The Swimming Pool by Mary Roberts Rinehart

(No, she's not pregnant.) So back to the country house they go. Of course she won't tell Lois what's wrong. If she did, then things might have been cleared up and possibly more death averted.Įarlier, on a divorce trip to Reno with Lois in tow as a sort of minder, Judith had fainted on the train at the sight of something or someone.

Obviously she is deathly afraid of someone.

Sure enough, Judith isn't there five seconds when she barricades herself in her room and refuses to come out. The two siblings lead rather sedate lives and resent the intrusion of DRAMA that always surrounds their sister. But now, after twenty years or so, the wild child is getting a divorce from her stodgy and very correct husband, Ridgely Chandler, and returning to the bosom of her family, much to the chagrin of her sister Lois and her brother Phil, not to mention the housekeeper Helga who isn't keen about the news either. Judith Chandler is the beautiful and glamorous sister who married well and went off to become the darling of the New York society pages - her escapades, legendary. Speaking of which, judging from this book, I don't think Mary Roberts Rinehart thought much of the breed. Last but not least, you got the odd actions of a nefarious butler. You got the stock market crash of 1929 and its ramifications.ġ1. I mean, the man is even more obnoxiously clueless (and proud of it) than the heroine and that's saying a lot.ġ0. You got the heroine's brother who is as annoying a character as Rinehart ever created. Well, yeah, Yvette that's what a red herring is for. You got a HUGE and very interesting (if it had been developed) red herring that kept sidetracking me. You got a heroine who appears to know next to nothing about her own family.Ĩ. You got blackmail to the tune of $50,000 bucks. (What would a Rinehart book be without 'em?)Ħ. You got suicide and some long hidden, down and dirty family secrets. You got an ugly miscarriage of justice.ĥ. You got a dead body in the swimming pool, multiple murders and a couple of attempted.ģ.

You got dark forebodings in a large country manor. I mean, there's everything in here but the kitchen sink. THE SWIMMING POOL is one of Mary Robert Rinehart's more wordy and convoluted stories.

The Swimming Pool by Mary Roberts Rinehart