Tangled Web UK Review November 2008
The Red House Mystery by
A A Milne
hbk out November 08
Published by Vintage
at £10
This very welcome reissue by Vintage Classics is a reminder that Milne’s contribution to literature was not confined to the creation of Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and all their associates. As he remarks in the introduction he wrote for an earlier reprint, Milne had a passion for detective stories: ‘Of beer an enthusiast has said that it could never be bad, but some brands might be better than others; in the same spirit…I approach every new detective story.’
The Red House Mystery was not Milne’s only venture into crime fiction, but it was the only detective novel that he wrote. It’s a super-typical Golden Age whodunit, with a country house setting and a gentlemanly amateur detective, Antony Gillingham. As one might expect of Milne, the tale is told with a lightness of touch that remains pleasing to this day, even if the characters and setting belong to a long-gone world (or, perhaps, to a world that never quite existed.)
First published in 1922, the book won a great deal of acclaim, and its qualities have been appraised (with varying degrees of appreciation) by such later luminaries as Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler and Julian Symons. Milne joined the Detection Club and it is a shame that this book had no successors.
The production values of this edition are pleasingly high. The elegant cover depicts a trilby-wearing gunman; the internal design featuring crossed croquet mallets is a clear indication that this book is meant to be treated as a bit of fun. In the current economic climate, we could all do with some fun, and Vintage are to be congratulated for having afforded a new generation of readers the chance to sample this amiable confection from a writer who knew how to entertain.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
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