]

After a promising start, degenerates into tedious, lengthy, verbose melodrama. Lengthy is an understatement - pages of irrelevant chatter interspersed with a few sentences of pertinent information - imagine an entire chapter (27) in which all of this happens: protagonist takes a room with board at the address where a disappeared witness has holed up; he recognizes the landlady as someone he has seen at the local post office trying to conceal two letters ... that's it, that's all - could and should have been abridged to no more than fifty pages or so. And even then, the terribly unbelievable denouement would be a major let-down. This ain't no Agatha Christie. The more I read detective stories from other members of her sex the more I admire that Queen of Crime.

[Katja Labonté · Rating 5 out of 5]

**Featured on the historic fiction podcast The Gibson Girl Review! Listen as my cohost Amy Drown & I discuss this novel at https://www.gibsongirlreview.com/bles...

5 stars. Wow. What an incredible mystery this is!! Quite typically Green, although perhaps not at her best.

A millionaire is found dead in his study. Two women are suspect: his nieces, Mary and Eleanor. Mary is a gorgeous blonde who charms everyone on sight. Eleanor is a beautiful brunette with great uprightness of character. Which one shot the fatal bullet? Or was it another, unsuspected hand?

This story delightfully mixes Green’s best zones: high-class American society in the late 1800s, and simple country people with odd behaviours. The narrator, Mr. Everett Raymond, is a rising young lawyer, and his voice is quite interesting—humorous, intense, and very masculine. One finds little about him, except that he falls desperately in love with one of the two nieces and is fully determined to clear her name at any and all costs.

I dare not say much about Eleanor and Mary, for fear of giving away spoilers. They are are both very striking characters and I love how this novel focuses on their personalities and reveals them as the story progresses. They are such a contrast! When I first read the book, I thought Mary was just so self-willed and morally weak, “a warning and a grief, someone whom I despised at times, yet also pitied very much and understood a little;” while Eleanor was “an inspiration and an encouragement, growing more and more wonderful as the story progressed.” This time around though, I started feeling like Eleanor, almost pridefully upright, isn’t quite the paragon everyone seems to think she is, although she is still really awesome; while Mary ended up being very understandable and pitiful. Either way, the morals drawn from them is really good.

Mr. Gryce was even more eccentric in this story than in the Amelia Butterworth stories. By now, he’s a fairly old man, and he doesn’t shine in Raymond’s narration—yet he is still a brilliant detective and definitely a humorous character. Query was a fun, quirky addition. And Mrs. Amy Belden was a sweet, simple little lady whom I related to in some ways, and who was definitely far deeper and more complex than you expected. Finally, Mr. Clavering I really liked and wish I could read more about! In short, all these characters were very vivid, complex, and human.

The plot was exceptional. Again, I cannot say much for spoilers, but the twists—!! Almost every chapter turned the story another way, and I foresaw very few of them. The culprit was hard to pin, right down to the very end. (I read this story twice and each time they escaped me.) The writing style is extremely Victorian—melodramatic to the max—and there’s several times where the modern mind goes “…welp...” at some particularly antiquated method or mindset; yet overall everything was finely crafted and put together, and the addition of accurate legal information was fantastic. There is a huge amount of primary source information here about the 1870s, from social roles, to common courtesy, to legal matters. And you can see here how detective work was picking up. Novels like this truly pved the way and created the craze that Sherlock Holmes was ushered into.

The romance was small, yet well done; the content was very clean; and the message was striking and thought-provoking. Although there was not as much humour as in most Green mysteries, this story had more of a moral to it and the more serious tone of the book really drove it in. And there is so much humanity in this book. Green always brings it out but this time especially you realize how people are people, no matter the era. Overall, definitely a great mystery, and well worth reading.

Content: euphemisms, a swear word or two; a mention of drinking and smoking; off-screen murders.

A Favourite Quote: “Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness. Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: To say that the interval of time necessary to a proper inquiry into these matters was passed by me in any reasonable frame of mind, would be to give myself credit for an equanimity of temper which I unfortunately do not possess.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Leavenworth Case was written by Anna Katharine Green and originally published in 1878--nine years before Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. It is often considered the first full-length detective story written by a woman. It was an enormous success with the public, reportedly selling more than 750,000 copies in its first decade and a half, and, for nearly half a century, Anna Katharine Green was one of America's most popular authors. She wrote many other novels, but what reputation she has today rests on this foundational detective story--noted by mystery authority Howard Haycraft as "one of the true milestones of the genre."

