Mary Roberts Rinehart
2 books
- Rachel Innes is the reason to read this: a dry, unflappable spinster who rents a country house, finds a body, and refuses to be scared off. The mystery creaks pleasantly, but her narration (constantly sparring with her maid Liddy) is what keeps you turning pages.
- A lawyer wakes up on a sleeper train in the wrong berth, minus his clothes and the papers he was guarding, and things only get stranger from there. It's a light, funny 1909 mystery, better company than suspense, and Blakeley's grumbling narration carries it.