All the doors are locked and everything points to a member of the household. Horatio Leavenworth, a rich merchant and adoptive parent and guardian to his two nieces, mary and Eleanore, is found shot to death at the table in the library of his home. At face value, the story seems a simple one. Green's story is narrated by Everett Raymond, junior member of the law firm which has represented the Leavenworth family for many years. Readers of today may sigh at some of these components, but would do well to remember how fresh these clues and incidents were in Victorian-era American crime fiction. Green managed to introduce in her novel many of the mystery standbys that fans of the the genre will recognize at once: the crusty old man on the verge of changing his will, the body in the library, a dignified butler, coroners' inquest (called and arranged in what seems to be whirlwind haste), ballistics expert pinpointing the weapon used, a scene-of-the-crime sketch, and mysterious letters. She wrote many other novels, but what reputation she has today rests on this foundational detective story-noted by mystery authority Howard Haycraft as 'one of the true milestones of the genre.' It was an enormous success with the public, reportedly selling more than 750,000 copies in its first decade and a half, and, for nearly half a century, Anna Katharine Green was one of America's most popular authors. It is often considered the first full-length detective story written by a woman. The Leavenworth Case was written by Anna Katharine Green and originally published in 1878-nine years before Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. Feeling Jumpy: Book Blogger Hop Feb 4-7.

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The leavenworth case