Sacrebleu! This petit mystery story has fewer than 200 pages on the contents of the table, but it was able to send me numerous times to the bed to my sleep! It was no doubt translated from the French by the great Hercule Poirot himself, the English was so ungainly. This did not appeal to me overly much, but you might be more amused. After all, Jacques has the gout!* I had been planning to read the next in the series, in the original French, but I think I will have a changing of the mind.

* À chac More...

This was recommended by a friend when I was looking for books written and set right before the Great War, so I went into it knowing nothing other than that it was written by the author of Phantom of the Opera (which I haven't read) and that it was a mystery published in 1908 and set in the 1890s. I'm no the hugest mystery reader, but I enjoy them, and this was certainly an interesting specimen.

The mystery is of the locked room variety. The basic set up is as follows: A scientist and his attracti More...

The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux is hailed as one of the first locked room crime novels. It has been named by some as the third best locked room mystery of all time. John Dickson Carr, master of the locked room and impossible crime himself, has sung its praises. And it is credited with inspiring Agatha Christie to try her hand at her very first mystery. So--what do I, a mere book-blogger, have to say about it? Well, it's a decent mystery. It's got some interesting elements. But I More...

I wanted to read this because it's one of the first locked-room mysteries: A woman was found attacked in her room, but the door was locked from the inside and there was no way for the attacker to escape. The investigation takes many twists and turns and the ending is difficult to guess. It was also interesting to see how other crime and mystery writers were influenced by Leroux's work.

Impressive book from a historical point of view, as it's considered one of the great 'locked room' mysteries, and was written by the same guy that gave us the 'Phantom of the Opera.
It's just not a very fun read. It's very dry and slightly dreary.

Aside from the main detective, the characters are either very flat or at most, mopey.
The idea of having two detectives 'competing' to crack the case was interesting, but all the good ideas don't seem to fit together to make an entertaining story.

I would More...

Un crime, une tentative d?assassinat, est commis dans une pi?ce sans aucune issue qui aurait pu permettre ? l?assassin de s?enfuir. La question centrale de l?intrigue est donc : comment a-t-il fait pour se volatiliser ainsi ? Plusieurs personnes enqu?tent pour ?claircir ce myst?re, d?une part, le policier charg? de l?affaire et d?autre part, un journaliste particuli?rement perspicace d?nomm? Rouletabille. Ces deux protagonistes vont s?affronter tout au long de l?affaire par l?interm?diaire de le More...

Like one of the Wilkie Collins books: it's worth reading for its historical significance, perhaps, but its plot and characters were too contrived and melodramatic for my taste.

At least with Collins the trick was explained plausibly and some of the plot points were interesting, even if they got draggy too. This? Insufferable characters and a damsel in distress painted with glowing colours only through telling and not showing.

I suppose Christine from Leroux' other famous work must be of the same More...

Gaston Leroux is most famous these days for being the author of The Phantom of the Opera. But besides writing that book, Leroux was a journalist and a prolific writer of detective fiction. The most famous of these novels is 'The Mystery of the Yellow Room', a book which is widely regarded as being one of the best locked room mysteries ever written. The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of crime fiction in which a crime is committed, in a locked room, under almost impossible circumstances, but h More...

Finally I brought myself to finish the lauded short novel 'The Mystery of the Yellow Room' by Gaston Leroux. It is hailed as one of the most original works of mystery fiction written and has been named as one of the pioneers of the locked room genre. We are introduced to the young journalist Joseph Rouletabille who throws himself into the investigation of a mysterious murder at Chateau du Glandier. A murder that takes place in a room that has been locked from the inside with no possible means of More...

j'ai écouté ce livre en audio book et ce fut un vrai plaisir. Je l'avais lu enfant j'avais envie de me remémorer l'histoire que j'avais quelque peut oubliée, bien que le nom de l'assassin me fut resté (ou du moins, la première fois que son nom est évoqué dans le roman, me revînt-il comme étant celui de l'assassin). Comme par ailleurs, j'avais vraiment oublié les ressorts du mystère, j'étais assez déroutée et pour tout dire, je repartais de zéro (ou presque) pour "mener l'enquête" de mon côté, im More...

