A Strange Disappearance

What It's About

A young sewing woman disappears from the Fifth Avenue home of bachelor Holman Blake, and his anxious housekeeper, Mrs. Daniels, brings the matter to the police. Detective Ebenezer Gryce assigns his resourceful assistant, known only as Q, to investigate — and Q soon finds that Blake's strange indifference to the disappearance, his unexplained visits to disreputable parts of the city, and a mysterious portrait hanging in his study all point to secrets he is desperate to keep hidden. The trail leads from fashionable Fifth Avenue to the poorer quarters of New York and beyond, unravelling a tangle of hidden relationships along the way.

Key Concepts

The second novel in Green's "Mr. Gryce" series, following her debut, The Leavenworth Case. It is narrated by Q rather than Gryce himself, making it an early example of a detective story told through an assistant's eyes, with the ageing Gryce directing events from the background. Some readers have found the romantic subplot looms larger than the detective work, and that Gryce plays a smaller, more managerial role than in Green's first book.

About the Author

Anna Katharine Green (1846–1935) was an American writer widely regarded as a pioneer of the detective novel. She trained in classical literature and poetry before turning to crime fiction, and her meticulous plotting and use of forensic detail helped shape the conventions of the genre.