The mystery is well plotted, with plenty of red herrings as well as actual clues to give the reader opportunities to solve “who done it”. Told entirely from Miss Butterworth’s point of view, the reader can follow along as she develops her ideas regarding the guilty party as well as her desire to best the police inspector who discounts her abilities.
There is also an opportunity to immerse yourself in the writing style of the period and experience from a first-hand basis some of the social strictures of the day. It’s interesting to read this as opposed to an historical novel/mystery which tries to imbue these ideas into the novel, but often has modern terms and thoughts seep through on occasion.
It was a little difficult to warm to Miss Butterworth as she comes across as completely self-serving. Her desire to solve the mystery is grounded in her perceived rivalry with the inspector. Her welcoming attitude to the young girls, members of the murdered woman’s family, are attributed to her desire to show off her good nature and largess.
There are a number of reasons for a mystery aficionado to read this book. For one, there is a solid mystery that provides an opportunity for the reader to solve the crime along with the book’s protagonist. Beyond that, there is the opportunity for the reader to be immersed in the society of the day, getting a close-up view of what it was like to be a single woman in the 1890’s, particularly a woman who, in that day and age, was classified as a spinster.
The book is somewhat wordy, as it was written in the more formal, wordy style of the day. Once the reader adjusts to the style, they can sit back and enjoy getting to know Miss Butterworth and work to solve the mystery on their own. My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital read copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. This is the first in a new series being offered by Poisoned Pen in conjunction with the Library of Congress that will feature classic mysteries from early mystery writings.

I know the writer but it's the her first book I read.
I was fascinated by the MC, well written and interesting, and the description of the setting.
The mystery is solid, full of twists and turns, and kept me guessing till the end.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

classic-crime, NYC, amateur-sleuth, law-enforcement, murder-investigation, sly-humor, 1890s

First published in 1897.
Delightful! First you have the problem of syntax and idioms of over a hundred years ago as well as the attitudes of people from one income bracket to another, but it's the telling of what we now call a cozy mystery that makes it a really good classic. The story is told by Miss Butterworth whose observations are very much tongue-in-cheek if not downright snarky. The characters are exceptionally well drawn and their quirks add to the fun. While it may seem a bit longwinded according to the page count, that does include some explanations of idioms and whatnot that are unknown today rather than reinterpreting the original. It's a great story with a totally unpredictable resolution and I hope that more of her books will be on offer soon!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

Over here in the States, Poisoned Pen Press is getting ready to release its first book in their exciting new series The Library of Congress Crime Classics. The spotlight will be on American mystery and detective fiction initially published in the genre's Golden Age. For the inaugural title, the editors have reached back to the end of the 19th century to spotlight a female author who created a resilient older woman amateur detective, paving the way for spinster sleuths like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Stuart Palmer's Hildegarde Withers.

That Affair Next Door (1897) is one of several crime stories penned by the influential genre writer Anna Katharine Green, whose first and most famous novel, 1878's The Leavenworth Case, became a celebrated best-seller on publication. Green's historical timing places her after Poe and as a contemporary of Conan Doyle, so she has a lot of open space to innovate and explore within the nascent medium of detective fiction. That Affair Next Door proves to be an intriguing book both in literary context and on its own, and it is one well worth reading a century and a quarter later.

At the heart of this Affair is Miss Amelia Butterworth, a cultured and unattached older lady in New York society who has a penchant for nosing around in other people's comings and goings, literally. Hearing a horse-drawn cab pulling up to the house opposite hers just before midnight, she watches from her window as two figures emerge, one male and one female, and make their way towards the front door of the empty Van Burnam estate. When a distraught cleaning woman appears the following morning, Miss Amelia makes sure to gain access to the house, thus beating the police to a crime scene: a woman's body lies crushed underneath an overturned cabinet.

Soon, law officials appear, among them Detective Ebenezer Gryce, who is even older than the neighbor who is now acting as amateur sleuth. With a sense of competitiveness inflamed and a desire to prove that she can observe and draw conclusions as astutely as any policeman, Miss Amelia sets out on her own investigation. Her objectives include finding the identity of the midnight visitors, learning why the woman arrived without a hat (a societal faux pas surely), and discovering what the cleaning woman knows that she is not telling Detective Gryce. These initial questions lead to others, and an inquest in which the two Van Burnam brothers, Howard and Franklin, give testimony only creates further mystification. Both the professional and the amateur detective are determined to find a solution to the murder, but it is quite likely they might not arrive at the same one.

