The Mystery of the Yellow Room was written by Gaston Leroux in 1907 and has been translated from the French, although the version I read had no credit for a translator. The author is perhaps better known for The Phantom of the Opera and this crime novel also has some supernatural and gothic undertones.
The Yellow Room is a classic locked room mystery set on an isolated estate near Paris. The hero is a brash teenage reporter and amateur detective who somehow becomes involved in investigating the crime although he appears to have no legal standing. Rouletabille cleverly makes himself welcome inside a château where a near-murder has just taken place and sets traps for the criminal. Beautiful Mademoiselle Stangerson has been viciously attacked inside a locked and barred room. How the would-be murderer escaped is a mystery. A striking beauty, Mlle Stangerson has dedicated her life to helping her father with his scientific pursuits and they work together in a pavilion outside the chateau where she also has her bedroom.
The plot revolves around Rouletabille’s efforts to solve the case and beat his rival who is the most famous detective from the Paris Sureté to the solution. It’s richly filled with misleading suspects and subtle subplots and maps of the château and the pavilion containing the Yellow Room both clarify and cloud the mystery. There is also a dramatic courtroom scene complete with fainting women, applause, laughter, and shocking last-minute revelations.
This is one of those books where the puzzle is more important than the characterisation but the explanation as to how the miscreant managed to attack Mlle Stangerson is cleverly done.
I enjoyed this book well enough but the character of Rouletabille did annoy me because of his cockiness and I am not sure why he had to be so young. The author went on to write one more book and several short stories about him but this is his most famous. I think that it’s worth a read.
Anne Is Reading 