The Album

By Mary Roberts Rinehart

Book Overview

In this twisty whodunit from "the grand dame of American crime fiction" (CrimeReads), the murder of a wealthy widow brings the secrets of her aristocratic neighbors to light.

Even in the early 1930s, Crescent Place is a neighbourhood out of the past. The five Victorian mansions and the remote patch of pasture placed between them have the air of the 1890s, even as the city--once miles away from this idyllic retreat--encroaches and surrounds the enclave. But while these rarefied residences may appear calm on the outside, their isolated interiors contain dark secrets, prolonged feuds and generations of high-toned trouble.

In these houses are a husband and wife who fight constantly and another couple who hasn't spoken to each other in two decades. There is a widow in permanent mourning and a daughter whom the newspapers call psychotic. And there is a bedridden old woman who is about to be killed with an axe.

When her murder shatters the well-mannered quiet of the cul-de-sac, the tabloids delight in trumpeting Crescent Place's peculiarities. But as the search for the killer intensifies, it becomes clear that the area's strangest secrets have yet to be revealed.

A suspenseful mystery enriched by sly social satire and set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, The Album is a memorable whodunnit from one of the most beloved and best selling authors of the Golden Age era.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1613163622
• ISBN13: 9781613163627
• Release Date: December 2022
• Publisher: American Mystery Classics
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The best mystery I have ever read!

I have read The Album at least six times and it still gives me goosebumps. This book was Rinehart at her best. If you want a good read and a good scare, this is the book for you but don;t read it alone at night. Trust me.

The ultimate mystery!

I have read The Album at least six times and it never ceases to scare the daylights out of me. It is by far the best mystery I have ever read. Mrs. Reinhart was the master of the "if only I had known" school of writing. If you haven't read this book, you should hunt until you find it. You won't be sorry.

Classic stuff from a great mystery writer

I've read all of Mary Roberts Rinehart's mysteries I could get my hands on (many are out of print). She's a good cross between the golden age mystery writers who could write, (Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh) and those who could plot, (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr). Of the Rineharts I could find, The Album is my favorite. The setting is upper crusty, the delicate manners of the characters blow up fairly regularly, the murder is preposterously bloody and the romance that blooms in the middle of it all is so sweet you can almost smell the lavender rising from the page. It's a set piece from another age, which is the whole point, I guess. People have servants! People have so much money that nobody works! The chauffeur lives over the garage and wears green livery! We should all live like that, but the narrator gives it to you matter-of-factly, only going into the vapors over the murder mystery, which is a good one. If you read to escape, go here.