The Red House Mystery - A.A. Milne

Rating: ✫✫✫

Kicking off this blog with the very first review!

The book that I happened to be reading when I made the decision to set up this blog was 'The Red House Mystery' by A.A. Milne. Sadly, you'll find no Winnie the Pooh, no Tigger and no Eeyore, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.

Introduction

The Red House Mystery is a good attempt at a classic locked-room mystery. When Anthony Gillingham decides to make a visit to an old friend, he stumbles upon a lot more than he bargained for. He finds himself in the middle of a murder scene, right as a body is discovered. When he realises that there are a lot of details that don't quite add up, he takes it upon himself to embrace the role of detective, with his very own Watson (or in this case, his old friend, Bill Beverley). 

One of the most appealing things about this book is the very light-heartedness with which it is written, despite it's subject matter. The style is very quaint, and there is a great deal of sophistication throughout, which is very typical of the time in which it was written (think early Agatha Christie). It makes for very easy reading, and this is a book that can easily be finished in a single afternoon, with the reader feeling very satisfied afterwards. 

This being said, it wouldn't be surprising to find out after finishing this book that this was the first and only detective story that Milne ever wrote. It is clear that although there are lots of very good ideas, and that Milne has really grasped the tone with which a detective story should be written (especially in his era), there really is quite a lot that may have been improved upon by a more experienced writer.

*spoilers ahead*

The Plot

Although the plot was interesting, I guessed the gist of it very early into the story. Once you realised that nobody had seen Mark Ablett and Robert Ablett at the same time, it wasn't too much of a jump to figure out that they were one and the same person (although I will confess that for a brief time I did think they had just switched places, with Cayley in the know). The trouble with detective stories is that the reader is already suspicious, and unless the author gets just the right balance of clues in there, the plot becomes either very obvious, or so ridiculously outlandish that the reader is left dissatisfied.

This is a shame, as the plot was just the kind of classic idea that detective fans (like me) love. When done right, you can't beat the classic locked room mystery. The setting of a house and grounds is, I find, typical of early 20th century murder mysteries, and I welcomed it. The addition of Anthony Gillingham arriving on the scene just at the right moment, and witnessing a few details that couldn't possibly make sense, made the whole thing very absorbing to read. This set up the story perfectly.

Milne even states in his prologue to the book:

"Death to an author who keeps his unravelling for the last chapter, making all the other chapters but prologue to a five-minute drama. This is no way to write a story. Let us know from chapter to chapter what the detective is thinking."

And this is a really great tool for the reader, which Milne executed very well. Throughout the entire story, you hear just enough of Anthony's ideas to really get a grip on what is happening, but not enough to know exactly what's going through his head and why his thoughts go in certain directions. This keeps the reader invested in the story, and I found it very intriguing to be given snippets of what Anthony was thinking.

If I did make one criticism on this, it would be that in an attempt to advance the story, it appears that Milne gives Anthony Gillingham certain insights that it is very unlikely that he would reasonably have. For example, the lake incident. Anthony just seems to know straight away that Cayley is going to hide something in the lake because of a chance comment from him. Anthony justifies this by saying:

“From what I've read of detective stories, inspectors always do want to drag the pond first.”  

It's quite a jump for Anthony to make to assume that if Cayley is encouraging them to drag the pond, he must be hoping to do something with it later. This kind of jump from Anthony happens again on several other occasions, where the explanation for Anthony's all-knowing demeanour is always explained away very unconvincingly. Once or twice, you can forgive it, but after more and more such occasions, I started to feel Milne should have found another tool to advance the plot. It just didn't seem realistic for one ordinary person to have so many strokes of genius in the name of pure coincidence.

