I Read This Once: The Red House Mystery

I did not know this existed until I saw it in my Audible recommendations (then influenced by Lord Peter Wimsey and Hercule Poirot) and recognized a familiar name.

The Red House Mystery, by A.A. Milne.

Milne is best known, of course, for being the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, and this somehow seemed completely incongruous. The creator of one of the most iconic, innocent children's character in all of literature had also written a murder mystery?

It's not that Milne wouldn't have been capable of doing that; many authors dabble in multiple genres, and the Winnie-the-Pooh books themselves are quite well written (and well worth a read of their own). But it still felt odd to see such a violent contrast of styles.

The book is very British: dry and deliberate. Milne clearly takes ideas from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and other great detective novels before him, but it doesn't quite measure up to the classics. It's easy to see why Milne is remembered for Pooh and not The Red House Mystery.

At the same time, it's not awful. It starts a little slow, but the plot gets going as the book moves along, and more importantly, avoids being overtly predictable (which is absolutely crucial in a book like this). The mystery Milne draws up is actually reasonably clever and fairly well thought out.

Overall: 2/5. It's fine, I guess. Worth reading once, maybe, but there are so many better mystery novels.