Green managed to introduce in her novel many of the mystery standbys that fans of the the genre will recognize at once: the crusty old man on the verge of changing his will, the body in the library, a dignified butler, coroners' inquest (called and arranged in what seems to be whirlwind haste), ballistics expert pinpointing the weapon used, a scene-of-the-crime sketch, and mysterious letters. Readers of today may sigh at some of these components, but would do well to remember how fresh these clues and incidents were in Victorian-era American crime fiction.

Green's story is narrated by Everett Raymond, junior member of the law firm which has represented the Leavenworth family for many years. At face value, the story seems a simple one. Horatio Leavenworth, a rich merchant and adoptive parent and guardian to his two nieces, mary and Eleanore, is found shot to death at the table in the library of his home. All the doors are locked and everything points to a member of the household. More specifically, evidence--a broken key, an incriminating letter, an overheard bit of conversation would seem to point towards the nieces and the behavior of Eleanore at the coroner's inquest soon draws the attention of police, reporters and nearly everyone present.

Raymond, struck by the beauty and plight of the nieces--and particularly drawn to Eleanore, determines to aid Ebenenezer Gryce of the Metropolitan Police in bringing the proper party to justice. It is the work of these two with the assistance of "Q," one of Gryce's operatives that soon brings to light secret relationships, the intention of Horatio Leavenworth to change his will, and the mysterious goings-on the night of the murder when everyone is supposed to have retired to their rooms. The story culminates in a wrap-up scene worthy of the many Golden Age drawing room finales. We even get the criminal's confession with a bit of a twist.

Slow-going in parts due to the Victorian style, this is still a gripping story about the tragedy of love, greed, self-sacrifice and betrayal. It is a very complex tale with several layers and a well-built element of suspense. It has also been held up as a prime example of the fallacy of circumstantial evidence--evidence that given certain twists to circumstance is made to fit several different characters for the role of prime suspect. I thoroughly enjoyed myself once I gave myself up to Green's style and found this classic mystery to be every bit the equal of the Sherlock Holmes canon.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very, very early American murder mystery and page turner. Fun summer diversion.

[Paradoxe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Στα θετικά, παρότι οι χαρακτήρες είναι μέτρια ανεπτυγμένοι, η συγγραφέας καταφέρνει να ντύνεται τον καθένα τους με μεγάλη επιτυχία.

Τα τσιτάτα στην αρχή των κεφαλαίων δε δίνονται για εντυπωσιασμό, αλλά για να δημιουργήσουν ατμόσφαιρα, δεδομένου ότι το βιβλίο είναι γραμμένο στα αμερικάνικα αγγλικά των τελών του 1800 και τα βιβλία με εξαίρεση τους Αθλίους είναι εγγλέζικα, επίσης στην έκφραση της ίδιας περιόδου. Ατυχώς αυτό χάνεται στην μετάφραση στα ελληνικά εκ των πραγμάτων, με αποτέλεσμα να φαίνεται σα ρομαντική προσπάθεια εντυπωσιασμού.

Όσο κι αν έπρεπε να είναι συνυφασμένο με την εποχή του, γιατί έπρεπε να είναι τόσο δακρύβρεχτο;

Στα θετικά, ότι με νευρίασε η Μπέλντεν, δείγμα της πολύ καλής σκιαγράφησης του ονειροπόλου – ρομαντικού και καθόλου πρακτικού ανθρώπου, που έχει το χαρακτηριστικό των ανόητων συμβουλών, των παρεμβάσεων και της άστοχης μεσιτείας.

Πείθει επιτυχώς το σκεπτικό ότι η ομορφιά έχει την ικανότητα να διαστρεβλώνει και να καμουφλάρει και πως τα πάθη είναι ικανά να οδηγήσουν και τους λιγότερο έξυπνους, σε ευφυή τεχνάσματα.

Ωστόσο, η αλήθεια είναι πως βαρέθηκα. Το διέκοπτα και διάβαζα άλλα πράγματα, γιατί βαριόμουν ν’ ασχοληθώ μαζί του. Μικρή αποζημίωση σε αυτό πως ακολουθεί τη ρεαλιστική νόρμα και όχι τη νατουραλιστική στο θέμα της διαπαιδαγώγησης και μεταλαμπάδευσης αξιών. Αλλά στη σελίδα 436 δεν άντεχα άλλο, φυλλομετρούσα ανήσυχα για να δω πως απέμεναν 100+ σελίδες ακόμα.

