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Inspector Hanaud #1
Murder at the Villa Rose
At a villa near the glittering lights of Monte Carlo, a murder is committed, and a beautiful young girl is implicated. When the great detective Hanaud is called in to solve the case, he follows the trail to a conclusion as shocking as the crime itself.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1910
84 people are currently reading
532 people want to read
About the author
A.E.W. Mason
217 books49 followersMajor Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (7 May 1865 Dulwich, London - 22 November 1948 London) was a British author and politician. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel The Four Feathers.
He studied at Dulwich College and graduated from Trinity College, Oxford in 1888. He was a contemporary of fellow Liberal Anthony Hope, who went on to write the adventure novel The Prisoner of Zenda.
His first novel, A Romance of Wastdale, was published in 1895. He was the author of more than 20 books, including At The Villa Rose (1910), a mystery novel in which he introduced his French detective, Inspector Hanaud. His best-known book is The Four Feathers, which has been made into several films. Many consider it his masterpiece. Other books are The House of the Arrow (1924), No Other Tiger (1927), The Prisoner in the Opal (1929) and Fire Over England (1937).
He studied at Dulwich College and graduated from Trinity College, Oxford in 1888. He was a contemporary of fellow Liberal Anthony Hope, who went on to write the adventure novel The Prisoner of Zenda.
His first novel, A Romance of Wastdale, was published in 1895. He was the author of more than 20 books, including At The Villa Rose (1910), a mystery novel in which he introduced his French detective, Inspector Hanaud. His best-known book is The Four Feathers, which has been made into several films. Many consider it his masterpiece. Other books are The House of the Arrow (1924), No Other Tiger (1927), The Prisoner in the Opal (1929) and Fire Over England (1937).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
May 11, 2019
A brilliant who-dun-it mystery! It's easy to see where Agatha Christie got her inspiration for Hercule Poirot and his sidekick Hastings. One "Inspector Hanaud" novel down - six more to read - not to mention the long list of other novels by A.E.W. Mason. Looking forward to it.
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September 23, 2018like a 3.5/3.6; not quite good enough to make it a 4, but still well worth your time.
I first came across this title while reading Martin Edwards' The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, where he describes how Mason got the idea of writing this book while staying at a hotel in Richmond upon seeing "two names scratched on a window-pane by a diamond ring: ... Madame Fougere, a wealthy elderly woman who a year before had been murdered in her villa at Aix-les-Bains, the second was that of her maid and companion, who had been discovered ... bound and chloroformed in her bed.' " It is the first in a series of books to feature his detective, Inspector Hanaud of the Sûreté, and the plot follows the investigation into the murder of a wealthy woman in Aix-les-Bains. In that town when the crime occurs is a certain Mr. Julius Ricardo, who is alerted by another Englishman to the murder, asking Ricardo to call upon Hanaud for help in solving the case. Hanaud will take it on, even though he's on his holiday, but not before giving a warning that "the case is dark."
This really could have been a fine book, except for the fact that Mason decided to reveal the "who" way too early, and then combined witness testimony and different narratives relating to the crime into one account to explain it all. Gah! How disappointing! Edwards refers to this as "lop-sided story structure," and I'm afraid he's spot on with that description. Had the author put it all together in a different way, there's a hell of a story in there -- a fake medium with a conscience, rivalry, and a rather sadistic set of villains who, in at least one scene, find a sinister joy in causing pain to their victim. All of the elements are there to have made the book a fun reading experience but they come too late -- by then the shock/suspense value is sort of lost.
I've been looking at what other readers say about this book, all of whom noted the crappy ("lop-sided" is the word Martin Edwards uses) structure that ruins the surprise, a point with which I agree, but what I don't agree with is the idea that these characters are, as one person said, "one dimensional." As someone who pays close attention to the people who populate the books I read, there's a lot going on with the characters in this novel that is well worth reading. If you're in this just for the usual crime, investigation, and solution, you miss a lot of the interactions between the evildoers and their victims, especially when it comes down to the motivations behind their actions. The human interest is not just limited to the villains of this piece, either, but I can't say more without giving everything away here.
Here's the thing: even though you now know that things are going to be a bit "lop-sided" in the storytelling, it's still a good book and there is a lot happening here to make it readworthy. Read it slowly, don't devour it, and now, armed with knowledge of how it's going to be, sit back and relax, paying attention to the unfolding of the plot.
Recommended, certainly for readers interested in twentieth century, pre-World War I crime writing. Frustrating it may be, but there's a good story within the lopsidedness.
more here:
http://www.crimesegments.com/2018/09/...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2023
A murder mystery and a clever detective.
October 30, 2014
The Murder at the Villa Rose (1910) opens at the gaming tables of Monte Carlo with a young, handsome Englishman in the process of breaking the bank. Our focal point for the scene, Julius Ricardo, is an observer in Monte Carlo and sees a beautiful, young woman in distress in the gardens. It soon becomes apparent that she had been losing heavily. It is also apparent that she has connections with the Englishman, Harry Wethermill, as she throws her lot in with his at the table. Unfortunately, her bad luck seems to carry over to him and they leave losers, but also most evidently young people in love.
The next we hear of Miss Celia is in connection with her sponsor, Madame Dauvray. Madame Dauvray has been found strangled to death at the Villa Rose and her maid Hélène Vauquier left tied up and chloroformed in her bed. The safe which was said to be full of jewels has been looted and Madame Dauvray's bedroom ransacked. And Miss Celia has vanished. The story Hélène tells makes it very black indeed for the missing girl and the police are ready to believe that Celia was an accomplice to the robbery if not the murderer herself. But Wethermill refuses to accept the official version and begs Ricardo to help him convince Inspector Hanaud, "the cleverest of the French detectives," to take up the case. Hanaud agrees, but only after telling Wethermill, "I will take up this case. But I shall follow it to the end now, be the consequences bitter as death to you." The end will be bitter indeed...for someone.
Although Hanaud is a member of the official police force, he is very Holmes-like in his immense vanity and tendency to keep clues close to his chest--and one clue in particular that would make it much easier for the reader to begin unravel the true meaning of the events of Madame Dauvray's last night. Even when the narrative draws our attention to specific clues (the settee and its cushions, for example), Hanaud manages to play a bit of sleight-of-hand to distract us from the true meaning--all the better to display his brilliance in the explanation at the end. Ricardo plays Watson to Hanaud--slightly dim and making all the wrong inferences from the facts as presented.
