The Listening House

Locations
Call Number: Mystery / Seeley, Mabel, Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / Classic / Seeley, Mabel
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Mystery / Seeley, Mabel	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / Classic / Seeley, Mabel	4-week checkout	Due 04-30-2024

"Down-and-out in the Great Depression, Gwynne Dacres moves into a seedy-and-sinister boardinghouse, where she exposes deadly secrets in this classic mystery by Mabel Seeley. After losing her copywriting job, young Gwynne Dacres seeks a place to live when she stumbles upon Mrs. Garr's old boardinghouse. Despite the gruff landlady and an assortment of shifty tenants, Gwynne rents a room for herself. She spends her first few nights at 593 Trent Street tensely awake, the house creaking and groaning as if listening to everything that happens behind its closed doors. A chain of chilling events leads to the gruesome discovery of a mutilated body in the basement kitchen, dead of unknown circumstances. Was it an accident or murder? Under the red-black brick facade of the old house on Trent Street, Gwynne uncovers a myriad of secrets, blackmail, corruption, and clues of a wicked past. As she closes in on the truth, the cold, pale hands of death reach for Gwynne in the night. . . "-- Provided by publisher.

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An old boardinghouse teeming with shady characters submitted by cmeza on April 1, 2024, 6:02pm This is a wisecracking 1930s murder mystery narrated by an intrepid female protagonist--a divorcee, no less-who was an innovation for her time. She is subjected to more than one head cracking and throttling just like the men of this genre--and likewise walks away improbably unfazed. The characters are well developed, the plot is clever with some shocking developments for the era, and the dialog is sharp. Be warned of a 1930s attitude toward companion animals. If you are expecting romantic suspense or a tinge of gothic or supernatural, there isn't any. If you take it for what it is, you might be pleasantly surprised.