Very Old Money

by Stanley Ellin

Book Overview

Book : Fiction 320 p. ; 24 cm. ; The enormously wealthy Durie family occupies a gigantic baroque turn-of-the-century mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The family, whose fortune was established... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877956278
• ISBN13: 9780877956273
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A backwards mystery

Very well written. This story is sort of a "backwards" murder mystery, in which all the clues are developed BEFORE the murder takes place!

Very Old Money, Very Good Read!

Ellin's style is much like that of Wally Lamb's, except in the mystery world. I'm not a big fan of mysteries, but this one captured my imagination with characters I wanted to take home with me (and question), with a culture I loved to hate and with places I could only dream of inhabiting. Michael and Amy Lloyd find themselves without teaching positions and are both hired on as servants for a well-to-do family. Michael is hired as a chauffeur and Amy becomes the personal assistant to a rich blind woman, a woman who's the center of deceit and gossip -- and the center of the household's seemingly devoted attention. The book, even though it is now 20 years old, is worth picking up because the quality of writing is far better than many of the books touted as 'brilliant' these days. Look for it!

Worth every penny of the $20 I paid

I considered myself lucky to have found a copy of this book at a local used-book store.Mr. Ellin's style is literate; his writing skill equals that of any author of "classics." The surprising ending could not have been anything other than what Mr. Ellin conceived. His storytelling was quite natural, the characters well developed,,and the plot very believable. In the hands of a less skillful writer, the story would have come across as contrived.Buy this book. Kick back and have a good time with it!