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Cover of The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

The Circular Staircase

  • 255 pages ยท about 4 hours
  • First published 1908
  • 182 editions
  • Free to read

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1 About this book

This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.

For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-by to my friends, and, after watching their perspiring hegira, had settled down to a delicious quiet in town, where the mail comes three times a day, and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof.

Good for readers who want: a classic, a mystery, and a book they can read free online.

  • Classics
  • Mystery
  • Thrillers
  • Crime
  • Adirondack mountains
  • Middle-aged women
  • Investigation
  • Country homes

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3 About Mary Roberts Rinehart

1876โ€“1958

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 โ€“ September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. Rinehart published her first mystery novel, The Circular Staircase, in 1908, which introduced the "had I but known" narrative style.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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