Mystery

I read Mystery for the first time in the late winter/early spring of 1991, just after the paperback edition had been released. At the time I was almost exactly the same age as the novel's protagonist, seventeen-year-old Tom Pasmore...but, strangely enough, the second installment of Peter Straub's Blue Rose Trilogy disappointed me. It seemed rather sunny and lightweight after the uncompromisingly nightmarish Koko. However, in the twenty-five years between then and now I've reread Mystery several times and found my initial judgment to have been in error. The Throat is still my favorite book in the trilogy, but today Mystery is a close second: I believe that it's a better, more mature novel than Koko.

Of all Straub's books, this one is the show more most purely and unapologetically an old-fashioned murder mystery; it only flirts with the profound darkness that makes Koko and The Throat so terrifying. But with its fascinating cast of characters, offbeat dual setting (Mill Walk, a fictional Caribbean island, and the wealthy resort town of Eagle Lake, Wisconsin) and maze of unanswered questions surrounding a forty-year-old homicide, Mystery is utterly engrossing. Also, the villain happens to be one of Straub's most interesting and formidable.

Rereading this novel is an easy, immensely enjoyable way for me to return to 1991 for a few days, and I don't mind admitting my sentimental attachment to it :) Four and a half stars. show less

This was a re-read of one of my favourite books. The second in the loosely connected Blue Rose series, the novel shows the coming of age of a boy, Tom Pasmore, born to a privileged but dysfunctional family on the (fictional) Caribbean island of Millwalk. On this island, the Redwing family rule the roost, and Tom's grandfather has enjoyed a great influence with them, being in a business partnership with the previous and current partriarch of that family.

Early in the story, Tom, already somewhat of a bookworm (probably as an escape from a homelife where his parents both drinks and his 'fragile' mother often has screaming fits), travels to the other side of town to investigate something which puzzles him. A man had arrived at his house show more throwing rocks until Tom's grandfather, there on a visit, had persuaded him to leave. Tom catches the man's address and hitches a ride to try to discover what grudge the man has against his family. Unfortunately, the man sends some boys after him with knives and when he runs into traffic to escape them, he suffers a serious accident.

Recuperating in Shady Mount hospital, he forms a bond with two nurses and is visited by an eccentric neighbour, Lamont van Helitz, who brings him plenty of classic detective fiction to read. Seven years later, as a 17 year old on the verge of graduating from high school, he is drawn into an investigation of the corruption and brutality that lie just beneath the surface of the ruling class, when van Helitz recruits him to assist in an investigation. His grandfather "suggests" that he spend the summer in his old lodge at a private lake resort in the USA - none of the family have been back there since the mid 1920s, though the grandfather is not honest about what has really kept them away. The Redwings spend every summer there and it is supposed to be an opportunity for Tom to ingratiate himself with the island's ruling class, but he is more interested in looking into a murder that took place there in 1925, and in romancing Sarah Spence, a young woman who everyone else expects to marry the boorish son of the Redwings.

I loved the relationship between Tom and his mentor and also with Sarah Spence. There were also some well sketched minor characters such as Barbara Deane, the woman with s a secret past, connected to his grandfather and to the machinations of the island's rulers, and who now lives at the town near the resort and looks after the empty lodge. The book is also a beautiful homage to classic crime fiction, mostly the stories of Sherlock Holmes, whom van Helitz resembles. Tom himself is a very untypical teenager, but given his weird upbringing, whole year spent in hospital where he was hardly visited by his parents, and the family inheritance that eventually is revealed, I didn't find that difficult to accept. All in all I loved the book as much as the first time I read it, even though I did remember the sad fate of one character, and am very pleased to award it 5 stars. show less

Tom Pasmore becomes a young detective and discovers that the rich, priveleged society he lives in is rotten to the core. Linking modern (well, it's set sometime in the 60s) corruption and crime to a murder from the 1920s uncovers a lot of secrets, some of which he might ptrefer were left covered. I've loved this book since the first time I read it - the young, bookish hero with the unhappy family life, invalided for more than a year by an accident he can barely remember but which shapes his entire life, the mysterious neighbour the old clippings of past misdeeds that haunt the present, the trip to the holiday resort by the lake where danger starts to close in - it's all wonderful, compelling stuff that captures the essense of the muder show more mystery genre and imbuing it with atmosphere and a complex, pleasing story. show less

I'm approximating a quote here. "This book ... It has too many words."

Good story, really good characters, excellent mystery with lots of twists. But so many things I didn't need to know. Long, winding passages that led nowhere. Descriptions of things that didn't matter and set no tone.

The abridged version would have been fine.

An earlier reviewer noted this book's "uncanny" atmosphere. And that is one of the book's strengths . . . the setting is well and weirdly rendered, a kind of halfway house between Straub's Milwaukee and a corrupt Caribbean island. And, it is becoming more apparent as I read my third or fourth Straub novel that settings like the Milwaukee, Bangkok and Singapore of Koko, and Mill Walk here are less real places than part of a semi-consistent Straubian dreamscape.

What I care for less is the adolescent protagonist, which seems to be another thing Straub likes having (aside from Milwaukee) in his books. It doesn't really work here, and a he-man detective has to be brought in at the last minute to pull of the denouement. A better overall show more design (of protagonists, antagonists and the stakes) would have avoided this.

But overall, good stuff. show less

To put it mildly, this is a book I must have read a dozen times since I was a teenager, and I still feel the same fascination with the plot now as the first time I read it in French. There is a deep sense of 'uncanny' ('unheimlich'), as the modern day storyline is mixed with strange elements and past history ghosts/murders. Everything is connected between the past and the present and Straub's skill is fully developped as he plays with readers with clues and connections, daring us to understand the full story right up til the end.

The narrative is on the third person, but you feel close to the main character, Tom, as you read his thoughts and perceive his reasonning along the plot. I enjoyed the first part most, Tom's childhood, as it is show more a key element for the whole storyline. This book cannot be put down, because you feel you have to know what happens and you have to know the reasons behind so many murders. It is a good stand-alone book, the one that initiated me to the 'Blue Rose' murders series and I have read the rest of the books - this book is highly recommended as a first approach to Straub's 'thriller' genre writing (well apart from his 'horror' genre). show less

The small Caribbean island of Mill Walk is run by an elite group of rich islanders who live in an enclave on the East shore and spend their summers together 'up north', in Eagle Lake Wisconsin. They are an insular group, who pretend not to notice the corruption that supports their priviledged lifestyle, so when Tom Pasmore, the teenage grandson of one of the most powerful men on the islanders develops an interest in murders past and present, it really causes waves!

Unexpectedly good! I didn't realise that Peter Straub wrote murder mysteries as well as horror stories.