By this point, Ebenezer Gryce had become the author's series character, having appeared in The Leavenworth Case and other novels. But it is definitely Miss Amelia Butterworth and her personality who drives the story here, narrating in a proud and defiant first-person point-of-view and journeying all over town to collect clues and interview those who might have information. Green paints a winning picture of her self-assured protagonist, and she does a masterful job of keeping Miss Amelia just on the side of likeability, despite a very healthy ego (read: sense of self-importance) and a propensity to be stubborn and empirical. But these strong traits, along with her fearlessness, serve her well, and without this memorable character intellectually and physically driving the story, the murder mystery aspect would lose much of its urgency and charm.

For That Affair Next Door is a lengthy text; it is actually separated into four "books" in the sectional fashion of the time. Printed editions average around 400 pages, and while the prose is not ornate and is easily accessible to modern readers, Green still indulges in the deliberate and verbose syntax one finds in her near-contemporaries like Wilkie Collins and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Whenever Miss Amelia switches from active sleuth to passive audience member, such as during her attendance at the Van Burnam inquest, the book's pacing immediately slows. Fortunately, those moments are few, and she is soon back to her winningly active ways.

There is much here to interest armchair sociologists, and Anna Katharine Green's depiction of turn-of-the-century New England moneyed society, while never critical or overt, is still intriguing. (Green was a member of this group, with her father a successful lawyer.) The Poisoned Press edition provides footnotes, some of which help offer historical context. Miss Butterworth's interview of a Chinese laundry worker, described as "a member of that abominable race", is an unflattering but not unsympathetic stereotype and an artifact of its time, when the "yellow peril" theme in American literature was especially virulent in the late 1900s, as one footnote reminds us.

And last but definitely not least, the mystery itself is a solid one, with some neat shifts in perception and a rather unique murder method, especially as the death-by-furniture scenario partly masks another lethal act. As usually happens with early thrillers that also mix romance and melodrama, there are a couple coincidences and quixotic character behaviors that don't quite convince the modern reader, but by the end of Book Four and the truce arrived at between the competing detectives, the story is satisfying and concludes with all of the pieces assembled and accounted for.

I had never managed to read a mystery from genre pioneer Anna Katharine Green, so I am grateful that the new Library of Congress Crime Classics series has introduced me to the author and her energetic heroine at the heart of That Affair Next Door. The title is available for pre-order and will be released in the U.S. on April 7. I'm very excited to see what other American authors and titles the editors have planned for the series, and I only hope that the schedule allows for a release of more books, and not less, with each year! I received an advance copy from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an enjoyable classic era mystery.
Interesting characters and a well paced whodunit.
I will definitely seek out other books by this author.

High-society spinster Amelia Butterworth, a sharp-eyed inveterate busybody, notices some strange going-ons next door. The Van Burnams are in Europe, so why are a young man and lady entering the house? Miss Butterworth soon gets the police — and herself — involved in what turns out to be murder.

Author Anna Katherine Green’s novel has plenty of twists, but the best part is the slyly humorous portrayal of Amelia Butterworth herself: pushy, snobbish, bumptious, priggish and completely lacking in self-awareness. She’s inadvertently funny without ever realizing it. Just one example: Miss Butterworth sees herself as “an energetic woman with a special genius for [the police’s] particular calling.” Her young neighbors, Caroline and Isabella Van Burnam, refer to her as the ogress behind her back (which the snoopy Amelia overhears). You make the call as to who got it right.

I read Green’s first novel, (first published in 1876), The Leavenworth Casewhich was pretty mediocre, with stilted writing and several implausible characters and events. However, The Affair Next Door, first published 21 years later, proves a well-plotted novel that had me smiling and enjoying characters with lots of depths. Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for reissuing this fine novel.

Although her name’s hardly known, Anna Katherine Green influenced quite a few of the greats: Mary Roberts Rinehart, Agatha Christie and Patrician Wentworth. Green has been called “the mother of the detective novel.” The excellent The Affair Next Door shows why.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

For anyone interested in a classic mystery story, AK Green wrote this in 1897 and was one of the first popular mystery writers. It is fun to see how the genre was treated at the time.

This is a pretty solid mystery with some humor and a great lead character Not as good as other books set in this time period, but I suspect the author was breaking new ground 100 years ago. Recommended for mystery fans.

I really appreciate the review copy!!

I have read a lot of stories by Anna Katharine Green, all have been very enjoyable but very slow to develop. This is not a fault of the book, but the writing style of the period. The mystery is good, well thought out and written with flare. It is nice to read a book in this style again and understand the period that we have long left behind.