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    The Man in Lower Ten
    The Man in Lower Ten
    The Man in Lower Ten
    Ebook244 pages7 hours

    The Man in Lower Ten

    By Mary Roberts Rinehart

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Lawrence Blakely, attorney-at-law, sets off by train to deliver valuable documents in a criminal case. His ride will be eventful. Along the way he'll encounter romance, treachery, a train wreck, even a murder in which he'll be implicated. Who's after Blakely and his papers -- why? The first detective novel to appear on national bestseller lists, THE MAN IN LOWER TEN is still a great read almost ninety years after its publication. It has all the thrills of a contemporary whodunit and a satiric edge that gently mocks the conventions of male detective fiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Classics
    Release dateApr 25, 2014
    ISBN9781609779061
    Author

    Mary Roberts Rinehart

    Often referred to as the American Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American journalist and writer who is best known for the murder mystery The Circular Staircase—considered to have started the “Had-I-but-known” school of mystery writing—and the popular Tish mystery series. A prolific writer, Rinehart was originally educated as a nurse, but turned to writing as a source of income after the 1903 stock market crash. Although primarily a fiction writer, Rinehart served as the Saturday Evening Post’s correspondent for from the Belgian front during the First World War, and later published a series of travelogues and an autobiography. Roberts died in New York City in 1958.

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    Reviews for The Man in Lower Ten

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Now I understand why Rinehart is considered to be the American Agatha Christie, or should it be that Agatha Christie is the British Mary Roberts Rinehart, given that Rinehart’s first novel – this one – was published some 14 years before Christie’s first book? Either way, this story has all the wonderful atmospheric feel I have come to love in Golden era mystery novels. For a debut novel, Rinehart does a wonderful job drawing her characters and a twisty plot. The story provides for some good suspenseful moments and I did enjoy the banter Lawrence and his partner/good friend McKnight engage in. Even with a murder and unscrupulous people who think Lawrence still has the documents in his possession, the characters comes across as treating this as a low key concern…. Life and death situations seem to still involve taking time off for a good drink, a bite to eat and a bit of tongue-in-cheek dialogue. Favorite character for me is the amateur sleuth Hotchkiss who just pops up everywhere. Hotchkiss employs the detailed investigation techniques characterized by Sherlock Holmes but with the demeanor of a quiet, bookish accountant. Love Lawrence’s reaction to Hotchkiss’ note-taking and question asking: ”I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies.”. There is even a romantic sub-plot with one of the potential suspects – who just happens to also be McKnight’s current love interest. This came across as a bit of added fluff and distraction to Lawrence’s “search for the killer” focus, but a distraction that did not cause any annoyance for this reader. Overall, a delightful golden age mystery read and I will now keep an eye out for more Mary Robert Rinehart books to read.
    • 3/5
      This was kind of an odd one. I love Mary Roberts Rinehart – but this one was not quite up to where I expected it to be. Unfortunately it's one of those books where the unsolved mystery is more interesting than the solution. It's a great setup – rather dull lawyer fellow (with vivid best friend – I liked that the kind of boring one was the narrator) goes off to get some very important papers for a very important case, and on the train ride home has them stolen. And also comes in as the best suspect for a murder in his Pullman car. Luckily for him, the train suffers a horrific accident, so he has the chance to avoid immediate investigation, and also to fall in love – with his best friend's girl. The writing is entertaining; characterization works, and all the red herrings and wrong suspects that litter the landscape make for a good yarn. Everything eventually pulls together and gets cleared up – and I admit to disappointment at the wrap-up. Sometimes the journey is just more fun than the destination.One warning: this is very much of its time. In a couple of ways, actually – it startled me when the narrator talks about choosing a hansom cab; the involvement of the train made me think for some reason that it was a Golden Age book, from the forties or so. Then there's the line "Pittsburg without smoke wouldn't be Pittsburg, any more than New York without prohibition would be New York." So – Pittsburgh used to be spelled without the "H", and it's during Prohibition. Check. But just in case you go into this thinking it's just a very well-written historical mystery that uses some great details to let you know when it's set – well, reality will hit you like the Ice Bucket Challenge when words are used to refer to non-white races that would probably not be used today, even by the most dedicated anti-anachronistic writer. Yeah. It was first published in 1909. Things were different then. It can be (to use a period-appropriate adjective) delightful – but it can be cringe-worthy as well. Which was also the case with a few remarks about women, too, which – come now, Ms. Rinehart. The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
    • 4/5
      Old-fashioned murder-on-a-train mystery.