Παρόλ’ αυτά, ο κύριος Γκράϊς είναι ο πιο παράδοξος κι ενδιαφέρων ντετέκτιβ που έχω συναντήσει, μαζί με τον τηλεοπτικό Μονκ, για σχεδόν διαφορετικούς λόγους, αλλά όχι λιγότερο γοητευτικούς.

Όσο για το δολοφόνο αποκαλύπτεται κραυγαλέα απ’ τις πρώτες σελίδες, με δυο συγγραφικές γκάφες ολκής.

2.5

[Κατερίνα Μαλακατέ · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://diavazontas.blogspot.gr/2018/0...

Είναι γνωστό πως δεν είμαι μεγάλη οπαδός των αστυνομικών μυθιστορημάτων, για την ακρίβεια τα τεράστια σκανδιναβικά τούβλα του σήμερα τα βαριέμαι εξόχως. Αυτό φυσικά δεν σημαίνει πως στο αμαρτωλό αναγνωστικό μου παρελθόν δεν περιλαμβάνονται κλασικά αστυνομικά, Πουαρό και Σέρλοκ. Είχα καιρό να διαβάσω ένα κλασικό whodunit, με όλα τα κλισέ και τα στερεότυπα του είδους. Και ποιο καλύτερο τέτοιο θα μπορούσε να βρεθεί, από την «Υπόθεση Λέβενγουορθ» της Άννα Κάθριν Γκριν;

Αν και στην Ελλάδα δεν είναι πολύ γνωστή, η αμερικανίδα συγγραφέας θεωρείται «μαμά» του αμερικάνικου αστυνομικού μυθιστορήματος, και η υπόθεση Λέβενγουορθ ένα από τα πρώτα «αστυνομικά δωματίου» που έβαλε τις βάσεις και ενέπνευσε την Αγκάθα Κρίστυ και τον σερ Κόναν Ντόυλ για να μεγαλουργήσουν στο είδος. Το μυθιστόρημα αποτέλεσε τεράστια επιτυχία όταν βγήκε πουλώντας πάνω από 750.000, ποσό μυθικό για την εποχή, κοντά 140 χρόνια πριν. Είναι από εκείνα τα βιβλία που αντιστέκονται στο χρόνο, κι ας είναι η πρόζα του χαρακτηριστικά βικτωριανή, κι ας πλατειάζει πού και πού στις περιγραφές δωματίων και ανθρώπων.

Βασικός ερευνητής και αφηγητής είναι ο νεαρός δικηγόρος Ρέιμοντ που βρίσκεται στο γραφείο του όταν τον ενημερώνουν πως ένας εξαιρετικά πλούσιος πελάτης δολοφονήθηκε. Σπεύδει στο σπίτι που έγινε ο φόνος και όπου διεξάγεται η προανάκριση. Ο κύριος Λέβενγουορθ ήταν ένας κάπως εκκεντρικός πλούσιος, που ασχολιόταν περισσότερο με τα βιβλία του, τον αγαπούσαν οι υπηρέτες, και οι δυο ανιψιές του, οι -εκπάγλου καλλονής- Μαίρη και Ελεάνορ. Από τις δυο, μονάχα η Μαίρη θα τον κληρονομούσε- ένα καπρίτσιο του θειου τους- αλλά αυτό φαίνεται να μην ενοχλούσε την Ελεάνορ. Ο νεαρός δικηγόρος θαμπώνεται από την ομορφιά της Ελεάνορ, κι όταν οι υποψίες στην προανάκριση θα πέσουν επάνω της, θα προσπαθήσει να μην σπιλωθεί το όνομά της. Την έρευνα την έχει αναλάβει ως ντετέκτιβ ο Εμπενίζερ Γκράις (ο ντετέκτιβ που θα εμφανιστεί και στα περισσότερα επόμενα βιβλία της Γκριν) που κρατά για τον εαυτό του τον τελικό λόγο και στο τέλος στήνει και μια κλασική σκηνή αποκάλυψης του δολοφόνου, όπου έχουμε και την ανατροπή.

