[PW] Re: Stumper

[Holly Campbell-Polivka]

Thank you all so much for your help! I will get back to my patron with that 
info. I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

Holly

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mary Lou White" <whitem at speakeasy.net>
To: "Holly Campbell-Polivka" <holly at jonnyville.org>
Cc: <list at project-wombat.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 12:28 PM
Subject: [PW] Re: Stumper


> Holly,
> I'm pretty sure that this is The Greene Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine.
> I re-read it recently.
> The "private mailbox" is in a chimney that opens into fireplaces in two
> rooms, rather than a laundry chute, but other than that, the details are
> spot on.
> Mary Lou White
>
>
> On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Holly Campbell-Polivka wrote:
>
>> I had a stumper of a question yesterday and was hoping somebody on the 
>> list may be able to help. A patron is looking for a specific book of 
>> which he cannot remember the title. He gave a really good description, 
>> though, so here goes:
>>
>> He read it in about 1950, and it wasn't new then, so he suspects it may 
>> have been published around the 1930's. It is a mystery that takes place 
>> in the United States, maybe New York. It is about an old, somewhat 
>> wealthy family that lives in an old house, and all of the adult children 
>> are living together in the house. One of the sisters is attacked in the 
>> middle of the night in the house, but survives. After the initial attack, 
>> her brothers and sisters start being murdered one by one. One of the 
>> brothers and one of the sisters discover a door in the wall that may be 
>> to a laundry chute, and begin exchanging letters in it to each other. 
>> They refer to it as their "private mailbox." It turns out that the guilty 
>> party is the original sister who was attacked.
>>
>> He wonders if the author may be Mary Roberts Rinehart or somebody like 
>> her, but from what I could find, she is not the author. I tried Novelist 
>> and couldn't find much in that.
>>
>> Any ideas???
>>
>> Holly Campbell-Polivka
>> On-Call Librarian
>> Tigard Public Library
>> Tigard, Oregon
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>> list at project-wombat.org
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>>
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