    • 4/5
      The story is a fun one, very much of its time. Should appeal to fans of Agatha Christie as it reads a bit like some of her lesser works.The author was popular in her day although mostly forgotten today. This book was her first big hit.It contains murder, forgery, train wrecks, mysterious "hauntings", romance, and an amusing first person narrative.The edition I was reading (Barnes and Noble Library of Essential Readings) is probably an OCR'd text and contains several text errors which are a bit distracting. I'd probably have enjoyed this more in a vintage copy or a better edited one.Has some nice details of life (and train travel) in the time period, which is something I enjoy reading about.As a train fan, I particularly was interested in it and enjoyed those details.
    • 1/5
      Very confusing! A book can have sub-plots. A mystery can have sub-mysteries. This book carried it to an extreme. I was way too confused.It was about 90 pages before I realized that the relationship of the second main character was that of maid.The author treats servants as if they are more furniture than human.One main male character was unacceptable when he was thought to be part of the working class. Once he was identified as actually being part of the upper class, he was totally acceptable.
    • 4/5
      The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart; (4*)It has been many years since my last Rinehart read and in reading The Circular Staircase, I was reminded anew how well respected and beloved Mary Roberts Rinehart was & perhaps still is in this style of the genre. Quite a remarkable read, this little book has several different, but still associated, mysteries going on at once. There is the theft of all the local Bank's securities, a couple of good & ghoulish murders to be reconciled, a kidnapping, a mysterious disappearance, a mansion that tends to be broken into nightly upsetting the entire household, among other little mysteries.Our protagonist & heroine is the spinster auntie of a young man & his sister. She has rented the manse for the season whilst her home is being remodeled & updated. Those whom the mysteries effect and those who are causing are in great part affiliated with the home owner of the house she has taken. And of course she, her niece & her nephew are affected by all of the goings on and are in the midst of the solving of the mysteries.I do enjoy a cosy mystery and I loved this one. It is a terrific book with which to cuddle into your favorite chair and spend an afternoon reading. I highly recommend it for those of you inclined to this genre.
    • 4/5
      How I loved this old mystery when I read it first at age 13. It was one of the first adult mysteries I read, along with Agatha Christie and Daphne duMaurier's Rebecca. It was a natural progression from Nancy Drew and the girl detectives I loved when younger.All these years later, there are things you just can't ignore, like an uncritical young reader can. The casual racism can't be overlooked, although sadly, the author was undoubtedly just voicing the attitudes of the time. After Miss Innes's nephew buys a car, she learns to "never stop to look at the dogs one has run down. People are apt to be so unpleasant about their dogs." The implication is that if you are rich enough to buy a car in 1908, you have the right to run down anything you damn well please. These people are wealthy enough to rent a house for the summer with "22 rooms and 5 baths", which seemingly makes them unaccountable for anything they do.All that aside, I'll always have a place in my heart and on my bookshelf for The Circular Staircase, despite its faults, as it was one of the first books that started me on 50 years of reading murder mysteries.As for the Had I But Known school of detective fiction, Ogden Nash parodied that old writer's trick in his poem Don't Guess, Let Me Tell You. "Had I But Known then what I know now, I could have saved at least three lives by revealing to the Inspector the conversation I heard through that fortuitous hole in the floor."
    • 3/5
      Amusing as an early example of the classic type of detective story that would reach its most finished form with Christie and Sayers a couple of decades later. But rather slow-moving, even ponderous, by later standards, not only in its jokes but also in the technical development of the plot, both of which the experienced mystery reader will see coming several chapters ahead of where the author is trying to reveal them. Surprisingly, I found that the thing that interested me about it more than anything else was the use of the wealthy spinster, Miss Innes, as the viewpoint character. She's the sort of lady who would appear as a minor figure in inter-war novels, endlessly sparring with her elderly lady's-maid and fretting about the Servant Problem and mocked as a quaint survival of an earlier age. But here we see the world through her social attitudes, in which doctors, policemen and public officials are all treated as slightly superior sorts of tradesmen, who might exceptionally be permitted to use the front door...