Πρόκειται για ένα από τα πιο καλογραμμένα μυθιστορήματα του είδους, αν και είναι από τα πρώτα, αν όχι το πρώτο. Είναι γνωστό πως τόσο ο σερ Κόναν όσο και η Αγκάθα θαύμαζαν την Άννα Κάθριν Γκριν και εν πολλοίς αντέγραψαν τις μεθόδους της. Αλλά πέρα από αυτό, είναι ένα όμορφο βιβλίο, που θυμίζει την βικτωριανή καταγωγή του και θα μπορούσε να γοητεύσει με μεγάλη άνεση τους αναγνώστες του Γουίλκι Κόλλινς ή ακόμα και του Ντίκενς.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Leavenworth Case published in 1878 and subtitled A Lawyer's Story, is a detective novel by Anna Katharine Green. It is also her first novel and she came to be called "the mother of the detective novel" writing more than twenty detective novels and a whole bunch of other books that weren't about crime and murder and all that stuff. Green first wanted to write poetry, but when her poetry failed to gain recognition, she switched to novels. Her first and best known novel, The Leavenworth Case, was praised by Wilkie Collins, and the best seller of the year. I wonder how many books were published in 1878, or now for that matter. It doesn't seem so great to be the best seller of the year if hardly anymore books were published, it doesn't seem like it would be an easy thing to do back then. No matter how hard it was Green became a bestselling author, eventually publishing about 40 books.

On November 25, 1884, Green married the actor and stove designer, and later noted furniture maker, Charles Rohlfs, who was seven years her junior. He was a actor, stove designer and furniture maker? Sounds like what people do around here, or used to. Every town had a funeral home, but never just a funeral home, it was always ........Funeral Home and Furniture Store. Each and every town had one, when I was a kid I used to wonder if they were selling the dead person's furniture in the store half of the building. We still have the funeral homes but for some reason most of the furniture stores are gone. Anyway, Rohlfs toured in a dramatization of Green's The Leavenworth Case. After his theater career faltered, he became a furniture maker in 1897, I'm not sure where the stove designer came in. But I'm not talking about Green, her husband, and furniture, at least I shouldn't be, I should be talking about The Leavenworth Case so here we go.

The story begins with a young man coming in to the firm of "Veeley, Carr & Raymond, attorneys and counsellors at law". This young man asks for Mr. Veeley, unfortunately he isn't available, he's been called out of town, so this young man tells our narrator, a junior partner of Mr. Veeley's, why he is there. It seems that young man is the secretary for Mr. Leavenworth and Mr. Leavenworth has just been found dead, murdered even:

“Mr. Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, falling back a step. Mr. Leavenworth was an old client of our firm, to say nothing of his being the particular friend of Mr. Veeley.

“Yes, murdered; shot through the head by some unknown person while sitting at his library table.”

“Shot! murdered!” I could scarcely believe my ears.

“How? when?” I gasped.

“Last night. At least, so we suppose. He was not found till this morning. I am Mr. Leavenworth’s private secretary,” he explained, “and live in the family. It was a dreadful shock,” he went on, “especially to the ladies.”

“Dreadful!” I repeated. “Mr. Veeley will be overwhelmed by it.”

“They are all alone,” he continued in a low businesslike way I afterwards found to be inseparable from the man; “the Misses Leavenworth, I mean—Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces; and as an inquest is to be held there to-day it is deemed proper for them to have some one present capable of advising them. As Mr. Veeley was their uncle’s best friend, they naturally sent me for him; but he being absent I am at a loss what to do or where to go.”

“I am a stranger to the ladies,” was my hesitating reply, “but if I can be of any assistance to them, my respect for their uncle is such——”

The expression of the secretary’s eye stopped me. Without seeming to wander from my face, its pupil had suddenly dilated till it appeared to embrace my whole person with its scope.

“I don’t know,” he finally remarked, a slight frown, testifying to the fact that he was not altogether pleased with the turn affairs were taking. “Perhaps it would be best. The ladies must not be left alone——”

“Say no more; I will go.” And, sitting down, I despatched a hurried message to Mr. Veeley, after which, and the few other preparations necessary, I accompanied the secretary to the street."

