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A review by nglofile
The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green
4.0
A long-overlooked gem, The Leavenworth Case is a Victorian era mystery that was actually published in 1878. Now newly reissued, modern readers have the chance to enjoy the enigmatic characters and the steady piecing of clues in a classic mystery.
I confess I do balk at the publisher's label of Green as "the mother of the detective novel" who "changed the mystery genre forever" and of its touting of the "first American series detective...published nine years before the debut of Sherlock Holmes". It seems they have conveniently forgotten Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" which introduced (in 1841) C. Auguste Dupin, the detective character that would reappear in two more Poe stories. Hair-splitting, perhaps, but not to dismissed.
Still, the fact I could look past the marketing hyperbole and still very much enjoy and recommend this book is another point in its favor.
I confess I do balk at the publisher's label of Green as "the mother of the detective novel" who "changed the mystery genre forever" and of its touting of the "first American series detective...published nine years before the debut of Sherlock Holmes". It seems they have conveniently forgotten Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" which introduced (in 1841) C. Auguste Dupin, the detective character that would reappear in two more Poe stories. Hair-splitting, perhaps, but not to dismissed.
Still, the fact I could look past the marketing hyperbole and still very much enjoy and recommend this book is another point in its favor.