    • 1/5
      Abandoned before finishing (2014).This book was simply too dated for me to enjoy reading it. The casual racism and the "dialect" that the only black character used were particularly egregious.
    • 3/5
      Six-word review: Adequate but unexceptional country house mystery.Extended review:Here's an author whose work I'd never read before and was very unlikely ever to read. Her name was associated in my mind with frothy, shallow popular fiction of the sort that would be no challenge to semiliterate middle schoolers looking for an easy read for a mandatory book report. (No, I don't know where such prejudices come from. But who doesn't have them, in one flavor or another?)As it happened, I found myself waiting in my car while someone did an errand, and I needed something to read. I'd had the foresight to grab my Kindle on the way out the door. From a recently downloaded bargain collection of mysteries, I picked this one at random without even noticing the author's name.My verdict: better than expected. It read like a low-grade case of Hill House as visited by a middle-aged spinster channeling Holmes while on Victorian holiday in (I think) upstate New York. (It sounded so British that I had trouble remembering it was set in the U.S.) Wikipedia tells me that this crime melodrama is credited with being the first of the "had I but known" genre of mystery novels.It was duly creepy, with ghostly nocturnal activity, unexplained disappearances, a shocking corpse, false identities, and much, much more, not to mention a spunky heroine who forgets to tell anyone when she goes off in search of things that go bump in the night. I was sufficiently entertained to return to it over the next couple of weeks, in short bursts, and finish it up.I'm not in any hurry for more Rinehart, but in case I feel the need, there seems to be an ample assortment in the anthology. At least I know there's something mildly diverting on tap for some other waiting room stay.(Kindle edition)
    • 2/5
      I found this classic mystery about murder in a country home mildly enjoyable, but I wouldn't read another Rinehart title. I enjoyed the protagonist's tart humor and her plucky attitude. The story included just about every mystery cliche you can think of. Perhaps they were not cliches in their time, but I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Oh, and the casual racism didn't help matters, either.
    • 3/5
      An oldie but a goodie. The story is nothing really to write home about, but the plot was clever and the protagonist was a particularly strong female so I enjoyed that.
    • 4/5
      I think I may have bought this quite cheaply, seeing an opportunity to do a bit of "vintage" reading. It has been on my kindle for a few months only.At the beginning of this e-book version of THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE there is a biographical introduction to the life and works of Mary Roberts Rinehart. Here is an extract: This book is credited with having been the first mystery to use the "Had I But Known" formula. This style of mystery centers around the protagonist withholding important details until it is too late. Often this variety of tale is narrated as a flashback from the protagonist's point of view. They will withhold the special damning piece of information from the reader as well, only revealing it after the climactic moment involving the secret clue. When done well, the technique can create real suspense for the reader.I found myself remembering the phrase "Had I But Known " because once you know this was a feature of Rinehart's style, then it is certainly there.There is an almost Gothic quality to the plot lines and setting of THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE. The story is narrated by Rachel Innes, who doesn't always understand the implications of what she has observed. There are two deaths, ghostly rappings emanating from the walls and ceilings, and as the novel progresses the plot strands get increasingly complex, as if the characters have got away from the author. In fact one part of the plot resolution gives the impression of having been plucked from the air. The central plot appears to relate to the stock market crash of 1903.