Ok, here are some little details I remember that we may need to solve the crime; Mr. Leavenworth was last seen by the secretary the night before sitting at his desk. He was found in the morning by the same secretary sitting at the same place. Even though he was shot in the head it couldn't have been a suicide, the gun can't be found. Nothing is missing so it isn't a robbery. Here is an interesting thing we must keep in mind to solve the crime:

"Employing the time, therefore, in running over in my mind what I knew of Mr. Leavenworth, I found that my knowledge was limited to the bare fact of his being a retired merchant of great wealth and fine social position who, in default of possessing children of his own, had taken into his home two nieces, one of whom had already been declared his heiress. To be sure, I had heard Mr. Veeley speak of his eccentricities, giving as an instance this very fact of his making a will in favor of one niece to the utter exclusion of the other; but of his habits of life and connection with the world at large, I knew little or nothing."

I don't even need that to solve the murder, I need to solve the mystery of why he would so favor the one niece over the other and make it clear to everyone. It seems mean, although I guess he wouldn't have had to take them into his house at all. Anyway, once the secretary whose name I can't at the moment remember and Mr. Raymond, our narrator, arrive at the house they find one of the city's finest detectives, Mr. Ebenezer Gryce is there. I found out later that Mr. Gryce is there for most if not all of Green's detective novels.

Back to the things we need to remember to solve the murder. The house was locked up for the night, no one could get in, according to the butler that is. He testifies - at the coroner's inquest - that he locked all the doors and windows the night before and they were still all locked when they found Mr. Leavenworth. No one could have got in the house, so that means someone already in the house must have committed the murder. That leaves us with the butler, the cook, Molly the upstairs girl, the secretary who's name I finally remember, Mr. Harwell, and the two nieces, Miss Mary and Miss Eleanore. Oh, and then there's Hannah, or I guess, there isn't Hannah. She is the ladies maid and she is missing. According to the testimony of the cook, the night before Hannah had a toothache so she went to see Miss Eleanore who is good with things like toothaches, headaches, all kinds of aches. She never comes back however, and no one seems to know what happened to her. Oh, and not only was the house locked but the room Mr. Leavenworth was in was also locked and there is no key anywhere. Not yet anyway.

See, there is a murder, and in a locked room of course, with no weapon and no key. Plenty of suspects, especially one of those nieces, speaking of the nieces, it is clear - well, it's supposed to be - that Miss Eleanore is the murderer, but Eleanore is also the niece who doesn't inherit anything, wouldn't it make more sense for Eleanore to keep her uncle alive? That was just my first thought when the blame started falling on her. Anyway, as I said, plenty of suspects, locked rooms, and such things, what else do we need for a good mystery story? Just in case we need anything else, there is also a secret marriage, a written confession, another dead body, papers found burnt in a fireplace, all sorts of things that I could name, but I want you to read the story for yourselves and I'll never remember it all anyway. I liked the book, it was a fun mystery story, I'm not sure how early in the book I had it figured out, that's the fun for me, seeing how early in the book I can find the real bad guy. Happy hunting.

[Laras · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story is about the murder of a rich man who had two beautiful nieces who one by one becomes the suspect. The story is narrated by a Mr. Raymond, a lawyer who isn't a family friend, let alone relative, of this family. Raymond sees and meets the two nieces on the day he is called to help them through the inquest.

Now, my main point of dislike of this book is this narrator. He is a sort of man who judges a person, especially a woman, by their appearance (alone). This makes him a repugnant character for me. So he sets eyes on the more beautiful niece, and he instantly worships her. He truly believes that behind that beautiful face lies an incredibly beautiful heart. Even when the girl then becomes the suspect of the murder with rather convincing circumstantial evidences, Raymond still insists that she is innocent, because she is beautiful, even though he knows nothing about her. There's a suspicious missing servant from the house, and Raymond desperately clings to the possibility of that servant's being the murderer. Then the story proceeds with his hoping for that being proven true. Then comes a mysterious handsome man who seems to have some kind of relation with the nieces unknown to Raymond. Raymond is jealous, and he wants the man to be the murderer. After that, a certain circumstance arises, then the other niece becomes the suspect. Raymond still can't accept that this other beautiful woman is a murderer, so he's anxious to find some other person to replace her in that position, and of course that mysterious handsome man is in his sight.

Since the story is told in Raymond's first person point of view, reader has to take his words on everything, including other characters' dispositions. The problem is, he gets to know most of them just as the story starts, but since the reader needs to know their natures to really follow the story, Raymond has to take the job to tell the reader. Here we have to just believe in what he believes even though he barely knows these people. And his analysis is so shallow as he bases it on physical apperance and social class. Yes, he is that much of a snob. He even goes so far as not to trust on the detective's investigation results and deny his evidences, and he also hides the facts he's got just because the facts can jeopardise the position of his beautiful woman, so he wants to find the evidence first that the bad guy is actually a guy.