One very distinctive element to this early detective novel is the inversion of the mystery--not at the beginning, but at the midpoint. The first half of the novel follows Hanaud as he tracks down clues and finally runs the criminals to earth. By the middle of the story, we all know who did it! The remainder of the novel gives us the details of the crime in the words of one of the primary participants and Hanaud's explanation of how he managed to discern the truth.
This is good look at a turn-of-the-century detective novel. There are surprises in store and a nifty bit of misdirection when it comes to the killer. I guessed half of the solution but not all, which made for a satisfying reveal. The wrap-up is rather long and drawn-out...rating this a ★★★ and 1/2 rather than a four-star effort.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
The next we hear of Miss Celia is in connection with her sponsor, Madame Dauvray. Madame Dauvray has been found strangled to death at the Villa Rose and her maid Hélène Vauquier left tied up and chloroformed in her bed. The safe which was said to be full of jewels has been looted and Madame Dauvray's bedroom ransacked. And Miss Celia has vanished. The story Hélène tells makes it very black indeed for the missing girl and the police are ready to believe that Celia was an accomplice to the robbery if not the murderer herself. But Wethermill refuses to accept the official version and begs Ricardo to help him convince Inspector Hanaud, "the cleverest of the French detectives," to take up the case. Hanaud agrees, but only after telling Wethermill, "I will take up this case. But I shall follow it to the end now, be the consequences bitter as death to you." The end will be bitter indeed...for someone.
Although Hanaud is a member of the official police force, he is very Holmes-like in his immense vanity and tendency to keep clues close to his chest--and one clue in particular that would make it much easier for the reader to begin unravel the true meaning of the events of Madame Dauvray's last night. Even when the narrative draws our attention to specific clues (the settee and its cushions, for example), Hanaud manages to play a bit of sleight-of-hand to distract us from the true meaning--all the better to display his brilliance in the explanation at the end. Ricardo plays Watson to Hanaud--slightly dim and making all the wrong inferences from the facts as presented.
One very distinctive element to this early detective novel is the inversion of the mystery--not at the beginning, but at the midpoint. The first half of the novel follows Hanaud as he tracks down clues and finally runs the criminals to earth. By the middle of the story, we all know who did it! The remainder of the novel gives us the details of the crime in the words of one of the primary participants and Hanaud's explanation of how he managed to discern the truth.
This is good look at a turn-of-the-century detective novel. There are surprises in store and a nifty bit of misdirection when it comes to the killer. I guessed half of the solution but not all, which made for a satisfying reveal. The wrap-up is rather long and drawn-out...rating this a ★★★ and 1/2 rather than a four-star effort.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
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November 28, 2016British author Alfred Edward Woodley (A.E.W.) Mason, born in 1865, spent much of his career serving in Parliament and in World War I where he worked in naval intelligence. Although his first novel was A Romance at Wastdale, Mason is credited with one of the earliest fictional police detective protagonists, Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté. The novel in which Hanaud made his debut was Murder at the Villa Rose, published in 1910.
Mason created Hanaud as an anti-Sherlock Holmes, at least in appearance, a short, broad man who resembles a "prosperous comedian." Hanaud's Watson-esque sidekick is Julius Ricardo, a fussy English dilettante. It's quite possible that Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings (or possibly Christie's Mr. Satterthwaite) were modeled on the characters of French-speaking Hanaud and Englishman Ricardo.
The plot is based loosely on real cases (a wealthy French widow found murdered in her villa and an English shopkeeper murdered for jewels), and Mason also drew on procedural details from the memoirs of French policemen. Basically, when the elderly and eccentric Mme. D'Auvray is murdered in her home, the Villa Rose, and suspicion falls on her young companion, Celia Harland who's gone missing, Hanaud is called onto the case. But Hanaud solves the crime midway through the book, with the latter half told in flashback as the readers are left to piece together what exactly happened and are challenged to guess the solution to the murder mystery from the clues provided.
Several of Mason's works were later adapted for the silver screen, including four versions of Murder at the Villa Rose, a silent film in 1920 and two "talkies" from 1930 (one in English, one in French), and another in 1940. Mason went on to write four other books featuring Inspector Hanaud, but he's perhaps best known for his novel The Four Feathers (not a crime fiction novel per se), which is one of the most-filmed novels of the 20th century, including the latest incarnation from 2002 with Heath Ledger in the role of Harry Feversham.
A few interesting trivia bits about Mason: England's King George V was a friend and one of his most avid readers; although Mason penned little in the way of spy stories, he was a successful agent for years in Spain and Northern Mexico (it's said he may have foiled a German plot to move anthrax infected livestock into France during WWI); Mason was a failed actor, although he appeared in a small number of works on the London stage during the late 1880s; his story "The Crystal Trench" was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, one of the few episodes directed by Hitchcock himself; and Mason was offered a knighthood for his literary work, but declined it, saying such honors meant nothing to a childless man.
Mason created Hanaud as an anti-Sherlock Holmes, at least in appearance, a short, broad man who resembles a "prosperous comedian." Hanaud's Watson-esque sidekick is Julius Ricardo, a fussy English dilettante. It's quite possible that Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings (or possibly Christie's Mr. Satterthwaite) were modeled on the characters of French-speaking Hanaud and Englishman Ricardo.
The plot is based loosely on real cases (a wealthy French widow found murdered in her villa and an English shopkeeper murdered for jewels), and Mason also drew on procedural details from the memoirs of French policemen. Basically, when the elderly and eccentric Mme. D'Auvray is murdered in her home, the Villa Rose, and suspicion falls on her young companion, Celia Harland who's gone missing, Hanaud is called onto the case. But Hanaud solves the crime midway through the book, with the latter half told in flashback as the readers are left to piece together what exactly happened and are challenged to guess the solution to the murder mystery from the clues provided.