    • 5/5
      Wow, this was so not the book I was expecting! I was expecting something... I don't know, a bit more staid, maybe? Something with a more linear plot; at just a little over 170 pages it didn't seem there was much room for complex plotting. Boy was I wrong! Rachel is hysterical: biting wit, sarcastic and pragmatic. Her relationship with her maid, Liddy, provides comic relief throughout the book. And the plotting was labyrinthine! The country house is at the centre of the mystery, and there are so many events, so many threads, so many bodies! I never had half an idea what was really going on and I loathed putting down the book. The story is told in first person past: Rachel is writing an account of the event long after its resolution and frequently speaks directly to the reader. The book is billed as a romantic suspense and the suspense is there, but all romance happens at a remove. I would not, by today's terms, call this at all romantic. It could be argued to be gothic, as the book comes complete with large house, strange noises in the night, candles down darkened hallways and sightings of ghosts, but there's too much humour; I don't think your supposed to laugh out loud while reading a gothic. The writing is brilliant; I don't think I had one inkling of what was going to happen before it happened. There were at least two plot twists that totally surprised me. Rachel might be the prototype TSTL female, but it didn't bother me here - although at the end I did roll my eyes once. There was only one thing stopping me from calling this the perfect mystery book. It was first published in 1908 and even in this context it is so blatantly racist it made me gasp out loud. Rachel casually makes the bluntest racial comments, but shows respect and detached affection for the black butler, Thomas Johnson, and the author's intent to make him quietly heroic feels unquestionable (although she does adhere to some embarrassing stereotypes) - but this makes it all the more painful to read. Those three or four sentences in the book tarnished what would have been, for me, a perfect read. Rinehart was a master of mystery writing and I am, in spite of the distasteful moments, definitely going to check out more of her work.
    • 4/5
      by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Fiction, Mystery, Vintage) Mary Roberts Rinehart was considered the American Agatha Christie and for many years reigned as queen of the American mystery genre. The Circular Staircase was her second published book (1908) and featured the second, and last, outing of the tart-tongued middle-aged Miss Cornelia Van Gorder. Miss Van Gorder has invited her niece and nephew to accompany her to a country house for a relaxing summer. But instead of rural quiet they found murder and hijinks.Roberts Rinehart wrote with humour and a great sense of place and time, but I found it just a little too madcap.3½ stars
    • 5/5
      How had I never heard of the awesomeness that is Mary Roberts Rinehart?? The Circular Staircase was one of the first books I downloaded for free onto my Kindle, and I only grabbed it because the author was compared to Anna Katherine Green whom wrote The Leavenworth Case (a book that I enjoyed when I read it last year). After reading The Circular Staircase I've downloaded every single book by this author that I can get my hands on. I want more! The Circular Staircase begins with Rachel Innes deciding to spend the summer in the country with her nephew and niece. Little does she know that renting Sunnyside for the summer will mean murder, mystery, and intrigue. For mysterious happenings are going on at Sunnyside and Rachel instantly finds herself a part of them. Rachel is a great main character to be narrating the story because of her dry sense of humor. I found myself laughing out loud at various points in the story thanks to her opinions and musings on everything that was happening. In fact, being able to laugh at the story while still being intrigued by the mystery was one of my favorite parts of the book! I find more and more that I love classic mysteries like this because the authors know how to spin a good tale without lots of blood and gore. Instead Rinehart created a mystery filled with atmosphere and tension as the reader wondered what could possibly be going on at the house. It made for a great read that left me wanting more! My only issue with this book is something that goes more along with the time period that the book was written. The book does have some racial undertones in it but if you take in consideration when it was written then it makes more sense as to why the author included these viewpoint into the story. I didn't care for it but obviously I wasn't born in this time period either. Anyways....Overall a really, really good read and a book that I enjoyed WAY more than I expected to. Just writing up my thoughts on this book makes me want to try more by her or grab up something by Agatha Christie. If you are ever looking for a gothic mystery novel then I think you should give this one a try. Just don't expect to be surprised by the ending. That part I could see coming from a mile away but luckily it didn't matter because I was enjoying the book too much. Highly recommended especially to mystery fans!Bottom Line: One of those books that instantly makes you add the author to your must read list!Disclosure: This was a book I downloaded for free onto my Kindle thru Amazon.