This matter is made worse by the author's trying to convince her reader that what Raymond says is true. She doesn't give more proof to back up Raymond's judgement. She just lets her narrator says what he wants to say and expects the reader to just accept.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad to have found this author. This is apparently her most well known of the many mysteries she wrote. As the GR descriptions says, Mr. Raymond is a lawyer with the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond. He is called to the home of Horatio Leavenworth the morning Mr. Leavenworth's body is discovered, slumped at his desk with a bullet in the back of his head. Mr. Veeley, the senior partner of the firm, was a close friend of Mr. Leavenworth, but, as he was out of town, Mr. Raymond was called upon to try to help Mr. Leavenworth's nieces.

This is the first in a series called "Mr. Gryce", who is, of course, the detective.

And here let me say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity, some vase, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as for you—you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts.

Mr. Raymond is called upon to assist, and there is another operative called "Q". Oh, of course we know who the murderer was. And of course our opinion changes as further clues are revealed. And maybe even then we are still wrong. I don't know if this is one of the "sensational" novels of the 19th Century, but certainly there are parts that are very much over-dramatized for the 21st Century reader. I am quite used to 19th Century prose, but I think others would not be bothered by it. It is not the convoluted prose of Dickens that so many think of when they think 19th Century.

I don't give out 5 stars for mysteries, but this one is quite good. I'll stretch my usual 3 stars for them to 4 and look forward to others in the series.

[☯Emily Ginder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anna Katharine Green was one of the originators of the detective story. Her detective, Mr. Gryce, was created nine years before Sherlock Holmes came on the scene. Ms. Green was an influence on Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle.

The story is fast paced with several improbable events. It is enjoyable to read an early detective story written by an American, since the most well-known authors are English.

A brief synopsis: Uncle is killed. Uncle's heir is one of his nieces. At first, it looks like the niece who doesn't inherit is the murderer. Later, it appears that the niece who inherits is the murderer. Which one could it be? Is it possible someone else committed the murder? Possible, but is it probable? To find out more, read this early detective classic for yourself.

[Vasilis Manias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Γρήγορο, καλοκαιρινό, ανάλαφρο, ορισμός του whodunit αστυνομικού μυθιστορήματος, με ένα τεράστιο συγγραφικό μπακράουντ που αναφέρεται διεξοδικά στον πρόλογο της έκδοσης. Τέτοια βιβλία δε γράφονται πια, αυτό είναι μία πραγματικότητα, και το γεγονός πως οι εκδόσεις Gutenberg έδειξαν τέτοια φροντίδα και επιμέλεια σε ένα τέτοιο έργο δίνουν σε όλους μας μια τεράστια ευκαιρία να απολαύσουμε ένα πραγματικό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα γραμμένο κάτω από το φως των κεριών, πασαλλειμένο με το μελάνι ενός κοντυλοφόρου, στη σελήνη ενός άλλου κόσμου πολύ μακρινού από τον δικό μας.
Απολαυστική εμπειρία.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars

*A genre-defining mystery that hasn’t aged well*


As I worked my way through various classic Mystery novels, I came across the name Anna Katharine Green. It turns out that she was a successful Mystery novelist. Not only was she a best-selling author and one of the first female Mystery writers, she was one of the first Mystery writers AT ALL. That’s right; this book was a best seller a decade before Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes story! The great Agatha Christie listed Green as a major influence to her writing. And having read The Leavenworth Case, it is clear that Green’s influence reached many writers and the genre as a whole.

“It is not for me to suspect but to detect.”

Although the story is a bit rough around the edges, it is clear to see how this book has many elements that became hallmarks of detective fiction including the locked room mystery, the death in a grand house, the amateur sleuth, the red herrings, the framework of accurate (for the time) criminal law, and the use of deductive reasoning to reach a conclusion beyond the sight of the other characters involved. And these are things that usually get attributed to Doyle. It was surprising to learn that for years I’ve been giving Doyle far too much credit for laying the foundational work of the genre. Oh, certainly Doyle still had a profound impact on the genre and created one of the greatest and best known literary characters. But he was already building on the work of others. And Anna Katharine Green deserves far more credit and recognition than she gets.

