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The Man Who Slept All Day
A weekend getaway among friends becomes an occasion for murder in this “entertaining tantalizer” of a whodunit (Kirkus Reviews). Eccentric brothers Frank and George Faulkner are hosting a weekend house party at the legendary Ravensmoor estate. The guests include a pair of struggling newlyweds, a brutal criminal attorney, a fading chorus girl, and a freeloading couple who live off the fat of their friends. All of them are acquaintances save for a mousy stranger who’s more shadow than man. Then, one by one, each visitor makes the same startling George’s corpse snuggled under the covers of his bed. It could’ve been another of his tasteless practical jokes—if not for the gaping wound in his neck. Why everyone’s been assembled to partake in a murder is only the first mystery. Because the party at Ravensmoor is just getting started . . .
205 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 20, 2018
23 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Craig Rice
101 books57 followersPseudonym for Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig aka Daphne Sanders and Michael Venning.
Known for her hard-boiled mystery plots combined with screwball comedy, Georgiana 'Craig' Rice was the author of twenty-three novels, six of them posthumous, numerous short stories, and some true crime pieces. In the 1940s she rivaled Agatha Christie in sales and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1946. However, over the past sixty years she has fallen into relative obscurity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Ri...
Known for her hard-boiled mystery plots combined with screwball comedy, Georgiana 'Craig' Rice was the author of twenty-three novels, six of them posthumous, numerous short stories, and some true crime pieces. In the 1940s she rivaled Agatha Christie in sales and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1946. However, over the past sixty years she has fallen into relative obscurity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Ri...
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 31, 2019
Look i’m really serious about NEVER abandoning a book and leaving it unfinished. Oh but this one really challenged me. The story happens in a boring era, with boring characters. The characters quite reminded me of dull characters in Shirley Jackson’s “Haunting of the hill house”
I can’t believe a book in mystery genre would make me sooo bored. I didn’t finish this book, and i gave up giving it another chance.
I can’t believe a book in mystery genre would make me sooo bored. I didn’t finish this book, and i gave up giving it another chance.
December 30, 2021
One of Craig Rice’s three Michael Venning mystery novels. These novels use the POV of each of the characters, letting the reader learn about the characters and their actions that led to the crime. These books are fascinating and well written. Highly recommended.
September 9, 2023
Very good
I liked the way it was written. She told the story by giving each characters viewpoint. Only one character was unlikeable.
I liked the way it was written. She told the story by giving each characters viewpoint. Only one character was unlikeable.
January 21, 2025
Interesting premise with a nice twist. Wouldn’t classify it as noir, but good nonetheless.
September 14, 2019
No wonder George sleeps all day. People keep tucking him in.
Most Agatha Christie fans are aware that she wrote “straight” novels under the name Mary Westmacott. Shrewd old Dame Agatha knew that people would expect any book with her name on it to be a mystery novel. In fact her Westmacott books DO have mystery and suspense in them, but the emphasis is on the characters and why they act the way they do. They were books she desperately wanted to write, even if they didn’t sell like her mysteries.
Craig Rice was known for her “zany” mysteries featuring a lawyer, a debutante, and a saloon owner solving mysteries while careening around wide-open Chicago with a hilarious cast of cops, gangsters, entertainers, and society folks. I suspect she knew that her fans wouldn’t accept any deviation from that pattern.
She wrote three novels under the pen-name Michael Venning, all featuring a strange little man named Melville Fairr. This is one of them and if you’ll give it a chance, I think you’ll appreciate Craig taking a leap into a slightly different genre. Yes, there’s a murder (two, eventually), but this is a mystery that delves deeper into the characters than Rice's other books.
Published in 1942, it’s a “stately manor” mystery, with a group of diverse guests gathered for a weekend of eating, drinking, and relaxation. There’s the host Frank Faulkner and his brother George (who lives with him), three couples, Melville Fairr, and Bletson, the Drunk Butler of Ravensmore. On the surface they all seem either dull or unpleasant or both, but appearances are deceiving. By the end of the book, all of them are revealed as likable people, except for one.
The action takes place in less than 24 hours, starting at 9 am on Sunday morning. One of the guests rises, goes into George Faulkner’s bedroom and discovers that he’s been stabbed in the throat. That guest tucks the bed covers around George so that the knife and blood are hidden and goes about the day, notifying no one. And during the day every person in the house (with one exception) repeats those actions. George is known for sleeping all day after over-indulging the night before, so no alarm is necessary. Each person believes that he/she is the only one aware of the murder.
So why don’t they sound the alarm? One of them is fully aware of what’s going on, having been hired to spend the weekend at Ravensmoor as a guest. The others are silenced by fear that someone they love committed the murder.
The Dixons are newlyweds - still very much in love. She’s a former debutante whose father lost all his money. He’s a struggling young lawyer from a poor family. The Rawlinsons are a middle-aged English couple - perpetual house guests to pad out their tiny income. Both come from aristocratic families, so why are they living in America and why are they destitute? Reno Brown is a successful defense lawyer, but his success hasn’t made him less grim. His intended is a tall, slovenly former-chorus girl named Kitten. No one could be less kittenish in looks or personality.
Frank Faulkner is quiet and charming, but he has a mania for the unexpected that keeps his guests off-guard. And if there’s anything good to be said about George Faulkner, no one ever mentions it. His sole passion in life is collecting secrets about people and torturing them by threatening to reveal those secrets. It appears he pushed the wrong person too far and paid the price.