Gaston Leroux is of course best known as the author of Phantom of the Opera but he was actually quite prolific. He write quite a few mysteries, the most famous being The Mystery of the Yellow Room.

This is the book that introduces his detective Rouletabille, and an interesting sleuth he is too. He is in fact a newspaper reporter rather than a detective as such but as a crime-solver he is second to none. The most interesting thing about him though is that he is just 18 years old. He’s a boy genius More...

Sandwiched between Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr is a locked room mystery from the author best known for "Phantom of the Opera." This first book of the series features late teen reporter Joseph Routleabille. The mystery, especially the detailed crime scene description, is fascinating. The resolution is exhaustively explained. As a mystery, it is first-rate. That said, it is easy to see why this character is obscure. Sherlock Holmes was not only brilli More...

Gaston Leroux was not the first person to write a locked room mystery – that I think was probably Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840’s, but some consider The Mystery of the Yellow Room to among the best of its kind.
The setting for this early nineteenth century mystery is an isolated French chateau – where in a small pavilion in the grounds a scientific professor and his attractive thirty-five year old daughter spends hours closeted together over ground breaking scientific study. During the summer mont More...

Seems everyone knows that Gaston Leroux wrote The Phantom of the Opera; even those who haven't heard the author's name recognizes the title of the book thanks to the growing popularity over the years, the constant stage presence, etc. Unfortunately Andrew Lloyd Weber didn't adapt Leroux's detective fiction into a musical so they're not as common.

The first of his mysteries was this one published serially in 1907. Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes - Gaston Leroux had Joseph Rouletabille. Roul More...

El misterio del cuarto amarillo es una de las primeras novelas con el esquema del "misterio del cuarto cerrado", vale decir que la trama se desarrolla a partir de un crimen perpetrado en un cuarto en del que no se puede ni entrar ni salir.

Bajo esta premisa Leroux nos plantea un intento de asesinato contra Mathilde Stangerson (hermosa mujer de más de treinta años y soltera). La peculiaridad del hecho es que se realizo en un cuarto cerrado, de donde no se podía salir sin tropezarse con el padre de More...

First book downloaded on to my new Kindle. Apparently the author also wrote "The Phantom of the Opera" but don't let that put you off. There is no singing or Lloyd-Webber kitsch here.
Leroux was a journalist and this book reads like a Sunday paper's examination of a popular sensational mystery. It owes much to Conan-Doyle and the later Agatha Christie in having a slightly bumbling narrator enthralled by the genius of the hero who seems to be the only person with any idea as to how an assault cou More...

Well, call me an easily pleased chump, but I thought this was an engaging mystery. I read through it quickly and was satisfied with the ending.

Yes, it was rather easy to see early on who the criminal might be and the criminal's motive and the relation to the victim, etc. ... but even with all that being supposed, I still thought it an interesting story. The little side-plots with minor characters I appreciated too.

I wonder if the predictably is just a result of having read too much literature f More...

This book was entertaining. I'm not a huge fan of mysteries, but I did enjoy this one.

The characters where very well thought out and have a very 3 deminsional feel to them, especially the reporter Rouletabille. I also like the hint of the supernatural, which really added to the erieness for me (I realize that avid mystery readers would have seen right through that aspect, but for me it was fun).

There are two reasons that this book didn't get a higher score from me. First of all, the chapters so More...

First written in 1908, The Mystery of the Yellow Room is considered one of the classics of the "locked-room"/impossible crime genre. Believe me, by the time you finish reading about the crime (never mind the rest of the book), you'll be scratching your head saying "how on earth did this just happen?"

It seems that one Mathilde Stangerson goes off to her room (called The Yellow Room) in a pavilion where she and her father work at scientific experiments. The door is locked -- then she is heard to More...

