Reviews at EP: The Man in Lower Ten
February 19, 2011February’s Edwardian Promenade guest post is on Mary Roberts Rinehart’s first mystery novel, The Man in Lower Ten. This is partly because I reread it when I was on that train murder kick earlier this month, and partly because I was just reading a (nonfiction) book in which Rinehart was continually being compared to Mary Higgins Clark, which seemed somewhat unfair.
Redeeming Qualities 
I went through a huge Mary Higgins Clark phase in my teens, and I still think they’re pretty good as far as suspense goes, but Mary Roberts Rinehart seems much more versatile and less formulaic.
I haven’t read much Mary Higgins Clark, but my impression is that she has one thing that she does very well, and she sticks to it. The comparisons bugged me because, yes, Rinehart was a lot more versatile, and because the author of the book was only interested in making easy comparisons and didn’t seem to have done any research on Rinehart at all.