MARY ROBERTS RINEHART – The Yellow Room

Dell 9790; paperback reprint, later printing, April 1971. Hardcover, first edition: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945. Previously (?) published as an eight-part serial in The Saturday Evening Post, September 28 through October 27, 1945. Cassell & Co., UK hardcover, 1949; Thriller Book Club, UK hardcover, 1950.

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Bestseller B95, digest pb, 1947. Bantam 314, pb, April 1949. Other Dell paperback editions include: Dell D179, 1956; Dell 9790, October 1962; Dell 9790, 1967. Also: Zebra (Kensington), pb, 1973, 1988, 1990 (3rd pr.), 1991, 1996 (5th pr.). Included in Mary Roberts Rinehart: Three Complete Novels by America’s Mistress of Mystery [contents: The Bat, The Haunted Lady, and The Yellow Room] Zebra, pb, 1995.

   It is quite possible that I’ve missed a few editions of this book. In particular, there are at least nine listings on ABE of a hardcover edition from 1955 (Farrar & Rinehart), but whether that’s a misprint or no, I do not presently know. There may also have been a US hardcover book club edition, but with no definitive information to back this statement up, I have not included it. Suffice it to say, however, if you’d like to locate a copy of this book to read, even a hardcover edition, you shouldn’t have any trouble.

   Rinehart’s writing career, as least as far as her novels and collections are concerned, began with The Man in Lower Ten from Bobbs-Merrill in 1909, but the story’s even earlier appearance was in serialized form, in All-Story Magazine for January through April, 1906.

   According to various online sources which I haven’t attempted to verify, Rinehart suffered a severe heart attack in 1938 while living in Maine, and apparently was a semi-invalid for much of her later life. In any case, from that time on there were only four more novels to come from her pen – she never used a typewriter, according to one source – and of those, The Yellow Room is next to last. Only The Swimming Pool (1952) came later. (This statement excludes several collections of novelettes and short stories.) Still perhaps one of the most famous mystery writers of all time, Mary Roberts Rinehart died in 1958.

   Appearing after a three-year gap, following Haunted Lady in 1942, The Yellow Room was written when the author was 67, which may go a long way in explaining some apparent slippage in the her writing ability, or perhaps the flaws I saw were always present. I will have to rely on someone more familiar with her earlier work than I am to be able to say more.

   The book itself takes place in 1944, and the opening chapters go far in describing the general difficulties of life at home in wartime, what with rationing, limited travel opportunities, the absence of men except for the oldest and/or the feeblest, and the hardest of all – waiting for news of loved ones fighting (or reported missing) on the front lines. When Carol Spencer’s invalid mother wishes to move from New York City to the family’s summer home in Maine, it is up to Carol, with only three female servants to assist, to tackle the work involved in doing so.

   Little did she suspect or know – and yes, that’s the kind of book that Mrs. Rinehart is famous for writing – that she would find the house still shut up and not opened. Lucy, a local woman who is the housekeeper, she learns the next day, is in the hospital with a broken leg. Lights have been seen in the house, Carol is told, shining from the room where Lucy says she never was before her accident.

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   Another discovery occurs on page 27: Another woman is found dead in a linen closet, partially burned as if someone had been hoping to dispose of her body. When asked, Lucy’s story does not ring true; there is something she is not telling. And it is precisely here that the reader’s frustration begins, or at least they did with at least one reader: me. There are many, many questions that if asked are not answered, and there other questions that seem never to be asked, and if they were answered, at the right time and the right place, the mystery – one has the uncomfortable feeling – would, at that time and that place, simply cease to exist.

   Coming to Carol’s aid is her next-door neighbor, the worldly but still young Major Dane, who has been injured from work for US Intelligence, or so it seems. He has been recuperating in the area until deemed fit to go back to duty. The police, generally speaking, are of little or no help. Truth be said, they seem far more antagonistic toward Carol than any evidence seems to say they should be.

   By page 126 – I jotted a note to myself to this effect at this exact spot, so I am indeed able to be this precise – the facts, what there are of them, are so far muddled that the average reader, it seems to me, will either (A) have given up or (B) have shrugged their shoulders and allowed themselves to follow along, no more and no less, just to see where the author may be headed. There are 256 pages of small print, so at page 126, it is an important decision that must be made whether or not to stop or plunge on, keep going, and rely on the author’s name and reputation that the story may yet be salvaged.

   I often exaggerate, and the previous paragraph is one of those times, but not by much. Considering Major Dame, who by proximity feels himself becoming closer and closer to Carol, to be the primary detective, there are too many times when we (the reader) are not given total access to his thoughts, and too many other times when the point of view has shifted, and we (the still faithful reader) are shown scenes that Dane knows nothing about.

   Frustration, yes, but please (if you are ever the reader) keep the faith. The ending, with all of its revelations, is worth waiting for. Mrs. Rinehart has some nifty tricks up her sleeve for you. Even though the buildup to the final couple of chapters might have been more capably accomplished, and whether the end result is realistic or not, I think that even at this late stage in her career, in terms of pulling off the (almost) totally unexpected, she still had the right stuff. I feel quite justified in myself in sticking with Plan B.

— written in October 2006.


[UPDATE] 03-10-07. For more about Mary Roberts Rinehart, see Michael Grost’s informative article about her career as a writer on his extremely comprehensive Guide to Classical Mystery and Detection website.