“You must never, in reckoning up an affair of murder like this, forget who it is that most profits by the deceased man's death.”

As an interesting side note, this story particularly in the beginning, reminded me of the Lizzie Borden case. They both have a father figure cold-bloodedly murdered with the daughter/niece in the house and claiming to have seen nothing, a disputed inheritance, and a similar time period – followed by a lot of circumstantial evidence and clash between the likely possibility of a young, genteel woman being a murder and the society dissonance of accepting said young, genteel woman being capable of such violence. (See The Trial of Lizzie Borden for more details.) Of course, The Leavenworth Case was published in 1878, and the Borden murders did not occur until 1892. It isn’t as if Green ripped her story from the day’s headlines. And the cases veer from each other upon closer examination. But the start of the story gave me deja vu.

So why has Green’s work fallen off the modern radar? Well, she experienced more than her share of criticism, and most of it seemed to be because she was a woman. When The Leavenworth Case first hit it big, people kept asking if something so good could really have been written by a woman. It was supposedly even debated in the Pennsylvania State Senate if a woman could really have written it. As the years went by and Green’s career continued, the criticism towards her work became more and more harsh. Many (male) writers including T.S. Elliot, Arthur Bennett, and Raymond Chandler all actively demeaned Green’s work.

Admittedly, the story is quite dated now. Few books maintain easy readability a century and a half later. And yes, the characters are melodramatic. But then again, that Gothic melodrama was hugely popular at the time. I had more issue with the story being almost entirely composed of dialogue. That did cause the pace of the story to be slow. And yes, the female characters were the stereotypical dramatic, hysterical, delicate dolls that society idealized at the time. Again, it clearly played to the audience of the time – even if I do prefer my heroines to have way more agency, gumption, and common sense.

It’s tough to say what my overall verdict is. The plot was interesting enough, but it was weighed down by the dramatic circumlocution. And as I mentioned, the story hasn’t aged well. But I am absolutely glad that I read it and can now give proper credit where credit is due. And despite its flaws, I would recommend it to anyone wanting a clear picture of how Whodunits came to be.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 2 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 3 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

[Yanper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Από την μητέρα της αμερικανικής αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας. Ένα βιβλίο που γράφτηκε μία δεκαετία πριν την εμφάνιση του Σέρλοκ Χολμς, με πλοκή πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα που κρατάει το ενδιαφέρον συνεχώς! Δεν αφήνει περιθώρια να ανακαλύψεις τον ένοχο αφού με κάθε καινούργιο στοιχείο που παρουσιάζεται, η υποψία για τον ένοχο μεταφέρεται από τον έναν στον άλλο. Ωραία γραμμένο και το μόνο ελαφρύ ελάττωμά του ήταν η φλυαρία σε κάποια σημεία που όμως δεν σ’ εμποδίζει να το ευχαριστηθείς!

[Encarni Prados · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro que tenia ganas de leer hace tiempo, cuando supe que la autora fue la primera escritora que acuñó el término “novela de detectives “ y, dicen, que influyó a autores como Agatha Christie y a Conan Doyle. Así que, con la fama que le precede, tenía que leerla. Debo decir que no estaban equivocados, una novela muy del estilo de los autores nombrados anteriormente.
El caso Leavenworth es una novela con un asesinato y con, aunque parece clara, difícil resolución, porque no debes creer siempre que todas las pruebas apuntan al asesino.
Me ha encantado la forma de escribir de Anna, la forma de presentar los hechos, a los personajes, los diálogos y la resolución final que, para nada, era la que yo esperaba.
Si os ha picado,la curiosidad con mi opinión no tenéis más que sumergiros en sus páginas y contadme después si os habéis llevado las mismas impresiones.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning was exceedingly promising:

“I had been a junior partner in the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond, attorneys and counselors at law, for about a year, when one morning, in the temporary absence of both Mr. Veeley and Mr. Carr, there came into our office a young man whose whole appearance was so indicative of haste and agitation that I voluntarily rose as he approached, and advanced to meet him.”

Mr. Raymond was told that Mr. Horatio Leavenworth, a long-standing client of his firm, had been shot and killed in his library. That the door was found locked. That there were no signs of forced entry, no signs of any disturbance at all. And that no-one had been in the house, save Mr Leavenworth’s two nieces and his household staff.