Several of Mason's works were later adapted for the silver screen, including four versions of Murder at the Villa Rose, a silent film in 1920 and two "talkies" from 1930 (one in English, one in French), and another in 1940. Mason went on to write four other books featuring Inspector Hanaud, but he's perhaps best known for his novel The Four Feathers (not a crime fiction novel per se), which is one of the most-filmed novels of the 20th century, including the latest incarnation from 2002 with Heath Ledger in the role of Harry Feversham.
A few interesting trivia bits about Mason: England's King George V was a friend and one of his most avid readers; although Mason penned little in the way of spy stories, he was a successful agent for years in Spain and Northern Mexico (it's said he may have foiled a German plot to move anthrax infected livestock into France during WWI); Mason was a failed actor, although he appeared in a small number of works on the London stage during the late 1880s; his story "The Crystal Trench" was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, one of the few episodes directed by Hitchcock himself; and Mason was offered a knighthood for his literary work, but declined it, saying such honors meant nothing to a childless man.
August 17, 2017
It's a fun read with an interesting plot and characters well developed, classically non offensive. Pleasantly performed & clearly narrated. Recommended.
December 14, 2024
The story was good, I liked the suspense and the list of suspects, and the way the author used elements such like French history and seances.
It was also interesting when Inspector Hanaud explained how he interpreted the various clues, though we are revealed about the killer a bit too early.
However, I'm not sure I really like Hanaud's personality. Like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot (inspired by Hanaud), he doesn't want to reveal early to his sidekick the clues he's found, but to my taste, he repeats way too often that he is "the captain of the ship".
He sounds even too arrogant. But this impression could also be the result of the narrator's tone and voice.
I think I'll try volume two in the series
It was also interesting when Inspector Hanaud explained how he interpreted the various clues, though we are revealed about the killer a bit too early.
However, I'm not sure I really like Hanaud's personality. Like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot (inspired by Hanaud), he doesn't want to reveal early to his sidekick the clues he's found, but to my taste, he repeats way too often that he is "the captain of the ship".
He sounds even too arrogant. But this impression could also be the result of the narrator's tone and voice.
I think I'll try volume two in the series
March 17, 2023
Really two and a half stars. Not a fan of the Sherlock Holmes-like detective. The mystery was solved 3/4 through the story, with a very long and detailed confession taking up the rest of the book. I don't really like that type of mystery writing.
April 11, 2021
Villain or victim?
Mr Julius Ricardo is enjoying himself at the casino in Aux-les-Bains, people-watching. This night the person he’s most interested in is a beautiful young girl, who at first seems to be in the depths of despair. Later in the evening, Ricardo sees her again with a friend of his, Harry Wethermill, and now she appears to be quite happy, and the two give every indication of being very much in love. So Ricardo is duly shocked when Wethermill rushes into his room a couple of mornings later to beg for Ricardo’s help. A wealthy elderly widow, Mme Dauvray, has been found murdered and Celia Harland, the beautiful girl who, it transpires, was Mme Dauvray’s companion, is missing. Everything points to Celia having been in cahoots with the murderer and having made off with Mme Dauvray’s fabulous jewellery collection. But Wethermill cannot believe this of her, and begs Ricardo to use his influence with another friend, Inspector Hanaud of the Paris Sûreté, to take on the case…
This was first published in 1910, before the standard Golden Age mystery formula of crime-investigation-solution had been fully developed, and so the structure is odd and a bit disjointed. Here, we get the crime, followed by Hanaud brilliantly catching those responsible. Then, as a kind of lengthy epilogue, we are taken back into the past and shown what happened in a narrative supposedly developed from the various witness testimonies. After that, Hanaud briefly tells Ricardo how he worked it out, but by that time the reader ought to have spotted all the clues for herself, so it’s a bit of an anti-climax.
Despite this “lop-sided” structure, as Martin Edwards describes it in his The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, the long section where we see the crime unfold before our eyes manages to be dark and tense even though we know the outcome. The characterisation of the victim, villains and suspects is very well done, and there’s a real sense of innocence meeting evil.
Mme Dauvray is a kindly soul with lots of money, and so is often taken advantage of. She is a believer in spiritualism, and her long-serving maid and confidante operates as a kind of guard-dog, keeping away those who would prey on the widow. But when Mme Dauvray takes a fancy to Celia, who is an accomplished medium, and moves her in as a favoured companion, the maid is not unnaturally jealous. Her description to the police of Celia as a calculating fraud is wildly at variance with Wethermill’s idealised picture of her as a lovely innocent – it’s up to Hanaud and the reader to decide who’s right. However it’s obvious that the crime involved more than one person, so even if Celia was involved, there’s still a mystery as to who were her accomplices.
The investigators aren’t quite such good characters in my view. Inspector Hanaud and Ricardo, who quickly becomes his sidekick, are rather caricatured versions of Holmes and Watson (far more than Poirot and Hastings, in my opinion, although it has been suggested they gave Christie the inspiration for her characters). But Hanaud is one of those superior detectives who likes nothing more than to humiliate his sidekick, and since I felt Ricardo didn’t deserve it (even though he is pretty dense sometimes), I found it hard to like Hanaud. However, we do get to see the clues that allow Hanaud to identify the culprits so it ought to be possible to work it out. By chance I happened on the right suspect, but for all the wrong reasons, so I don’t feel I can take much credit for it! The solution, although credible, isn’t straightforward, so that even when we discover halfway through whodunit, there’s still plenty left to reveal.
Undoubtedly it could have been improved by changing the structure, but fortunately I enjoyed the second half – the storytelling of the crime – more than the first half, so felt far more warmly towards it in the end than I initially thought I might. I believe Mason wrote several Hanaud books, and I’d be happy to meet him again.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Mr Julius Ricardo is enjoying himself at the casino in Aux-les-Bains, people-watching. This night the person he’s most interested in is a beautiful young girl, who at first seems to be in the depths of despair. Later in the evening, Ricardo sees her again with a friend of his, Harry Wethermill, and now she appears to be quite happy, and the two give every indication of being very much in love. So Ricardo is duly shocked when Wethermill rushes into his room a couple of mornings later to beg for Ricardo’s help. A wealthy elderly widow, Mme Dauvray, has been found murdered and Celia Harland, the beautiful girl who, it transpires, was Mme Dauvray’s companion, is missing. Everything points to Celia having been in cahoots with the murderer and having made off with Mme Dauvray’s fabulous jewellery collection. But Wethermill cannot believe this of her, and begs Ricardo to use his influence with another friend, Inspector Hanaud of the Paris Sûreté, to take on the case…
This was first published in 1910, before the standard Golden Age mystery formula of crime-investigation-solution had been fully developed, and so the structure is odd and a bit disjointed. Here, we get the crime, followed by Hanaud brilliantly catching those responsible. Then, as a kind of lengthy epilogue, we are taken back into the past and shown what happened in a narrative supposedly developed from the various witness testimonies. After that, Hanaud briefly tells Ricardo how he worked it out, but by that time the reader ought to have spotted all the clues for herself, so it’s a bit of an anti-climax.