    • 3/5
      Vintage and Retro are all the rage for some stuff like clothes and photography (Instagram?? I don’t get it, but whatever) and so I said ‘what the hell’ and downloaded this 100-year-old mystery novel onto the iPad. A review especially praised the stalwart spinster protagonist and the quaint setting and characters so I felt pretty confident I’d like it. Unfortunately, our stalwart spinster is also a raging racist and the supporting characters were pretty much there to be ordered about, worried over and despised by her in turn. I believe the correct term for her is battleaxe. I was bummed because at first her character reminded me a bit of Amelia Peabody.Some of the things about the period charmed me; like the summer house rental. An estate really, with wings, stables and a gate house, complete with servants most of whom vamoosed when things started to get hairy. The old-fashioned conveyances; a mix at this time of history (1909) of trains, horse-drawn and motorized vehicles. Not sure what a Dragon Fly is, but I suspect it’s the author’s fancy since I found nothing on the web. When women fainted (as they invariably do in novels of this sort) someone ran for some ‘stimulants’. Aunt Rachel sports ‘wrinkle eradicators’ - mysterious and painful sounding. The lights went off at midnight because the electric company shuts down at that time. Funny stuff, but try as I might, the casual racism just took the shine off things for me. I know it’s how people thought and behaved back then, but it’s jarring to read about now. While I did finish it, I didn’t race through it because it was quite put-downable. In the end I just made myself finish the silly thing. It reminded me a lot of the way Nancy Drew mysteries unfolded. We’ve got a stock bunch of characters and they end up in a place where strange things start to happen to them. Not because of them, but because of their proximity to whatever else is going on. The events that occur happen to them, but they’re not of them if you know what I mean. There’s a subplot that must be discovered. Even the clues are funny compared to how things are written these days. In this one they’re basically all physical - a pistol, a cufflink, a golf stick (not club, stick). Oh and there are funny noises inside the house and mysterious intruders no one sees or is able to capture. The antics of not just the amateurs, but also of the cops to catch these unseen villains, were hilarious. They bumbled around and tripped over one another and never so much as caught the hem of a garment, much less an actual person. Obviously there was a secret room involved, but once again no one could find it; not the good guys or the bad guys. There had to be 5 holes carved into walls before someone found it and then it was on the second try. Dopes. Nancy Drew could have totally schooled these people.In the end, while I didn’t guess the solution (I wasn’t giving it any thought actually, the story didn’t really grab me enough), I found it a bit tired. I suppose since it’s a relatively early mystery, it wasn’t a cliche when it was written, but it certainly is now. It makes Agatha Christie’s work even more astounding because in my opinion it does hold its appeal. Yes, she wrote the bulk of her novels later than this one, but the earliest ones are pretty close to this time and they hold up much better. Alas, some vintage stories just don’t maintain their appeal into the 21st century.
    • 4/5
      Rating: 3.75* of fiveThe Book Report: Miss Rachel Innes, spinster of circa-1908 Pittsburgh, inheritrix of two children now relatively safely launched into adulthood, and possessor of a large automobile, determines that her town residence needs significant tarting up and, to avoid the attendant chaos and disarray, moves herself, her ladies' maid, and her now-adult charges to Sunnyside, the large and vulgar country home of a local banker. As he, his wife, and his step-daughter (note old-fashioned spelling, it is relevant) are traveling to the almost foreign climes of California, Miss Innes and entourage are left in possession of Sunnyside (a more dramatic misnomer is hard to envision) for the entire summer that renovating Miss Innes's home will require. Perfect!Not so much.Miss Innes's maid begins the descent into spookyworld. Noises, disappearing people, mysterious presences, all cause her to think Sunnyside is haunted. Hah, says the commonsensical Miss Innes, there's a rational explanation for it all. And there is. Sadly enough.When people start dying, as in "no longer sucking air," Miss Innes gets a wee tidge tense. When the homeowner's step-daughter shows up, in a state of complete collapse and her ward's evident amour for the girl makes it impossible to turf her out, Miss Innes begins a logical and determined effort to explain the bizarre happenings at Sunnyside. Amid this tough-enough assignment comes the local banker's reported death from far-off California, the revelation that he embezzled A MILLION DOLLARS!! (a Madoff-sized payday in 1908), and the disappearance of the embezzled bank's head cashier (also the amour of Miss Innes's female ward), and the impossibility of keeping good staff conspire to give good Miss Innes many a sleepless night. In the end, all is well, and the redoubtable Miss Rachel Innes possesses all the facts.My Review: God bless her cotton socks, this lady is just a blast to read about! I like formidable old dowagers. (Lady Grantham aside.) They are so *certain* of their Rightness that it's fun to watch them screw up and fail. This being fiction, the formidable old dowager in question doesn't fail, and manages not to be any more overbearing, opinionated, and adamantine than is absolutely necessary.Rinehart was a decent writer, and a decent plotter, and so the book offers pleasures in both those measures. It's not going to make the Louise Pennyites abandon the Mistress to read only Rinehart. It's over a century old, and thrills and chills come at a dramatically different pace and price in our time. But frills and furbelows aside, a good figure is a good figure, and this book has a good figure.Visit your great-grandmother's world for a while. You might surprise yourself with how much you enjoy it.
