The Swimming Pool

Oh, I liked this. Mary Roberts Rinehart should still be every bit as popular as she once was, as popular as Agatha Christie and the rest of the Golden Agers. She knew what she was about. And her writing was a joy.

After all, the human individual universally has two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a chin. It is the assemblage of these features that counts, and believe me Jude's counted.

The Swimming Pool is a twisty, tricky mystery centered around Lois, the first-person narrator, and her family. She's a mystery writer …

"Don't tell me," he said. "I know. The guy is a private eye. He keeps a fifth of Scotch in a drawer of his desk, he's blackjacked and goes about his business instead of being taken to a hospital where he belongs, and he show more solves the crime when the cops are running in circles."
In spite of myself, I had to laugh.
"Not quite," I said. "My detective is a woman."
He looked really disgusted then…

… And she lives with her brother in what once was (before the crash) her formerly-well-off family's summer home in the country; their sister Judith has years ago married very well and gone off to take her particular brand of spoiled beauty to the social columns.

Except that epoch of Judith's life is coming to an end: she one day tells her patrician husband she's going to Reno to get a divorce, and said husband asks Lois to accompany her – which, reluctantly, she does. And on this trip something happens to push Judith over the edge from brittle but confident to the point of arrogance … to terrified.

I liked these folks. They're characters who are so well conceived and presented that they give every illusion that they were going about their business every day before the book, continued to do so during the book without deigning to take notice of the observer, and will certainly continue with their lives after the nosy reader has gone away. show less

How many female mystery writers owe a debt to Mary Roberts Rinehart? Starting at the turn of the 20th century, Mary Roberts Rinehart penned dozens of novels, most of which featured an intelligent, intrepid heroine who helps to solve the crime — a staple in today’s crime fiction.

In The Swimming Pool, Lois Maynard is the spinster younger sister of a gorgeous blonde who married into New York’s old money. Judith Chandler was a regular in the society pages for 20 years, staying out late, drinking and living the good life. All of a sudden, Judith becomes terrified, heads to Reno, Nev., and divorces her patrician husband, and returns to her now-down-at-heel childhood home, The Birches. She locks herself into her bedroom and is obviously show more terrified. What has happened? And who is the man who Judith is going to kill her?

I enjoyed this book immensely, although it was no The Yellow Room, Miss Pinkerton or The Album. Still, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: A four-star read by Mary Roberts Rinehart is better than some people’s best. show less