Despite this “lop-sided” structure, as Martin Edwards describes it in his The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, the long section where we see the crime unfold before our eyes manages to be dark and tense even though we know the outcome. The characterisation of the victim, villains and suspects is very well done, and there’s a real sense of innocence meeting evil.
Mme Dauvray is a kindly soul with lots of money, and so is often taken advantage of. She is a believer in spiritualism, and her long-serving maid and confidante operates as a kind of guard-dog, keeping away those who would prey on the widow. But when Mme Dauvray takes a fancy to Celia, who is an accomplished medium, and moves her in as a favoured companion, the maid is not unnaturally jealous. Her description to the police of Celia as a calculating fraud is wildly at variance with Wethermill’s idealised picture of her as a lovely innocent – it’s up to Hanaud and the reader to decide who’s right. However it’s obvious that the crime involved more than one person, so even if Celia was involved, there’s still a mystery as to who were her accomplices.
The investigators aren’t quite such good characters in my view. Inspector Hanaud and Ricardo, who quickly becomes his sidekick, are rather caricatured versions of Holmes and Watson (far more than Poirot and Hastings, in my opinion, although it has been suggested they gave Christie the inspiration for her characters). But Hanaud is one of those superior detectives who likes nothing more than to humiliate his sidekick, and since I felt Ricardo didn’t deserve it (even though he is pretty dense sometimes), I found it hard to like Hanaud. However, we do get to see the clues that allow Hanaud to identify the culprits so it ought to be possible to work it out. By chance I happened on the right suspect, but for all the wrong reasons, so I don’t feel I can take much credit for it! The solution, although credible, isn’t straightforward, so that even when we discover halfway through whodunit, there’s still plenty left to reveal.
Undoubtedly it could have been improved by changing the structure, but fortunately I enjoyed the second half – the storytelling of the crime – more than the first half, so felt far more warmly towards it in the end than I initially thought I might. I believe Mason wrote several Hanaud books, and I’d be happy to meet him again.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
May 20, 2019
I almost sprung for 3 stars, but...
A.E.W Mason is one of those transitional writers occupying the period in between Victorian Mystery and Golden Age mystery. Doyle had written most of his Holmes stories, but Christie hadn't yet written any Hercule Poirot mysteries when Mason's Detective Hanaud showed up on the scene. As such, Mason's work (at least as far as this book indicates) is a hybrid. The detective has access to some information that the reader does not a la Holmes, but the reader is also better acquainted with a somewhat broad class of potential suspects a la Christie.
But Villa Rose falls down in a couple of ways. First, it's predictable. The whodunnit is never particularly in doubt. Granted this is an older book, so we can give it some leeway, but I have to imagine that any intelligent reader in 1910 would have had a strong suspicion of the solution. And it is clear that the author intends that the reader should be in the dark.
Secondly, Villa Rose, much like Study in Scarlet, solves the mystery halfway through and proceeds thereon only to explain the affair- twice! First, we get a third person view of the events as they are experienced by some of the characters. Then we get Hanaud going over the broad events again. It feels tedious, repetitive, and mostly unenlightening. Essentially, Christie could have covered in 10 pages what Mason plods through in 80.
Now, being a Golden Age guy (mystery should be fair and solvable by the reader), I'm inclined to compare it to those works. I'd admit that to be unfair given the time those later writers had to innovate and hone the craft. However. E.C. Bentley would writer Trent's Last Case in 1913, and three years earlier, Gaston Leroux (of Phantom of the Opera fame) had written The Mystery of the Yellow room. Both of those books are far superior to this one and carry most of the hallmarks of Golden Age works. And so, sandwiched between two better books, I can't give this a pass. 2 stars it is.
A.E.W Mason is one of those transitional writers occupying the period in between Victorian Mystery and Golden Age mystery. Doyle had written most of his Holmes stories, but Christie hadn't yet written any Hercule Poirot mysteries when Mason's Detective Hanaud showed up on the scene. As such, Mason's work (at least as far as this book indicates) is a hybrid. The detective has access to some information that the reader does not a la Holmes, but the reader is also better acquainted with a somewhat broad class of potential suspects a la Christie.
But Villa Rose falls down in a couple of ways. First, it's predictable. The whodunnit is never particularly in doubt. Granted this is an older book, so we can give it some leeway, but I have to imagine that any intelligent reader in 1910 would have had a strong suspicion of the solution. And it is clear that the author intends that the reader should be in the dark.
Secondly, Villa Rose, much like Study in Scarlet, solves the mystery halfway through and proceeds thereon only to explain the affair- twice! First, we get a third person view of the events as they are experienced by some of the characters. Then we get Hanaud going over the broad events again. It feels tedious, repetitive, and mostly unenlightening. Essentially, Christie could have covered in 10 pages what Mason plods through in 80.
Now, being a Golden Age guy (mystery should be fair and solvable by the reader), I'm inclined to compare it to those works. I'd admit that to be unfair given the time those later writers had to innovate and hone the craft. However. E.C. Bentley would writer Trent's Last Case in 1913, and three years earlier, Gaston Leroux (of Phantom of the Opera fame) had written The Mystery of the Yellow room. Both of those books are far superior to this one and carry most of the hallmarks of Golden Age works. And so, sandwiched between two better books, I can't give this a pass. 2 stars it is.
