Long before Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne wrote The Red House Mystery (1922) — a sparkling country-house whodunit that Raymond Chandler later singled out for criticism, which is perhaps the best measure of how seriously it must be taken. A man is shot dead in a locked study, and amateur sleuth Antony Gillingham sets out to unravel a puzzle that grows more baffling with every answer.
Milne brings the same lightness of touch and precise prose to detective fiction that he brought to children’s literature. Download the free EPUB for one of the most pleasurable Golden Age mysteries ever written — elegant, funny, and genuinely surprising.