Mary Roberts Rinehart

Washington, D.C.-based attorney Lawrence Blakely has been asked by his partner to deliver some important documents to a client in Pittsburgh. In the course of his return trip, the occupant of the train berth opposite his - the lower ten, which Blakely was supposed to have taken - is savagely murdered. Was Blakely the intended victim, and did the crime have something to do with his briefcase full of vital evidence? When the murder weapon turns up underneath...

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 – September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie,[1] although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1922. Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school...

Mrs. Pittman's well-to-do Pittsburgh family didn't approve of her marriage, so the young bride moved away and lost touch with her relatives. Years later, she has returned to her native city as a widow and now runs a boarding house, one of the only jobs available to respectable women in the early twentieth century. Rooms at Mrs. Pittman's place are cheap because of the annual floods from the Allegheny River, which inundate the building's basement and...

When the owner of a popular health spa dies, a mysterious stranger is enlisted to impersonate the heir and fulfill the odd contents of the will. Then the real heir turns up... This 1912 mystery-romance-farce has all the ingredients that make "the queen of the thriller" a fan favorite to this day.

A young nurse in a Pittsburgh hospital is drawn to a doctor on staff. But she also finds herself embroiled in an intrigue surrounding her mysterious boarder, a man who calls himself K. This 1915 suspense-romance is based on the author's experience as nurse.

A supervillain stalks the countryside, and it will take a spinster to bring him to heel For months, the city has lived in fear of the Bat. A master criminal hindered by neither scruple nor fear, he has stolen over one million dollars and left at least six men dead. The police are helpless, the newspapers know nothing-even the key figures of the city's underworld have no clue as to the identity of the Bat. He is a living embodiment of death itself,...

In a quiet old mansion, an aging spinster contemplates questions of murder Elizabeth Bell runs a quiet household, with no family and no more than the usual number of servants. She passes her time thinking about crime and working on her biography of a relative. When a young cousin comes to stay, life in the house becomes uncharacteristically lively. First, cousin Judy burns a hole in Miss Bell's desk. Next, they spy a burglar on the staircase-a shadowy...

Stories of true romance, from youth to middle age and beyond An elderly couple sits on a park bench, murmuring compliments to each other, and passing gentle judgment on the crowds that pass them by. They are alone-no children, no friends, nothing but their memories to keep them company. Are they happy? Or is true love no longer enough to sustain them? While this couple sits on the bench, remembering faded passions, young people are falling in love...

An unwelcome visitor arrives at a seaside home to find that death awaits her there The house called Sunset has been Marcia's summer home for her entire life. Both of her parents died there, and she and her brother spent their youth exploring its rambling hallways and seaside grounds. They love the old house, but Marcia's sister-in-law has never taken to it. Juliette loathes the sea, and soon comes to loathe her husband, as well. After they divorce,...

In a nearly empty house, a young woman finds herself alone with a killer As far as Carol Spencer is concerned, the war has spoiled everything. She and Don had been engaged for years and were on the verge of marriage when he was shot down in the South Pacific, leaving Carol on the verge of spinsterhood at twenty-four. She wants to take some kind of job in the war effort, but her invalid mother demands that Carol accompany her to the family's summer...