In the absence of his senior partners, Mr Raymond was in attendance as the coroner carried out his investigation. As the secretary, the valet, the cook, gave evidence suspicion fell upon Mary and Eleanore Leavenworth. Their own evidence did little to improve their situation, indeed it suggested that one or both were hiding something or sheltering someone.

But Mr Raymond was charmed, and he was sure that they were innocent, so he undertook to support them and to make further investigations.

Now at this point I was intrigued by the story, and by the many features of the story, published in 1878, that had been taken up by other mystery writers in later years. A body discovered in a locked room. A missing key. Fragments of a burnt letter discovered in a grate. A missing maid …

But I also saw echoes of a book published twenty years earlier, and that led me to make comparisons to an earlier book that were less flattering to this book.

Two young women in peril, with differing natures and differing prospects, and a young man who stepped forward as their protector. I had to think of The Woman in White, but neither Mary or Eleanore could stand comparison with Marion Halcombe, and while I could accept Walter Hartwright, a drawing master, following his heart and putting himself in jeopardy, I found it rather more difficult to accept Everett Raymond, a drawing master, doing the same.

But, as a complex plot unfolded, the story held my attention, and my sympathies and my perceptions of the main players shifted. The characters grew. And I saw themes and situations that were very familiar – a society that restricted women, secret marriages, disfunctional families – and were all handled very well.

I was very taken with the detective, Ebeneezer Gryce, who I am quite sure would have held his own against Inspector Bucket and Inspector Cuff, and I would have liked to spend a little more time with him. But he was bright enough to sit back and let the oh so willing Mr Raymond do the leg work.

Anna Katherine Green created a wonderful mystery but I do wish she had written it a little differently. It was wordy, melodramatic, and often the characters would declaim rather than talk. And I didn’t need to be told that the Leavenworth girls were beautiful and charming quite so many times.

The ending was a little disappointing. Not the logic – that worked – but the full confession that came with just a little push. If only there had been a bit more of a push and a bit less of an explanation it would have worked so much better.

But I did like The Leavenworth Case: as a mystery, as a period piece, and as a significant book in the evolution of crime fiction.

[Armin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Diese Aufklärung eines rätselhaften Mordes liest sich eher wie Zerfallsprodukt der viktorianischen Erzählkultur als Krimi-Pionierleistung. Ich kann dem Problem nicht anders beikommen, als Wilkie Collins Moonstone als Vergleichsgröße heranzuziehen.
Denn im Gegensatz zum Verwirrspiel um einen verschwundenen Diamanten, gibt es beim Leavenworth Case nur eine Erzählinstanz, bei der handelt es sich um einen auf Freiersfüßen wandelnden Gabriel Betteridge, endlos geschwätzig und ständig der Meinung, dass nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf. Sprich: eine so schöne Frau kann keinen Mord begehen.
Der Plot reicht eher für ein Drittel des Umfangs, aber die Erzählweise ist derart umständlich, dass ich nur Hardcore-Philologen dazu raten kann. Angeblich hat die Autorin in späteren Werken ja noch Vorarbeit für Miss Marple geleistet, eventuelle Parallelen zu Sherlock Holmes und Doctor Watson bestehen allenfalls in einem Ich-Erzähler, der viel mit falschen Ahnungen rumrennt und doch allenfalls den Hebel zum Geständnis produziert, und einem Ermittler, der mittels Kombinationsgabe in einem Heuhaufen von Indizien, die alle auf dieselbe Person deuten, den Gegenbeweis ermittelt.
Da das Ermittler-Genie nach der Tatortbesichtigung wegen rheumatischer Beschwerden zu einer gewissen Inaktivität verurteilt ist und das Geständnis in der eigenen Wohnung erzwingt, stellen sich zuletzt noch Assoziation zu Rex Stout ein. Aber die Nero-Wolfe-Fälle Fälle sind höchstens halb so umfangreich und Archie Goodwin ist ein unterhaltsamer Erzähler und kein derartiger Umstandskrämer wie dieser Mister Raymond.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather interesting classic mystery encompassing the likes of guns, millionaires, beautiful young women, obsessed and unusual secretaries, detectives, and inheritance, etc, etc, and all that... Here, a millionaire by the name of Horatio Leavenworth, Esq. is found murdered, a young lawyer decides to get involved in the case, and the range of events that transpires thereafter makes it quite difficult to solve the mystery...