The Circular Study (Amelia Butterworth Mysteries, #3)

by Anna Katharine Green

[MurderByDeath]

In my unofficial quest to read all of Anna Katherine Green's work, The Circular Study is my first Amelia Butterworth mystery.  Amelia Butterworth is credited as the prototype of the spinster amateur detective, a category that includes Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver, and Christie's infamous Miss Marple.  Green is also credited as the first to develop the series detective with her Ebenezer Gryce (of the New York Metropolitan Police Force) series of mysteries.  This book is also my first introduction to Gryce.   Compared to The Mayor's Wife (the only other full-length AKG book I've read so far, published 7 years after this one), the writing is far more florid, but the plot is ahead of its time.  This is a straight up murder mystery, with no romance, but there is a fair amount of romantic narrative, in the form of a character's statement.  This was really heavy handed; a reader could be forgiven for thinking the woman described was a contemporary Blessed Madonna (no, not the singer, the other one).  There were also a few scenes between Gryce and Butterworth that became a bit thick with mutual appreciation.  There was a lot of sunshine being blown up a lot of skirts in those scenes.   But the plotting makes up for a lot of it.  The eponymous Circular Study is a room full of secrets: a panel of buttons that controlled the color of the electric lighting (this was 1900, long before electric lighting became common, never mind coloured lighting), secret panels and ... bird cages.  There's a deaf-mute butler, and a talking starling too.  Behind it all is the mother of all schemes.  One that could be called diabolical.   In addition to the issues I had with the writing, as mentioned above, the book presents additional problems, but these issue primarily from the 118 years between publication and my reading.  Contemporary attitudes, social structures, and morays all struggle to translate to a modern sensibility, but though I liked The Mayor's Wife better overall, this is still a mystery well-worth reading, especially for those aficionados of the genre.  That she blazed the trail for mystery writers including Doyle, Christie and Sayers, but has since been languishing in obscurity is a tragedy in itself.  Luckily for those with e-readers, Project Gutenberg has most, if not all of her work available; those with a preference for print should be able to source copies of this amazing writer with be no problem, if my experience is any indication.  Highly recommended.