Wednesday, the 23rd of February, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it–what its about, why you want to read it, when you got it, and such. If you participate, don’t forget to link back to Lisa’s page, and do also leave your links in the comments below as I’d love to check out your picks as well!
Today’s pick is a book by a new-to-me author, and one from my seemingly endless collection of classic mysteries that I have waiting but am yet to get to (this one was a download)–The Yellow Room (1945) by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) was an American author, often described as the ‘American Agatha Christie’. She was a fairly prolific writer with several short stories, novels, travelogues and articles to her credit. Many of her works were adapted for the screen as well. The famous phrase from detective stories, ‘the butler did it‘ came from one of her books.
In The Yellow Room, Carol Spencer arrives in Maine on a cold spring day to open up her family’s summer mansion. As she enters, there is a strange odour of fire. She traces this to a cupboard from where other strange smells emanate, and she opens it to witness a horror she will never forget–the corpse of a woman! The servants have disappeared, the telephone lines have been removed and the killer is closer than she thinks!
I love classic mysteries (which I read as often as I can and also review on this blog) and am always happy to explore new-to-me authors. Rinehart’s was a name I’d heard of off and on but never read, but I became more interested in giving her a try because of the Christie comparison. Honestly, I had just chosen this randomly to try but after looking up the book on Goodreads, I find friends have rated this quite positively (including Kate from Crossexamining Crime) while another GR friend finds this among the best of Rinerhart’s books (here). So, I’m certainly looking forward to giving this a try.
Have you read anything by Mary Roberts Rinehart? Was it a mystery or one of her other writings? How did you find it? Looking forward to your thoughts and recommendations!
Cover image and book description from Goodreads, and author information from Wikipedia
Lisa’s pick this week is Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, an intriguing mix of office politics, horror and scifi
Literary Potpourri 
I have not read anything by Mary Roberts Rinehart, but this sounds good. A summer mansion on the coast of Maine is a terrific location.
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The location is indeed a nice one. Let’s see how the book turns out!
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Now I know where the phrase “the butler did it” originated, thanks! I have a notion I’ve heard the name Mary Roberts Rinehart but imagined the last name spelt as in German, Reinhardt…
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Perhaps it was Americanised? Must look it up and see. The phrase was new information for me too, which I came across when writing the post
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Nope! I’ve heard her name but not read any of her books. I’ll be interested in what you think when you get around to it!
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