The Secret of Greylands by Annie Haynes

The Secret of GreylandsThe Secret of Greylands
by Annie Haynes
Publication Date: March 1, 1924
Genre: mystery
Pages: 231
Project: a century of women, appointment with agatha

“There’s no dirty trick he wouldn’t play—it’s my belief that he wouldn’t even stop at murder!”

Her husband unmasked as a scoundrel, Lady Cynthia Letchingham seeks refuge at her cousin Hannah’s north-country home Greylands. But on Cynthia’s arrival, she finds Hannah an invalid, having recently suffered a mysterious paralysis; the house is devoid of servants, and Hannah’s husband, charming and sinister by turns, keeps watch over everything and everyone. Only the presence of charming Sybil Hammond and a darkly handsome neighbour relieve the atmosphere for Cynthia - but then a dark red stain appears mysteriously on the sleeve of her coat…

What has really happened to Hannah, and the other entangled mysteries along the way, make The Secret of Greylands (1924) an absorbing golden age crime novel matching Wilkie Collins’ high Victorian gothic to the agility of early jazz age fiction. This new edition, the first in over eighty years, features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.


This was the first golden age side read for an Agatha Christie group that I started on GR, where we will be reading all 66 of Christie’s full length mysteries in publication order, starting in October in honor the Christie centenary. Prior to nominating Annie Haynes for our first side read, I had never heard of her – I happened upon her when I was googling for information about Christie’s first publisher, Bodley Head, and then I saw that Haynes had been picked up by Dean Street Press, one of my favorite small presses that is reissuing golden age mystery fiction. A little bit more research, and I was in.

If you are in the US, and are so inclined, you could purchase all 12 of her mysteries for your kindle for under $12.00, as they are all priced at .99. I’m not saying that I’ve done that, just that a person could do that. If they wanted to. OK, I confess. I did. I bought them all.

Which is why it’s excellent that I really enjoyed this book – because now I have 11 more to read! It had a wonderful gothic flavor and was just pure entertainment. Set on the well-trod ground of the English moors, it owed a lot of its sensibility to the Bronte sisters, with the mysterious manor house, the creepy husband and the inexplicably ill relative.

The main character is one of those swooning-and-blushing ingenues that we see a lot in early golden age fiction – so desperately dim that she can’t see what’s right in front of her face. She’s the 1920’s version of the cheerleader in the horror flick, who, instead of running away, hides in the shed behind the chainsaws, as Geico so hilariously points out in this commercial.

Drive away in the running car? Terrible idea! Let’s hide behind the chainsaws in the creepy barn!

Anyway, Cynthia’s dim-bulbery notwithstanding, this book is a whole lot of fun. It’s unlikely to fool very many modern readers for even one minute, but the setting and tone are fantastic and it’s a very fast read. I was strongly reminded of some of Patricia Wentworth’s mysteries, which also frequently seem to feature this same sort of young woman with no instinct for self-preservation, particularly The Case is Closed and The Black Cabinet. It felt like a precursor to the gothic romances of the 1960’s and 1970’s written by authors like Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney.

What else can you buy for .99 that will provide 3 or so hours of enjoyment? Nothing. That’s what.

6 comments

  1. I’ve read quite a few of the Haynes’ reprints though not this one. She wrote some with a series detective and many are stand alones, such as this one. Most of my reading was of the former. I think when Haynes tries to blend sensation fiction with detective fiction in her series work she is not completely successful – the aims of sensation fiction undoings the goals of detective fiction. However, my favourite by her is The Crime at Tattenham Corner (1929).
    I wrote a longer blog piece on the hybrid nature of Hayne’s books.
    https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress.com/2019/10/12/narrating-female-experience-through-genre-hybridity-in-the-novels-of-annie-haynes/

    1. Very interesting & well-researched blog post! Thank you for the link! Your blog, along with a couple of others, was one of the resources I turned to when I was looking for information on Annie Haynes. I am a huge fan of your blog and am really excited that you stopped by!

  2. Suggest Leslie Ford/David Frome, both Zenith Brown. Popular American mystery writer of 30s-50s, now out of print. Find on eBay. Some minor 1930s racial references reflect her times but now “problematic.” Ignore. Nailed 1940s Washington. Ford novels US based. Frome novels UK based. Went to dinner party in London c1929 when husband was broke grad student. Woman got contract for mystery novels. Good money. “I can do that,” she said. So she did.

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