#1940 Club: The Great Mistake by Mary Roberts Rinehart & The Hangman’s Whip by Mignon G. Eberhart

As we approach the end of the #1940 Club, here are two American mysteries that I read for the event both of which have for their protagonist, a Miss Abbott.

Pat Abbott who has seen her family fortunes plummet down and the death of her parents is happy when she is chosen as secretary by Maud Wainwright, the wealthiest woman in town. After some time, pleased by her services, Maud asks Pat to shift to her mansion, Cloisters. Pat is glad to do so though the landlady of the boarding-house she used to stay in warns her against the move. Pat, however, is happy to be near Maud and her son, Tony though any romantic inclinations that she has towards the latter are marred by the fact that he is married.

The mystery proper begins when Maud returns home one day and is inexplicably tired. After that journey to the town, she never quite recovers. Meanwhile strange things start happening at Cloisters: the watchman is found stunned with his trousers missing, Pat finds an intruder first in the grounds than in the house itself. Meanwhile a murder occurs than another…what is happening in the peaceful town of Beverly?

I found the plot of this a little convoluted. Pat Abbott, looking back narrates the events so the HIBK trope is there. I found one of the facts (perhaps the main one) hard to swallow but overall it was an okay novel.

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First Line: The first time I ever spoke to Maud Wainwright was in her boudoir at the Cloisters.

Publication Details: 1940. NY: Dell, 1940

Source: Faded Page

Other Opinions: Pining for the West; Truth, Beauty, Freedom, & Books;

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The second book read The Hangman’s Whip by Mignon G. Eberhart has a heroine by the rather strange name of Search Abbott. Living in Chicago, Search still cannot get over the fact that her childhood sweetheart Richard Bohan had married Eve, three years earlier. Losing her parents at a young age, Search had been brought up by Aunt Ludmilla along with her cousins Diana and Richard. When Richard married Eve, Search was heartbroken. When the novel opens, she is in Chicago and receives a marriage proposal from Howland, a lawyer who was bestman at Richard’s wedding and has loved Search for a long time. Search, however, refuses him and tells him that she plans to go to Ludmilla’s estate at Kentigern village because she has received some disturbing news from Ludmilla. The old lady has written to her that somebody is trying to poison her. When she reaches there, she is welcomed by Diana and her husband, Calvin, as also Richard who informs her that he has always rued the fact that he married Eve. But now it seems the marriage is finished because Eve has gone to see lawyers about their divorce. Just when Search thinks that now she can have a future with Richard, Eve returns proclaiming that she is never going to divorce Richard. What can Search do?

I liked this book though one character, whom I had liked initially, turns out to be made of straw.

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First Line: “This isn’t safe,” said Howland.

Publishing Details: 1940. NY; Mysterious Press, 2012

Pages: 224