December 23, 2016
I know that Mason was a pioneer in the genre of the British version of the French inspector of superior intelligence solving crimes--a precursor to Poirot and a descendant of the un-French Holmes (evidenced by his Ricardo, i.e. Watson). However, I think I have become tired of country house mysteries and can't read them anymore, even if they do take place on the French Riviera. Mason did a good job with his delineation of his characters and his plotting, as another reviewer has very aptly observed. I might now read his oft mentioned "Four Feathers". I wouldn't mind if I'm wandering in the woods and happen upon a deserted cabin and Villa Rose was the only reading material available to pick it up and read it if I hadn't read it before.
April 7, 2019
A fun little mystery written at the very beginning of the twentieth century, looking forward to work by later writers like Agatha Christie. The main detective is very reminiscent of Poirot, and Ricardo, with his eager interest in the crime and persistent misreading of the clues that allows the detective to show off at his expense, looks forward to Hastings, Poirot’s companion in the early Christie books.
Want to read
April 8, 2022Discussed in Martin Edwards’s The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books.
Want to read
March 31, 2019Synopsis: Hanaud goes to the Villa Rose near Geneva where a widow has been murdered for her jewels - high adventure, a casino, and blind love.
July 22, 2017
A very nice whodunit with (my opinion) the prototype for Colombo. Detective Hanaud is an early example of the quirky policeman that Peter Falk brought to TV so well. The guilt of one suspect is fairly obvious, but the twist in the final act is deftly done.
If you can find a copy, this book is definitely worth your time in tracking it down.
Read it!
If you can find a copy, this book is definitely worth your time in tracking it down.
Read it!
February 10, 2020
Poche pagine, soltanto 150 pag circa, per un giallo che mi ha stupito. Ho fatto la scoperta dell'ispettore Gabriel Hanaud che nonostante i suoi modi queruli e pomposi si è dimostrato l'unico a poter risolvere il caso scavalcando con la sua arguzia i diversi aiutanti alla Watson accanto a lui. Il romanzo si apre con l'omicidio di una anziana donna ricca e credulona avvenuto nel suo salotto durante una seduta spiritica allo scopo di derubarla dei suoi gioielli. Con lei vi era Celia, la sua dama di compagnia che successivamente al ritrovamento del cadavere sparisce misteriosamente, mentre al piano di sopra la donna delle pulizie viene ritrovata legata e addormentata con il cloroformio. Ma altri personaggi gravitano intorno al delitto.
Sinceramente mi è piaciuto tantissimo e si è dimostrato di veloce lettura.
Sinceramente mi è piaciuto tantissimo e si è dimostrato di veloce lettura.
August 17, 2022
At the Villa Rose by A.E.W. Mason, initially published in 1910, is a mystery novel in which Major Mason introduced his French detective, Inspector Hanaud, who was an early template for Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot. Missing jewels, high adventure some one hundred and fifty kilometers from Geneva, a casino, and blind love are all factors in a complex case for Hanaud, which ultimately involves a gang of frightened murderers. If you enjoy deductive mysteries like me, I highly recommend At the Villa Rose.
The Goodreads summary,
In Aix les Bains during the early 20th century, Celia Harland, a beautiful (of course) young English girl down on her luck, is befriended by a wealthy widow, Madame Dauvray, an addict of "spiritualism," and stages seances for her benefactrix, while knowing full well that the supposed manifestations from the spirit world are entirely bogus. This set-up supplies the opportunity for a criminal gang master-minded by Madame Dauvray's maid, with their eyes on the widow's jewelry collection, to engineer an introduction for one of their numbers, Adele Tacé ("Rossignol"), whose taunts of disbelief goad the old lady into allowing a seance to be held which, unsuspected by either Celia or her patron, will be the cover for murder and robbery.
The crux of the plot is that as a medium, Celia will be made their innocent victim, on whom suspicion is to be planted.
The Goodreads summary,
In Aix les Bains during the early 20th century, Celia Harland, a beautiful (of course) young English girl down on her luck, is befriended by a wealthy widow, Madame Dauvray, an addict of "spiritualism," and stages seances for her benefactrix, while knowing full well that the supposed manifestations from the spirit world are entirely bogus. This set-up supplies the opportunity for a criminal gang master-minded by Madame Dauvray's maid, with their eyes on the widow's jewelry collection, to engineer an introduction for one of their numbers, Adele Tacé ("Rossignol"), whose taunts of disbelief goad the old lady into allowing a seance to be held which, unsuspected by either Celia or her patron, will be the cover for murder and robbery.
The crux of the plot is that as a medium, Celia will be made their innocent victim, on whom suspicion is to be planted.
February 17, 2019
A good mystery. I liked the Inspector Hanaud who was a bit arrogant at times and would not tell the amateurs who were with him at he really thought after all he was the captain of the ship. I also liked Mr. Ricardo, whose's point of view the story is told through. He gets annoyed with the Inspector for holding back on his thoughts, after all Mr. Ricardo shared all his thoughts. He also gets a thrill from being at the center of the action and where no other civilian gets to be. He is big enough not to brag about it but inside there is a little boy jumping up and down saying see, where I am.
The mystery had many red herrings and convoluted twist. What I didn't enjoy was the length of the explanation at the end. It went on far too long. If that had been condensed it would have been a stronger book.
The mystery had many red herrings and convoluted twist. What I didn't enjoy was the length of the explanation at the end. It went on far too long. If that had been condensed it would have been a stronger book.
April 14, 2016
A fine little story with an unexpected twist.
Over-explanatory and detailed, but not more so than characterises the genre at the time of writing.
Over-explanatory and detailed, but not more so than characterises the genre at the time of writing.
