"The House Without the Door"

Elizabeth Daly's books are not very well known today - and that seems to me to be a pity. She was one of the best American writers of the Golden Age and a little beyond, writing mostly in the 1940s. She is said to have been one of Agatha Christie's favorite authors. "The House Without the Door," first published in 1942, is reviewed this week on our Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the whole review here.

"The House Without the Door" features Henry Gamadge, Daly's bibliophile and detective - though he often finds himself at odds with the police, believing, instead, in serving justice. In this book, he takes up the case of a woman who had been acquitted of murdering her husband - but who was still guilty in the public's eyes. Now, it appears, someone may be trying to murder her. It's a fascinating, complex story, and it evokes a New York City from a day when there were elevated trains on Third Avenue and the "upper classes" lived just off the east side of Central Park. It's also a fine, and fair, puzzle mystery, and it's a good introduction to Daly's work.