    • 5/5
      Mary Roberts Rinehart is one of my favorite writers from the early women writers of the early 20th century. This is a fun mystery with interesting charcters portraying the very, very wealthy class and their staff involved in a murder mystery. Rinehart was a unique legend in her time when women, especially the upper class woman, did not work and certainly did not write murder mysteries. Her books are always enjoyable, the characters sympathetic yet interesting and there is always a strong woman character to love. This is one of the better choices but my very favortie is The Yellow Room followed by the Swimming Pool. For a taste of early women mystery writers, Rinehart cannot be missed.
    • 3/5
      Competent old school mystery. A few extra plot threads over the run of the mill title but not enough that I'd consider it exceptional.
    • 3/5
      Rachel Innis along with her niece and nephew rent a 20-room home for the summer. It doesn’t take long for things to go bump in the night. There are creaks and groans and footsteps and the hired help start fleeing like bats at dawn. A body is found at the foot of the staircase. The deceased is the son of the owner of the house. How did he get in? Why didn’t he knock or use his own key? Who shot him in the back? This book is one of those classics written in 1908. Reinhart wrote all stand-alone mysteries which is a shame because I found Rachel and her maid, Liddy, quite entertaining. The mystery had the slow cadence of that time period which was a bit of a struggle for a mystery fan who is used to today’s rapid fire slice and dice thrillers. There were some interesting things to learn about that time period, like how the electric company turns off the power at midnight. Reinhart has a surprising resume, having written 45 short stories in addition to her novels. THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE was her first mystery.
    • 3/5
      The plot of The Circular Staircase is, like the staircase of the title, rather roundabout. There are a lot of elements in this novel—murder, embezzlement, robbery, and arson, just t name a few of the crimes perpetrated by the characters in this book. Rachel Innes is a rather prickly middle-aged spinster and the aunt of Gertrude and Halsey. After renting a house in the countryside one summer, in which ghosts are said to live, a man is shot dead at the foot of the house’s circular staircase. The dead man is the son of the owner of the house, and he and Jack Bailey (a friend of Halsey’s who also happens to be engaged to Getrude) may or may not have been involved in a bank scandal.Rachel, who claims that the detecting gene is in her blood, spends the course of the novel pursuing clues, most of which are red herrings. It turns out that every person involved in this story has a piece of the puzzle; and Rachel spends most of the story saying “if only I had known…” The “Had I But Known” plot is apparently pretty characteristic of Rinehart’s novels, but in this book I kept feeling that Rachel as just moving in circles, never really solving any part of the mystery until the very last minute. Also, I didn’t particularly care for the narrator of the story: Rachel is so sharp-tongued that she’s actually rude to pretty much everybody at one point or another. Mr. Jamieson, the detective, is much more likeable, but he sometimes allows Rachel to walk all over him.Mary Roberts Rinehart has been credited with coining the phrase “the butler did it”—though the phrase never appeared in any of her mystery novels. Her books were bestsellers in the United States for a long while in the early 20th century, probably because they were so readable; certainly not “high literature” in an sense of the word. The Circular Staircase is a prime example of this; but nonetheless it works well as a suspense novel.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this Victorian "cozy". The most interesting thing is how none of the characters complied with the police - and that seemed to be o.k. The main character takes the murder weapon and then loses it and admits it all to the detective who finds it nothing more than inconvenient! Still a fun read.
    • 1/5
      Our detective is a crochety old lady who doesn't care much when her nephew runs over dogs with his motor-car. She gets all tangled up in a mystery, which is inevitable because of her stubbornness and whatnot. Standard old-lady mystery stuff. Secret romances, false identities, etc.

    Book preview

    The Man in Lower Ten - Mary Roberts Rinehart

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