Mystery (novel)
| Author | Peter Straub |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Blue Rose Trilogy |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Published | 1990 by Dutton |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 548 pp |
| Awards | 1993 Bram Stoker Award |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 19555495 |
| 813.54 | |
| LC Class | PS3569.T6914 |
| Preceded by | Koko |
| Followed by | The Throat |
Mystery is a 1990 novel by American author Peter Straub, and is the second installment in Straub's loosely connected "Blue Rose Trilogy". The novel falls into the genre of crime fiction, and was preceded by Koko and followed by The Throat. The book was published by Dutton, won the 1993 Bram Stoker Award and was a 1994 WFA nominee
In Mill Walk, a caribbean island mostly inhabited by wealthy American and German expats, during a little boy named Tom Pasmore views an article about a woman named Jeanine Thielman who was murdered and then dumped in a lake. A few years later, in 1957, Tom takes a ride on a milk cart from his palatial home to a slum street called Calle Burleigh. There he hears the crying of an animal and, searching for this animal, finds a teenaged boy slightly older than him named Jerry and his older sister Robyn. When Tom says that he wants to go home, Jerry attacks him. Tom escapes, but is followed by two boys, Robbie and Nappy, who threaten him with knives. They chase Tom into the street, where he is hit by a car and severely injured.
He spends the summer at Shady Mount Hospital in Mill Walk where he lives. He is visited by Lamont von Heilitz, an elderly neighbor; who has taken an odd interest in him, and is rumored to have been a celebrated detective in the 1930s.
Tom leaves the hospital at the end of the summer, and spends a year at home, reading, while he recovers. He attends school again and proves to be a rather brilliant, albeit socially awkward student. Five years pass, and by early 1962, Tom has become obsessed with recent homicides in Mill Walk and makes a scrapbook profiling each one. Gloria Pasmore, his mother, finds the scrapbook and is disturbed. She asks Tom's favorite teacher to speak to him on the subject of the notebook. Dennis takes Tom driving, and they talk about the death of a woman named Marita Hasselgard, in full awareness of Dennis' motives for driving him around. Under Tom's orders, Dennis stumbles upon the car in which Marita was shot and killed. Tom sees Lamont von Heilitz at the scene and then leaves.
Tom writes a letter to Captain Fulton Bishop, a detective involved in the case of Marita's murder. Victor Pasmore warns Tom to stay away from Lamont, though Tom does not and visits Lamont's house that same day, mailing the letter on the way there. Lamont and Tom both share a passion for solving murders without the aid of policemen, and Tom correctly deduces that Friedrich Hasselgard, Marita's brother, was, in fact, Marita's murderer. Lamont then shares with Tom a case of his own- that of Jeanine Thielman, who Lamont believes was murdered by a man named Anton Goetz, her lover, when she refused to continue seeing him. After getting to know each other, Tom departs from Lamont's house, taking Lamont's journal with him.
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