A mind-boggling denouement redeems an otherwise tedious locked-room mystery. If Leroux had scrunched the whole book into 150 pages, he would have had a masterpiece. But it seems certain that he was being paid by the word ... and he must have made a fortune.

Eighteen-year-old cub reporter Joseph Rouletabille insinuates himself into the investigation of an attack on Mlle Stangerson, the lovely daughter of a renowned French-American scientist. The attempted murder takes place in her room, located ju More...

This masterpiece by Leroux surely deserves its place among the regarded classics of detective fiction. M. Rouletabille proves himself no less ingenious than Holmes or Poirot.

When the daughter of a famous French scientist comes close to being murdered, not once, but thrice, in circumstances that seem to rule out anything other than an eerie phantom, an intrepid reporter who calls himself Rouletabille takes up the case and sees it through to the conclusion. We are led all along by red herrings, fa More...

As usual Simon Vance did an excellent job bringing the book to life with his narration. I only wish I had enjoyed the story as much as the narrative. I could find no connection to the protaganist, a young newspaper reporter who was the darling of the media, as he came off very arrogant and without much personality. The best part of the book for me was trying to figure out what the connection between the heroine, Mathilde Stangerson, and her would-be killer was. That was much more of a mystery th More...

The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston LeRoux has been called one of the foundational works of French mystery fiction. If that’s true, then French mystery fiction is founded on the shoulders of Arthur Conan Doyle, because The Mystery of the Yellow Room is almost a carbon copy of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. You could change the character names around, plop it down in jolly old England, and no one would be the wiser. Yet it’s been consistently upheld as one of the greatest locked room mysteries o More...

While I not generally a mystery reader, this French novel is one of the classics and I really enjoyed it. Written in 1907, this is the first story about the French detective Joseph Rouletabille a clever young journalist. In this case Rouletabille is investigating the attack on a prominent scientist's daughter, occuring in her locked bedroom with no clear way for the villian to escape. It reminded me a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories because Rouletabille is a bit eccentric and also uses logic to m More...

I have been reading too many books too quickly so I made an "Almost New Year's resolution" to pause and write a review after reading a book, before picking up the next one. Well, technically I didn't pick up the next one since it was just sitting on my e-reader, but I must confess I'm a day late in writing this review.

Good news - I didn't guess who the attacker was.
- Liked the idea of 2 detectives vying to solve the case
- Similar style to a Sherlock Holmes book, from point of view of the sidekic More...

When I started with the book, it was already categorised as 'the best ever' that I'm going to read in a while. The story is very good, very well-thought and in fact superbly written (that is if you like the old world, drawn-out, writing style).

However, there is a limit to which one can sustain the long stretched suspense. In the middle of it all I thought I was going to give up and skip to the end just to calm my nerves, but then patience returned and the end followed.

Well... obviously the cat More...

I read this book a few years ago in French but I was told that the English translation is pretty bad which would explain why it didn't get many great reviews on this site. It is truly one of those mystery books that get under your skin and haunt you when you are not reading anymore. Inspector Rouletabille is nothing short of a genius and the ending that the reader awaits to find out how an attack took place inside an impenetrable room and how the attacker escaped, doesn't disappoint. It is an in More...

Supongo que este es la madre de todas las novelas de misterio (más aún si la propia Agatha Christie así lo dice). Lo que pasa es que se me hizo un poco complicado de seguir, teniendo que recurrir en varias ocasiones a los planos dibujados.
Por otro lado me da la impresión de que aún habiendo desperdigado pistas a lo la largo de toda la trama, el autor sí que se saca cosas de la manga.
El protagonista, Rouletabille, es una especie de precursor de Tintin (no soy el único en pensarlo) y no dejé de im More...

Excellent classic written in 1907. The book has a well-constructed plot and interesting character development. One of the first, if not the first, "locked room" mysteries. The crime is investigated by Mon. Rouletabill, a journalist, not a detective, who is 18 years old. Using his powers of observation and deduction, he is able to solve the mystery of how the crime was committed in a locked room.

I picked this up at Half Priced books and was intrigued by the introduction. It took me a while to ge More...