The Leavenworth Case

Great plotting ! -D.D.--FL, USA

I've always been crazy about nineteenth-century fiction, so I can't believe I'm just discovering this author. Anna Katharine Green has drifted into obscurity in recent decades, yet her mysteries were best sellers in her day - and her works influenced both Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. The Leavenworth Case, Green's first novel, was a runaway success. The setting is the palatial Fifth Avenue mansion of millionaire merchant Horatio Leavenworth, found shot to death in his library. At the inquest we meet the two ravishingly beautiful nieces who share Mr. Leavenworth's home. The coroner quickly establishes some suspicious behavior on the part of Eleanore Leavenworth. Mary Leavenworth, on the other hand, is heir to the victim's vast wealth and benefits from his death. Everett Raymond, the young lawyer looking out for the cousins, will have his hands full protecting them. To complicate matters, he's falling in love with Eleanore. Green has invented a wonderful detective to grapple with the Leavenworth case. Ebenezer Gryce lacks the penetrating eye of a conventional Victorian detective. He'd rather gaze at a doorknob or a button than look directly at anyone. He's not lean and mean but portly and comfortable. And he's not a gentleman. To overcome this handicap, he makes use of young Mr. Raymond, who can move in society and discreetly learn its secrets. So we end up with two detectives: Mr. Raymond, who's good at gathering evidence but draws wrong conclusions - and Mr. Gryce, who sets things straight, repeatedly. The introduction by Michael Sims is excellent. I found it fascinating, for example, that during Green's lifetime The Leavenworth Case was used by Yale to teach its law students the risks of circumstantial evidence. I loved this book, and I'm going on an immediate search for more mysteries by Anna Katharine Green.