The Characters

It was also quite difficult to get on board with how few characters there were in the story. Normally, I find myself criticising murder mysteries for having so many characters that the plot is impossible to follow. In this book, I found myself praying that more characters would come to the forefront. The only characters that we really know are Anthony Gillngham, Bill Beverley and Cayley. We know of multiple other characters that were staying at Red House who could have played more of a part, yet they were all sent away from the House, and from the story, almost as soon as it got started. This meant that we were left with only three realistic reveals that Milne could attempt to make. It could be Cayley, which for most of the story seemed too obvious due to his being the only character with any prominence. It could be Bill Beverley, who could be working with Anthony as a ruse to cover his tracks. Or it could be that Mark or Robert Ablett was indeed alive and on the run, ready to make a return just in time for the reveal. 

I realised halfway through this story that these were the only options we might have, and consequently considered these in my mind. Although I knew I would be disappointed if Cayley was the culprit (as at times it was too obvious to be him), I also knew that he was always the strongest possibility. I thought that to bring Mark or Robert Ablett back right at the very end, after no involvement in the plot, would be the result of very poor construction on Milne's part. This, as Milne was a self-confessed lover of detective stories, I didn't believe was likely. The third possibility was different. It crossed my mind that to find out that Bill Beverley was playing double agent would be a great plot twist, although it would break my heart very slightly. However, I soon eliminated this possibility as well on the basis that if Milne was such a lover of the Holmes and Watson dynamic (which was clearly the case given his many references to it), he would never choose to destroy the Anthony and Bill relationship.

After having this thought process, I became less invested in the story, and read on more to see if I had been right about Cayley than for any other reason.

Yet despite this, I really do think that the characterisation of the handful of characters was very good. It was also clear in the conversations Anthony had with Cayley about Mark Ablett's character that Milne felt that this was an important part of a good story. Anthony's background as a career-jumper, his own confession of how much he would enjoy playing detective, and the way he threw himself into the role, made him very endearing as our main character. The only criticism to make, as I've mentioned above, is that for an amateur detective, he had an unrealistic amount of insight.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the dynamic between Anthony and Bill Beverley.

“Are you prepared to be the complete Watson?" he asked.

"Watson?"

"Do-you-follow-me-Watson; that one. Are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing? Because it all helps."

I find myself thinking that if the Sherlock Holmes and John Watson relationship hadn't been referenced so much, I would have been a bit disappointed that Milne had copied so obviously. Yet the way it was referenced, with a lot of good humour and obvious admiration for Conan-Doyle's setup, made me really appreciate the whole thing. Having the two characters working together really did help to move the story along, and I can't imagine reading the same book without this continuous camaraderie. Bill Beverley I find to be the character that keeps the story readable, for without him the whole thing would be very stiff and formal. (Note my reason for feeling betrayed if he had been revealed as the murdered!)

The Verdict

All in all, I did enjoy this book. I thought the plot and the entire setting could have made for a really intriguing and addictive novel. Particularly in the beginning, I had it in my mind that this was going to be one to remember. 

The problem I have with this book is that the more I read, the less I felt so intrigued. And when you think about it, it really should be the other way around. You usually start off unsure, and grow more and more interested, until the reveal, which would inevitably shock you.

I find myself wishing that small details in The Red House Mystery had been altered, making for vast improvements. Why were all the characters banished from the story at the beginning? Couldn't Miss Norris have ended up staying in the Inn, so that the part she played in the build-up to Mark's death had more prominence? Couldn't the other characters have been asked to stay by the Inspector, so that they provided the little details that advanced Anthony's thought-process? It would have made for a much more interesting read, and if other characters had been intertwined, the reveal may have been a little less disappointing. It's very frustrating to write the review of this book when you know it could have been so much better with such little differences. 

This being said, I don't want my frustration to overshadow the fact that I did enjoy the book. The premise was good and the little details - such as the secret passageway, the confusion over the open window, and the Sherlock and Watson style relationship - were typical of the style of the time in which the book was written.

Perhaps if A.A. Milne had gone on to write another detective story, we would have seen these improvements. As we have it, The Red House Mystery is a good murder mystery, with the potential to have been great.