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The Red House Mystery

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About this listen

 "Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective stories...after all that you have done for me, the least that I can do is write one." So wrote A.A. Milne, beloved creator of Winnie the Pooh, to his father, to whom he dedicated this delectable mystery.
Mark Ablett's stately mansion, the Red House, is filled with very proper guests when his most improper brother returns from Australia. The prodigal brother enters Mark's study, the parlor maid hears arguing and the brother dies...rather suddenly, with a bullet between the eyes. The study is locked from the inside and Mark is missing!
Investigating the crime is wealthy Antony Gillingham, who rivals Sherlock Holmes in his remarkable powers of observation. He is aided by the perfect Watson, his friend Bill Beverley, a cheerful young man in white flannels. Echoes of Christopher Robin and his friends chime nostalgically throughout this charming classic of detection!Public Domain (P)1999 Blackstone Audiobooks Crime Fiction Mystery Fiction Crime Detective
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I loved the narration of this enjoyable murder mystery. I’m not sure if I guessed the plot or if I might have read it as a kid but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment

Great narration

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I am from the olden days so this was a real taste of nostalgia for me. I have read most of the Agatha Christie books and Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter books and the new Lord Peter books and it was bliss to find something of that ilk but completely new.
I wish AA Milne had written a few more of these but at least he wrote this one. I even liked the narrator who had a slightly Pooh-ish quality to his voice and made the experience very much a cosy crime Investigation experience.
Very much of it’s time and relying on Poirot/Sherlockian techniques as it was written long before forensic science was a thing and even the telephone was a new fangled gadget.

Thoroughly enjoyed this.

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As the introduction explains, AA Milne wrote this book to amuse his father ? and it reads like a bit like a charade. It does have a slightly Pooh-ish quality to it, but lacks the essential humour of Pooh. It should probably be seen as a literary curiosity. However, the reading by William Sutherland is definitely on the poor side. Were this book to be read by somebody who really camped it up or even sent it up, this could be a very amusing listen. One can?t help thinking Milne intended the book to be transformed into a stage play with people in flannels coming in through French windows, and the reading needs something of that atmosphere to make it swing. Not worth going for if you pay for your books by the unit, but perhaps worth trying if you have a monthly subscription and are interested in the early history of murder stories.

A sweet book but just a bit boring

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I enjoyed this. It’s a low-key ‘Miss Marple or Miss Silver’, you don’t realise that at first. It’s a “locked room” tale and diligently told. Anthony is very convincing and Bill is more Wooster than Watson, having said that, I think that a little more animation in the narration would have enlivened the story somewhat. You ‘hear’ the missed opportunities.

Perhaps for that reason, the tale seemed rather long. I’m sure that, if I’d read it rather than listened to it, it would not have seemed pedantic.

I wonder if he wrote anymore mystery novels, because this was a great first. I shall look out for more!

Slightly lengthy, but really enjoyable

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a bit slow but definitely worth a listen as it is so different from the usual detective stories - dated obviously but then it was written in 1920

amusing and different

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