December 10, 2020
“At the Villa Rose” (Inspector Hanaud #1) by A.E.W. Mason. Genre: Early detective novel. Location: Aix les Bains, France and Geneva, Switzerland. Time: approximately 1910. Note: This novel was written after Conan Doyle wrote most of his Sherlock Holmes books, and before Agatha Christie created her Belgium detective Hercule Poirot.-
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Main Characters:-
M. Ricardo-a rich man spending leisure time at Aix les Bains. He loves being around celebrity happenings.-
Harry Wethersfield-a young man who made his fortune through inventions. In Aix les Bains to win back some of the patent money he squandered.-
Mlle.Celia. A beautiful, rags-to-riches young woman who appears naive, but is quite experienced in deception.-
Madame Dauvray-rich widow who loves expensive jewels. She is Celia’s patron.-
Inspector Hanaud of the Paris Surete. In Aix les Bains on vacation, he is persuaded by M. Ricardo to investigate a death.-
Helene: Dour, middle-aged maid of Madame Dauvray.-
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Amid the glamour of the Villa Fleurs casino in Aix les Bains, a rich woman is addicted to spiritualism. Her young companion encourages this by conducting seances for her. Then the rich woman is murdered in her home, the Villa Rose, and her young companion disappears. Inspector Hanaud’s investigation turns up many red herrings and conflicting clues. Who killed her? Who is innocent, who is guilty? The 1st half of the book searches for clues, the 2nd half explains details after the fact.-
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Inspector Hanaud is clever, insightful, and keeps his findings close. He is also egotistical and mean-spirited to his companions. I prefer Christie’s Hercule Poirot who is also egotistical, but kinder to those who can’t see clues so clearly. It’s 3 stars from me for this historical detective. 🌵📚👩🏼🦳”
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Main Characters:-
M. Ricardo-a rich man spending leisure time at Aix les Bains. He loves being around celebrity happenings.-
Harry Wethersfield-a young man who made his fortune through inventions. In Aix les Bains to win back some of the patent money he squandered.-
Mlle.Celia. A beautiful, rags-to-riches young woman who appears naive, but is quite experienced in deception.-
Madame Dauvray-rich widow who loves expensive jewels. She is Celia’s patron.-
Inspector Hanaud of the Paris Surete. In Aix les Bains on vacation, he is persuaded by M. Ricardo to investigate a death.-
Helene: Dour, middle-aged maid of Madame Dauvray.-
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Amid the glamour of the Villa Fleurs casino in Aix les Bains, a rich woman is addicted to spiritualism. Her young companion encourages this by conducting seances for her. Then the rich woman is murdered in her home, the Villa Rose, and her young companion disappears. Inspector Hanaud’s investigation turns up many red herrings and conflicting clues. Who killed her? Who is innocent, who is guilty? The 1st half of the book searches for clues, the 2nd half explains details after the fact.-
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Inspector Hanaud is clever, insightful, and keeps his findings close. He is also egotistical and mean-spirited to his companions. I prefer Christie’s Hercule Poirot who is also egotistical, but kinder to those who can’t see clues so clearly. It’s 3 stars from me for this historical detective. 🌵📚👩🏼🦳”
June 28, 2025
This is really two books. The first half (approximately) is a fairly cleverly set up mystery. A pretty girl in the resort town of Aix-les-Bains in France, is suspected of murdering her benefactress, a rich old lady, and stealing her fortune in jewels, just as she (the girl) is about to be engaged to a handsome, rich young man. The famous Inspector Hanaud of the Surete, although in town on vacation, agrees to take on the case at the behest of the rich young man.
Abruptly, about halfway through the book, the actual culprit is revealed.
From then on, the second half of the book is an account, in excruciating detail, of what actually happened, and how the detective figured it all out. I leafed through most of that, as I no longer cared.
This author apparently did not understand, at this point in his writing career, what is the structure of a good mystery. For example, once you give away the solution halfway through, there is very little incentive for readers to continue to the end. Most readers don't care about the intricacies of how a crime was committed or a solution detected, unless they are still trying to figure it out for themselves.
This was the debut novel for Inspector Hanaud (I think) and he seems like a worthy character with whom to continue a series. Which is a good thing, because I bought a compilation volume and it still has several more of these in it. Also, the story here has great potential for a more canny writer. I hope the author learned from this one, and that the others are correspondingly better.
Abruptly, about halfway through the book, the actual culprit is revealed.
From then on, the second half of the book is an account, in excruciating detail, of what actually happened, and how the detective figured it all out. I leafed through most of that, as I no longer cared.
This author apparently did not understand, at this point in his writing career, what is the structure of a good mystery. For example, once you give away the solution halfway through, there is very little incentive for readers to continue to the end. Most readers don't care about the intricacies of how a crime was committed or a solution detected, unless they are still trying to figure it out for themselves.
This was the debut novel for Inspector Hanaud (I think) and he seems like a worthy character with whom to continue a series. Which is a good thing, because I bought a compilation volume and it still has several more of these in it. Also, the story here has great potential for a more canny writer. I hope the author learned from this one, and that the others are correspondingly better.
September 24, 2022
This is a 1910 mystery novel by English author Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (A.E.W. Mason) and is the first book in his Inspector Hanaud series. The setting is in late 1900s in the spa town of Aix-les-Bains in southeastern France, across the border from Geneva. It is a police procedural book and is very tightly structured. All the loose ends are tied up in the end and all clues are explained. Mason’s goal was to create a fictional detective who is the exact opposite of Sherlock Holmes. His Inspector Hanaud is “stout and broad-shouldered” and looks like a “prosperous comedian” and a Newfoundland dog; just the opposite of the tall and sleek Sherlock Holmes. Also, Hanaud is a famous professional detective with the Paris Surete (the French police), unlike Holmes, a private consulting detective. Some have suggested Hanaud is a prelude to Agatha Christie’s famous Hercules Poirot. Similar to the Poirot (who will not appear until a decade later in 1920 with The Mysterious Affair at Styles), Hanaud is very smart and vain, and is not afraid to say so. In this book, for example, Hanaud describes himself as “I, the great, the Incomparable Hanaud”, just like Poirot does so often. Similar to Holmes and Poirot, Hanaud also has his Watson, in the person of a rich retired businessman Julius Ricardo. Hanaud is also into forensics. In this book, he used various forensic technics like fabric comparison, hair sample, and soil sample and shoe imprint to help him solve his case.
The book is quite well plotted and is written with an interesting structure. It starts with the commission of the crime, the detection by the detectives involved, and the case was solved about 65% into the book. The rest are multiple chapters told from the perspectives of the criminals and a surviving victim and starts from the genesis of the plot until the crime’s commission. Overall, I think this two-part structure is an interesting one. It is similar to (but a big improvement from) the one used by Emile Gaboriau in Monsieur Lecoq and by Arthur Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet, where the crime and its solution are dealt with in the first half of the book, and the old history that led to the commission of the crime is dealt with in the second half as if it is a totally separate story.
