From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

The Circular Staircase (Miss Cornelia Van Gorder Trilogy #2)

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Start date: October 1, 2017

Finish date: October 31, 2017

Discussion: Group reads

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 330 topics — 11,893 comments total

Group reads

* November 2025 group read - Winner!
By Judy · 20 posts · 32 views

last updated Sep 17, 2025 08:43AM

* Sept 25: Lonesome Road (#3 Miss Silver Mysteries) by Patricia Wentworth
By Susan · 16 posts · 16 views

last updated Sep 19, 2025 01:03PM

showing 7 of 7 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Sep 09, 2017 Susan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Written in 1908 this is an early mystery, written by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876- 1958), a prolific American author. The story revolves around Rachel Innes, who rents a house in the country, for her and her two adult wards – Halsey and Gertrude. It soon becomes clear that Rachel (or ‘Aunt Ray’) is one of those redoubtable women, who tend to be terrible practical and used to dealing with the hysterics of servants. This is useful, as the house she rents from the Armstrong family, named “Sunnyside, Written in 1908 this is an early mystery, written by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876- 1958), a prolific American author. The story revolves around Rachel Innes, who rents a house in the country, for her and her two adult wards – Halsey and Gertrude. It soon becomes clear that Rachel (or ‘Aunt Ray’) is one of those redoubtable women, who tend to be terrible practical and used to dealing with the hysterics of servants. This is useful, as the house she rents from the Armstrong family, named “Sunnyside,” is not well named. Rather than offering a pleasant home for the summer, the house is large and isolated; causing her continually resigning servant, Liddy, to be nervous.

Liddy, it turns out, is correct, as the house is full of bumps and noises, with strange figures appearing at the windows and, with the arrival of Halsey and Gertrude, things get no better. Before long there is a murder and a convoluted and confusing tale ensues, involving embezzlement, mysterious events, love stories, melodrama and a sense of impending disaster.

The detective in charge of the case, Mr Jamieson, rightly believes that Miss Innes is keeping things back – indeed she refrains from telling him anything which might incriminate either Halsey or Gertrude; who seem to be involved with virtually every stage of this mystery and to turn up in the most unlikely places, or be linked to, every suspect. However, Mr Jamieson seems happy enough to work alongside Miss Innes, as she attempts to unravel the mystery, resist demands that she leaves the house and free her wards from suspicion.

Obviously this is a very early mystery and so this was undoubtedly more spooky when readers came across it at the time. I must admit that I did not warm to Rachel Innes though, or really feel much interest in the plot. It seemed to career from one event to another and, although an interesting example of an early crime novel, is something I probably would not have persevered with had I not been finishing it for a book group read.

...more

22 likes · Like · see review

Sep 04, 2025 Teri-K rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, 1800s, mystery, 2025-my-book-club, 2025-classics-challenge, 25-august

My initial reaction-
I've been reading this for three weeks and it feels really, really long. (It's about 200 pages, so actually short.) I'm enjoying it enough, there's been a fair amount of plot to keep the story moving, but whenever I get to the end of a chapter I have no desire to read another; it just lacks any forward motion for me. I think it's because the plot is very episodic. It's not "this happened so I decided to go here and do that..." but very much,"this happened, then I went to bed ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2022 Amy rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2022

Normally "dated" books don't bother me but this one was in a class of it's own. The racism was hateful rather than simply "of it's time." (I'm NOT defending historical racism just acknowledging there's value in SOME books that still have language and ideas that make us uncomfortable.) THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE is not in that category. I imagine (hope?) that some of the language and ideas towards minorities and women disgusted people at the time it was written.

Then there's the plot. It involved two ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 29, 2022 Bev rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, vintage-mystery, american-mystery, suspense, bought-2012

See review other edition

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 09, 2019 P. rated it it was ok

The plot is rambling, and convoluted, and messy, and Gothic. The heroine [really an anti-heroine] is a self-centered bossy woman. The other characters are ill-defined and vague, and the women - all of them - kept fainting.

Like · see review

Sep 23, 2013 Laura rated it it was ok

Shelves: crime-mystery-fiction

I have been enjoying reading (in some cases, re-reading) classic mysteries lately; this is one I loaded onto my Kindle for vacation reading. Meh. This has too much of everything. The tropes are thick upon the ground here.

Like · see review

Feb 12, 2016 Elise Stone rated it liked it · review of another edition

Enjoyable, but it shows its age. The pacing was a bit slow and there were a lot of characters, most of who were not distinguishable from one another except by name.

Like · see review