First published in 1897, That Affair Next Door
is another fascinating study in human motivations intertwined with bits
and pieces of circumstantial evidence that at first make very little
sense. True to Green’s style, she calls up and explains each motivation,
each piece of evidence with mathematical precision until the mystery
unravels and the perpetrator is punished in a most fitting fashion.
I read it entirely, it was hard !
I wanted to read the first book in the series, but it was unavailable and this one was a freebie. I'd heard about the author as "the mother of detective novel", this was written in 1897, it made me curious.
First, I started reading it during the night, on my Kindle, when I couldn't sleep and didn't want to wake my boyfriend. I had such a hard time trying to understand the plot and trying to like the characters that I decided another approach, meaning I read the second half during the day, fully awake. It didn't work either.
There were many sexist comments, which I attributed to the era, but they grated my nerves seriously : "A woman's bizarre caprices", "Women are inconsistent", a woman kiling herself because she was alone in a house at night and experienced "a sudden attack of frenzy caused by terror" (I must say the theory of suicide by shelf made my jaw drop on the floor - a young woman tried to kill herself by grabbing the nearest shelf, heavy enough to kill her, and pulling it down on her, because when you think suicide, you immediately think of that !), or she was frenzied and stabbef herself in desperation (!!!), "A woman's kind heart stands in the way of her proper judgment of criminals", a woman with some courage and spirit was "like a man" and so on and on.
The heroin, if I may say so, was a middle aged woman, a spinster who was obsessed by wanting to "triumph" over the official detective. She wasn't likable, she practically never gave a thought to the victim, she was stuck up, she watched her neighbours without ever admitting it to herself, she was righteous. The official detective, an older man in his seventies if I remember correctly, was sarcastic and sexist. The young women in this novel were airheads. The story, once described as "complex", seemed to me more like "complicated", without good reason. The style is old-fashioned and pompous. There were so many twists and turns that I frankly didn't care who committed that murder, I just wanted the book to finish and move on to something better ! Phew, it's done !
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