Spoiler Alert. This is the story of how a master criminal plotted an ingenious scheme to rob and murder a gullible and naïve woman and tried to frame a young pretty girl for the crime. Villa Rose is the name of the villa in Aix-les-Bains where the murder victim Madam Camille Dauvray was staying in. Madam Camille Dauvray was a rich old lady who was very impressionable, kind and superstitious. For years, she has lived with her maid Helene Vauquier. Recently, Dauvray ran into a young, pretty, poor and destitute English girl called Celia Harland in Montmartre in Paris. Celia was a skilled impromptu performer and knew how to play a séance medium very well. Dauvray, who was very much into fortune-telling and squandered a lot of money on fortune-tellers, became interested in séance and took Celia in as a companion to live with her. Unlike the fortune-tellers who tried to take advantage of Dauvray financially (and paid kickbacks to Vauquier), Celia did not trick Dauvray for money although Dauvray did dress Celia very well and showered her with expensive jewelry. That made the old servant Vauquier very jealous, feeling she has been replaced by Celia. Vanquier, who is very smart, came up with an ingenious plan to rob the extremely valuable jewelry collection of Dauvray and frame the robbery and murder of Dauvray on Celia. Vanquier enlisted the help of Harry Wethermill, a dashing young inventor who looked rich but is actually broke. She also got a family of three career criminals from nearby Geneva to help (mother Jeanne Tace, son Hippolyte Tace and Hippolyte’s wife Adele Tace). Vanquier also invented a very complicated setup to frame Celia. On one fateful Tuesday evening, Adele Tace, who has become a recent acquaintance of Dauvray and pretended to be a séance skeptic, was invited by Dauvray to Villa Rose so Celia can demonstrate her skill as a medium in a séance. Vanquier and Adele took that opportunity to tie Celia up, and then Wethermill showed up and strangled Dauvray for the gang. After that, they opened Dauvray’s safe and was shocked to find that her jewelry collection was not inside. At that time, a policeman stopped by on his routine beat, and that scared the criminals to leave the premises. They kidnapped Celia to Geneva, thinking she knew where the jewels were hidden. In the meantime, Vanquier played a victim and was tied up, waiting to be discovered by the police. The criminals did a good job laying out various clues that led the police to initially believe Celia was behind the scheme and it was her who killed Dauvray and has now fled with the jewelry. Soon, Inspector Hanaud (who was on vacation in town) was called in to help. He soon realized the crime was planned by someone with brain and daring. Not long thereafter, Hanaud discovered the jewels were actually hidden below some secret floorboard in Dauvray’s bedroom and the criminals have failed to find them. At first, the evidence look very black against Celia. She was the one who disappeared, she was the one who told the chauffeur to take the night off, her shoe prints were outside the house, and she was identified as the one who bought the rope that was used to strangle Dauvray. She was initially the focus of the investigation.
By examining the car of Dauvray (which was found stolen and later recovered), Hanaud correctly surmised that the criminals have fled to the nearby Geneva and he used Ricardo’s name to advertise for information on Celia with a huge reward. When a witness called Marthe Gobin came forward, she was murdered by Wethermill before she got a chance to tell her tale. Fortunately for Hanaud, she also wrote a letter to Ricardo which told everything she saw, which led Hanaud to raid the Tace house in Geneva and rescued the kidnapped Celia. Soon after, the whole plot was unraveled and every planted clue against Celia that initially led police to believe Celia was the murderer was discredited. All the criminals were subsequently caught.
The book is quite well plotted and is written with an interesting structure. It starts with the commission of the crime, the detection by the detectives involved, and the case was solved about 65% into the book. The rest are multiple chapters told from the perspectives of the criminals and a surviving victim and starts from the genesis of the plot until the crime’s commission. Overall, I think this two-part structure is an interesting one. It is similar to (but a big improvement from) the one used by Emile Gaboriau in Monsieur Lecoq and by Arthur Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet, where the crime and its solution are dealt with in the first half of the book, and the old history that led to the commission of the crime is dealt with in the second half as if it is a totally separate story.
Spoiler Alert. This is the story of how a master criminal plotted an ingenious scheme to rob and murder a gullible and naïve woman and tried to frame a young pretty girl for the crime. Villa Rose is the name of the villa in Aix-les-Bains where the murder victim Madam Camille Dauvray was staying in. Madam Camille Dauvray was a rich old lady who was very impressionable, kind and superstitious. For years, she has lived with her maid Helene Vauquier. Recently, Dauvray ran into a young, pretty, poor and destitute English girl called Celia Harland in Montmartre in Paris. Celia was a skilled impromptu performer and knew how to play a séance medium very well. Dauvray, who was very much into fortune-telling and squandered a lot of money on fortune-tellers, became interested in séance and took Celia in as a companion to live with her. Unlike the fortune-tellers who tried to take advantage of Dauvray financially (and paid kickbacks to Vauquier), Celia did not trick Dauvray for money although Dauvray did dress Celia very well and showered her with expensive jewelry. That made the old servant Vauquier very jealous, feeling she has been replaced by Celia. Vanquier, who is very smart, came up with an ingenious plan to rob the extremely valuable jewelry collection of Dauvray and frame the robbery and murder of Dauvray on Celia. Vanquier enlisted the help of Harry Wethermill, a dashing young inventor who looked rich but is actually broke. She also got a family of three career criminals from nearby Geneva to help (mother Jeanne Tace, son Hippolyte Tace and Hippolyte’s wife Adele Tace). Vanquier also invented a very complicated setup to frame Celia. On one fateful Tuesday evening, Adele Tace, who has become a recent acquaintance of Dauvray and pretended to be a séance skeptic, was invited by Dauvray to Villa Rose so Celia can demonstrate her skill as a medium in a séance. Vanquier and Adele took that opportunity to tie Celia up, and then Wethermill showed up and strangled Dauvray for the gang. After that, they opened Dauvray’s safe and was shocked to find that her jewelry collection was not inside. At that time, a policeman stopped by on his routine beat, and that scared the criminals to leave the premises. They kidnapped Celia to Geneva, thinking she knew where the jewels were hidden. In the meantime, Vanquier played a victim and was tied up, waiting to be discovered by the police. The criminals did a good job laying out various clues that led the police to initially believe Celia was behind the scheme and it was her who killed Dauvray and has now fled with the jewelry. Soon, Inspector Hanaud (who was on vacation in town) was called in to help. He soon realized the crime was planned by someone with brain and daring. Not long thereafter, Hanaud discovered the jewels were actually hidden below some secret floorboard in Dauvray’s bedroom and the criminals have failed to find them. At first, the evidence look very black against Celia. She was the one who disappeared, she was the one who told the chauffeur to take the night off, her shoe prints were outside the house, and she was identified as the one who bought the rope that was used to strangle Dauvray. She was initially the focus of the investigation.