By the end of the day, everyone’s secrets are revealed and the reader is given brief glimpses into their childhoods to see the forces that created these people and brought them to this point. It’s a mystery, but none of the people are cardboard characters. They have pasts and those pasts created them..
It lacks the humor and wacky, farcical action of Rice’s other mysteries, but it’s a satisfying book. Craig Rice had a talent for showing the child that lives in all of us. Not the stereotypical playful child, but the scared, hurt child who carries those scars throughout life. The flashbacks are brief, but realistic and convincing.
Sure I’d love a few more John J. Malone books, but if Rice had something to say, she had a right to say it. I’m betting she had to fight with her publisher to get this book in print and I’m glad she stood her ground. Her life was short and turbulent. If writing this book gave her pleasure or relief from her demons, that’s all that counts. And it's a good book, too.
Most Agatha Christie fans are aware that she wrote “straight” novels under the name Mary Westmacott. Shrewd old Dame Agatha knew that people would expect any book with her name on it to be a mystery novel. In fact her Westmacott books DO have mystery and suspense in them, but the emphasis is on the characters and why they act the way they do. They were books she desperately wanted to write, even if they didn’t sell like her mysteries.
Craig Rice was known for her “zany” mysteries featuring a lawyer, a debutante, and a saloon owner solving mysteries while careening around wide-open Chicago with a hilarious cast of cops, gangsters, entertainers, and society folks. I suspect she knew that her fans wouldn’t accept any deviation from that pattern.
She wrote three novels under the pen-name Michael Venning, all featuring a strange little man named Melville Fairr. This is one of them and if you’ll give it a chance, I think you’ll appreciate Craig taking a leap into a slightly different genre. Yes, there’s a murder (two, eventually), but this is a mystery that delves deeper into the characters than Rice's other books.
Published in 1942, it’s a “stately manor” mystery, with a group of diverse guests gathered for a weekend of eating, drinking, and relaxation. There’s the host Frank Faulkner and his brother George (who lives with him), three couples, Melville Fairr, and Bletson, the Drunk Butler of Ravensmore. On the surface they all seem either dull or unpleasant or both, but appearances are deceiving. By the end of the book, all of them are revealed as likable people, except for one.
The action takes place in less than 24 hours, starting at 9 am on Sunday morning. One of the guests rises, goes into George Faulkner’s bedroom and discovers that he’s been stabbed in the throat. That guest tucks the bed covers around George so that the knife and blood are hidden and goes about the day, notifying no one. And during the day every person in the house (with one exception) repeats those actions. George is known for sleeping all day after over-indulging the night before, so no alarm is necessary. Each person believes that he/she is the only one aware of the murder.
So why don’t they sound the alarm? One of them is fully aware of what’s going on, having been hired to spend the weekend at Ravensmoor as a guest. The others are silenced by fear that someone they love committed the murder.
The Dixons are newlyweds - still very much in love. She’s a former debutante whose father lost all his money. He’s a struggling young lawyer from a poor family. The Rawlinsons are a middle-aged English couple - perpetual house guests to pad out their tiny income. Both come from aristocratic families, so why are they living in America and why are they destitute? Reno Brown is a successful defense lawyer, but his success hasn’t made him less grim. His intended is a tall, slovenly former-chorus girl named Kitten. No one could be less kittenish in looks or personality.
Frank Faulkner is quiet and charming, but he has a mania for the unexpected that keeps his guests off-guard. And if there’s anything good to be said about George Faulkner, no one ever mentions it. His sole passion in life is collecting secrets about people and torturing them by threatening to reveal those secrets. It appears he pushed the wrong person too far and paid the price.
By the end of the day, everyone’s secrets are revealed and the reader is given brief glimpses into their childhoods to see the forces that created these people and brought them to this point. It’s a mystery, but none of the people are cardboard characters. They have pasts and those pasts created them..
It lacks the humor and wacky, farcical action of Rice’s other mysteries, but it’s a satisfying book. Craig Rice had a talent for showing the child that lives in all of us. Not the stereotypical playful child, but the scared, hurt child who carries those scars throughout life. The flashbacks are brief, but realistic and convincing.
Sure I’d love a few more John J. Malone books, but if Rice had something to say, she had a right to say it. I’m betting she had to fight with her publisher to get this book in print and I’m glad she stood her ground. Her life was short and turbulent. If writing this book gave her pleasure or relief from her demons, that’s all that counts. And it's a good book, too.
December 24, 2018
This one was not a Malone book (I always picture him being played by Jay Thomas (Carla on Cheers' second husband, the hockey player), but it was a nice story anyway even without him getting into scrapes. The action takes place over one day, and there is an "ensemble cast" and each one thinks he or she is the major reason for the events that occur. It is an unusual take on this type of story. I really liked it.
December 12, 2018
I visually like country estate mysteries but this one was sooo long-winded. I realize thiswas written in a different era but every time she mentioned "colored people," I just cringed. The end. Come on---
December 24, 2018
My first book by this author. It was okay. Twists, aplenty. Some made sense. Others, not so much. At times, it felt a bit like the movie, "Murder by Death." It was longer and not as much fun, though. Hard to say too much without spoilers.
December 28, 2018
I liked this book very much. It was very reminiscent of the old whodunits which I enjoy very much. I love the time period in which it was written and enjoyed all the very well-defined characters. I enjoyed each character's mindset for doing what he or she did or did not do. Very well written.
August 9, 2020
I really enjoyed this mystery, except for the references to wanting a "nice colored couple." oof-da. As far as the mystery goes, it's an interesting plot that keeps you guessing.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews