The Bat
Written by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Narrated by Shelly Frasier
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
The spirited and headstrong spinster is not easily fazed, until one stormy night when she stumbles on a corpse. She musters all her nerves to play the vicious killer's deadly game and confront the Bat once and for all. The Bat, which draws from The Circular Staircase but adds some new plot complexities-namely, the villainous Bat-shows Mary Roberts Rinehart at the height of her career and is considered her greatest work.
Mary Roberts Rinehart
Often referred to as the American Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American journalist and writer who is best known for the murder mystery The Circular Staircase—considered to have started the “Had-I-but-known” school of mystery writing—and the popular Tish mystery series. A prolific writer, Rinehart was originally educated as a nurse, but turned to writing as a source of income after the 1903 stock market crash. Although primarily a fiction writer, Rinehart served as the Saturday Evening Post’s correspondent for from the Belgian front during the First World War, and later published a series of travelogues and an autobiography. Roberts died in New York City in 1958.
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Reviews for The Bat
11 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Book group chose this 1920 work.It was a good little mystery with the feeling of masterpiece theaterthroughout.No need for multiple settings.I marveled at some of the word choices....such as sepulchrally and terrorizationand sauvitity...The butler (Japanese) was addressed frequently in a manner with which I was uncomfortable.Smoking was rampant throughout.It was a "drug the doctor (Wells) forbade his patients but prescribes for himself"I can't see that flying today.And........It was a story with an actual plot and no sexual overtones needed...All in all...It was an interesting look into the world of suspense circa 1920.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very good example of early detective mystery. lots of classic twists and turns with misdirection.
I think it is important to remember when it was written to avoid some disappointment in the characters and some of the plotting. If you can get in the right mindset. you will really enjoy this chilling mystery. I'm definitely going to follow up with more of these early detective stories.
This review is of the audio book. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Meh... If you've seen the silent movie version from the 1920's, it's a pretty faithful rendition of the book. The book itself reads like a silent movie scenario: an improbable master villian (in a black mask and cape!), a hidden room, the dead man who isn't quite as dead as he should be, an amnesia victim, a doughty old lady, etc. Maybe these things weren't quite so cliched when the book was written.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Another experiment in Golden Age authors. The main characters were enjoyable in this mystery, especially the Irish housekeeper. The mystery was sound, a bit too easy for me. Am I getting better at this because I've read so many? The villain lacked something. The author built him up to be a "super" villain, but I saw through him easily. She just didn't give him the attention he deserved when he finally entered the story. At least I can say she played fair with the clues, I caught every one of them. Perhaps too obvious? An enjoyable one-night read.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart was originally published in 1926. Unfortunately I found the story quite dated. The mystery was alright, but presented in a melodramatic style that quickly became too much. The background details, the settings, styles and manners of the time period were of more interest to me. There were some definite racial slurs, mostly aimed at a Japanese Butler that I found quite distasteful. But she also made sure the overwrought ghost-believing maid, Lizzie, was identified as Irish many times.An older woman leaves New York City to take a house in the country for the summer. She brings along her maid and her niece. The rural area is the haunt of a master criminal called the Bat. Before too long the residents of the house are experiencing nightly noises and strange sights. Add to this a dead man who isn’t quite as dead as everyone thinks and a bank robbery where the cash is missing, mix with some very stereotypical characters and the end result is The Bat.I prefer my older mysteries to be low-keyed and to use humor and/or wry observations to advance the plot. The Bat, on the other hand is presented in an over-blown, clichéd style that just didn’t hold up or keep my attention.