By examining the car of Dauvray (which was found stolen and later recovered), Hanaud correctly surmised that the criminals have fled to the nearby Geneva and he used Ricardo’s name to advertise for information on Celia with a huge reward. When a witness called Marthe Gobin came forward, she was murdered by Wethermill before she got a chance to tell her tale. Fortunately for Hanaud, she also wrote a letter to Ricardo which told everything she saw, which led Hanaud to raid the Tace house in Geneva and rescued the kidnapped Celia. Soon after, the whole plot was unraveled and every planted clue against Celia that initially led police to believe Celia was the murderer was discredited. All the criminals were subsequently caught.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2021
Un bel giallo di inizio novecento, ben scritto e gradevole.
Un’anziana signora appassionata di spiritismo viene trovata morta nella sua villa in Savoia, e la giovane e graziosa medium che vive con lei è sparita; ma sulle montagne savoiarde si trova in vacanza quel grande istrione dell’ispettore Hanaud, che risolve con prontezza e sagacia il caso.
Ha qualche pecca legata al periodo in cui fu composto, un poco prolisso specie nella spiegazione finale, e abbastanza prevedibile per il lettore esperto, ma è comunque una lettura godibile, specie per il personaggio dell’ispettore Hanaud, che ho trovato una specie di bozza di quello che sarà il futuro Poirot della Christie, con qualche differenza caratteriale ma con lo stesso senso di superiorità che però è reso dall’autore in modo brillante e divertente, con un pizzico di umorismo. Un amico afferma che La casa della freccia ha tutti i pregi di questo, senza i difetti. Ma al momento non l’ho letto
Un’anziana signora appassionata di spiritismo viene trovata morta nella sua villa in Savoia, e la giovane e graziosa medium che vive con lei è sparita; ma sulle montagne savoiarde si trova in vacanza quel grande istrione dell’ispettore Hanaud, che risolve con prontezza e sagacia il caso.
Ha qualche pecca legata al periodo in cui fu composto, un poco prolisso specie nella spiegazione finale, e abbastanza prevedibile per il lettore esperto, ma è comunque una lettura godibile, specie per il personaggio dell’ispettore Hanaud, che ho trovato una specie di bozza di quello che sarà il futuro Poirot della Christie, con qualche differenza caratteriale ma con lo stesso senso di superiorità che però è reso dall’autore in modo brillante e divertente, con un pizzico di umorismo. Un amico afferma che La casa della freccia ha tutti i pregi di questo, senza i difetti. Ma al momento non l’ho letto
January 25, 2026
Mme. D'Auvray, a wealthy widow, has a maid and a chauffeur and then adds a young companion, Celie Harland, to her household. During her vacation at the Villa Rose, Mme. D'Auvray is murdered, and Inspector Hanaud comes from Paris to investigate the crime. Suspects include her maid and her companion. The detective, M. Hanaud, is a compelling character. The reader is allowed to see everything that the detective sees but must interpret the clues alone, as the detective does not explain his methods until after the crime has been investigated. Instructive narrative about human nature and also entertaining.
September 28, 2022
3.5 - You can see the early stages of the modern detective story really emerging here, and with a French detective, a glimpse of what Agatha Christie's Poirot will become a decade later (although of course, he is Belgian). The ending felt a little different than later stories with the amount of time spent walking through revealing how the crime was committed in great detail.
I would read more of these to see how the character of Hanaud is developed.
I would read more of these to see how the character of Hanaud is developed.
March 6, 2025
An unusual structure for a mystery story: the criminals are identified and captured just over half-way through the book, after which we get a (rather horrific) sequential account of how their crime unfolded. They're cruel and brutal, and honestly it's more than I bargained for. Then a chapter or two of how the detective figured it out.
It's a clever crime cleverly detected, but too dark for me.
It's a clever crime cleverly detected, but too dark for me.
June 22, 2017
(I read the ebook from manybooks.net; it was filled with typos.) Not exactly what we expect out of a mystery novel today, though there is a murder, and there is a detective, and he does detect. It's a little like having two novels: the first part is the detective detecting; the last part is a detailed recreation of the crime. The characters are fairly complex, but the crime is very simple.
October 17, 2020
Mystery classic
The first Insp Hanaud mystery, and a good one. Well-clued, sound motivations, interesting and plausible characters. Hanaud is not a particularly strong personality here, but that serves the story well: the main point of interest is the people involved in the crime.
The first Insp Hanaud mystery, and a good one. Well-clued, sound motivations, interesting and plausible characters. Hanaud is not a particularly strong personality here, but that serves the story well: the main point of interest is the people involved in the crime.
November 9, 2022
A surprisingly smart mystery that feels very modern in its layout: the talented detective, the deductive reasoning, and the double-crossing - didn't see the twist coming! I thought the author also made really good use of setting. I'm a little surprised this author /series seem to have fallen out of favor, as it seemed well-done.
January 4, 2023
[3,5/5]
Klasyka kryminału na przyzwoitym poziomie. Inspektor Hanaud i jego przyjaciel Julius Ricardo w roli detektywów próbujących rozwiązać zagadkę morderstwa pani Dauvray, zamożnej właścicielki tytułowej Willi Róż. W tle tajemnicze seanse spirytystyczne.
Zbyt mocno rozwinięta część książki, stanowiąca rozwiązanie zagadki.
Klasyka kryminału na przyzwoitym poziomie. Inspektor Hanaud i jego przyjaciel Julius Ricardo w roli detektywów próbujących rozwiązać zagadkę morderstwa pani Dauvray, zamożnej właścicielki tytułowej Willi Róż. W tle tajemnicze seanse spirytystyczne.
Zbyt mocno rozwinięta część książki, stanowiąca rozwiązanie zagadki.
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