Bought @ Shakespeare & Company, slightly campy & funny, very much of that time period ( )

I don’t think I have ever had this much fun while reading a murder mystery but Home Sweet Homicide, a 1944 mystery novel written by American author Craig Rice kept a smile on my face throughout. The story follows three young siblings as they investigate a murder that occurred in their neighbourhood.

Dinah, April and Archie are the children of widow Marian Carstairs. Marian is an author of mystery novels and the amount of time she must spend over a typewriter, means the children have many hours of unsupervised time. When the nasty woman next door gets murdered, the children decide that they will solve the mystery but allow the world to think that their mother was the detective who put the clues together and therefore get the credit and, hopefully, a boost in her readership. These three, two overly clever sisters and an ingenious younger brother bumble their way through the book and with plenty of humor and heart solve the case and also manage some matchmaking with their distracted mother and the handsome police detective.

I think one’s enjoyment and delight in this book would depend on how much you can tolerate and enjoy these children who manage to be underfoot during all aspects of the police investigation and while the police may be competent in their investigation, they have no idea how to manage children. The author uses plenty of humor to show how these children are able to run rings around the police.

Craig Rice was the pseudonym of Georgiana Anne Randolph Craig and she was a prolific writer of mysteries, several of which were turned into movies during the 1940s and 50s. Home Sweet Homicide was my first book by this author, but I have already managed to stuff a couple more on my Kindle for future enjoyment. ( )

I liked it better as it went along (but still think it could have been shorter) but there's no good complaining about that now, the author's unlikely to change her style anytime soon ;-)

Enjoyed the resourceful child detectives (but the law-abiding citizen in me is appalled they kept frustrating the police's genuine efforts), was as keen on the domestic drama (romance!) as the central mystery, and am awfully glad I could tell all the characters apart. It amazes me how often writers will parade a series of people-with-names, not characters, and think there job done. It was clear who everyone in a rather large cast actually was--job well done!

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! ( )

Marion Carstairs is a prolific mystery writer under a variety of pen names. Her three children—14-year-old Dinah, 12-year-old April, and 10-year-old Archie—have had to look after themselves as much as their mother has looked after them, because supporting a family of four on a single income by writing is a demanding job. Marion is hard at work on her latest novel when a murder happens next door. The kids decide to use their detective smarts picked up from Marion’s novels and solve the crime, ideally giving Marion the credit to boost sales of her books. But solving a mystery as a group of kids is a tougher prospect than they think…

I enjoyed this mystery very much. The kids were just the right amount of precocious: smart but not overly annoying. The atmosphere was light; whichever blurber said that Rice combines mystery conventions with elements of screwball comedy describes it exactly. So if this summary piques your interest, pick up a copy of the book. I’m glad it’s been reprinted via American Mystery Classics so that more people can discover it! ( )

Of the four American Mystery Classics I've read so far (six were released last year and six more will be out in a couple of weeks), this was my favorite. It's got the cheekiest set of kids who decide to solve a mystery and give the credit to their single mom in order to get her publicity since she's a mystery author. It was ridiculously unbelievable as a story but the fun overrode all of that. ( )

Probably only deserves 3.5* but despite some extremely improbable situations, I enjoyed this a lot. ( )

A sweet murder story (!) about three children trying to better their mom's life as they solve crime. Their mother, Marian Carstairs, is a mystery writer and widowed. She spends most of her time stuck behind the typewriter - because this was written way back in the day - to support her family. Her kids, which are definitely fiction constructs as they are super supportive of their mom's work and tend to do the cooking, cleaning, and supervising for her, without being asked and without ever a begrudging thought, just wish that their mom can catch a break and not have to work so hard. Accordingly, one morning April wishes out loud that her mom could help the police solve a crime and thereby gain publicity for her books, and her brother, Archie, wishes that she could find a husband to help take care of her. Right after they speak these words, they hear two shots from next door. The detective who comes to investigate, Bill Smith, is handsome and single. According to April, providence must have been listening in.

So begins a fun romp of a mystery with the children as central characters. Rice uses an omniscient third person point of view, and enters the head of a wide variety of the characters, including the mom and the detective and even suspects, but the spotlight swings back on the three children most of all. They have several ambitions of their own, and will help the police or cross the police in the investigation, depending on what they are scheming at the moment. They have the single minded selfishness of real children; they are sweet, and good, but can be ruthless when is suits their needs and the needs of their mother. They're also not above practical jokes that drive the police crazy, like placing a flower in the bullet hole at the crime scene and writing "Warning" in lipstick on a knife. They can get away with their crazy antics and secret sleuthing because, as kids, the cops don't think they are much more than a nuisance and can't cause real harm or discover real clues. Of course, they do find all the clues before the cops have pieced it together.

Lieutenant Bill Smith is not a dull witted policeman; in fact, he seems sharper than his peers, which is probably why he's the one in charge. He's the only one who suspects that the kids know more than they pretend. However, he has the habit of losing his focus whenever their mother, Marian, is around, playing right into the ploys of the children. They split their time between setting Lieutenant Smith up and discovering who killed their neighbor, Mrs. Sanford.

The mystery is more interesting than complex. The children discover that Mrs. Sanford was a horrible person, blackmailing just about anyone she can find with a little dirt on them, and therefore making lots of enemies with a motive for murder. The abundance of suspects and the intriguing set up starts off promising, but the story is more about the children's ridiculous and clever antics than developing the mystery. Rice keeps the story upbeat from beginning to end - sweet kids, Archie and his mischievous mob, chocolate malts, slang from the Depression era, romance and happy domestic scenes. Even the deaths aren't too upsetting, since both victims are awful people. The book is not meant for children to read, but is meant for adults who are children at heart.

The introduction mentions that mysteries written in the same period are referred to as gin soaked zany mysteries. They were written during the Depression era, when people needed a pick me up, and mysteries were about clever detectives (usually drunk) and laughs. This story has the same silly approach to the mystery genre, without the gin, of course. I enjoyed this story. A feel good murder mystery! The kids were cute. The romance between Marian Carstairs and Bill Smith was sweet. The mystery was appealing enough to serve as the secondary story. I recommend rediscovering this vintage mystery. - By the way, this was another book I learned about in Death on Demand, a story which I liked on its own merits, but might have to rate higher because of all the great mysteries it recommended within the story. ( )

Scrambled rather than hardboiled is how the writers of the Introduction so aptly describe this book. It is in the domestic life of Marian Carstairs and her three kids,rather than in the crime aspect of this story that it shines.
Marian is a writer of crime-fiction who is fully occupied with her work. Most of the day to day running of the house is done willingly by her doting two daughters and younger son.
It is around these children that the story revolves as they become involved in attempting to solve a murder and credit their busy mother with its solution. They are also trying to marry her off to the detective leading the official investigation.
The three kids are Dinah,the eldest at 14,April is 12 and Archie the youngest is 10. All are well written and rounded characters.
This is a one-off story by Rice,which is rather a shame,as a lot more could have been written about this kookie but very appealing family. ( )