The Villa Sineste, a sprawling estate between Milan and Florence has a cursed reputation causing even airplanes to divert around it, lest danger strike. Local superstitions claim there is a bedroom where every occupant who sleeps in it has died a natural, but slow, agonizing death. They are right.
Published by the wonderful Mystery League in 1931, and known for their distinctive Art Deco dustjackets, it's one of only 30 titles they released.
American architect Jack Winant and his friend Timothy Delancy were talking about this curse when their private plane blew an engine and crashed on the Villa lawn. Rescued by the owner and taken in as guests, the two injured pilots were taken to a private sanitorium and never seen again. The owner is the defamed Doctor di Ponari, whose wife lies semi-comatose in the deadly bedroom, the cause unknown. When screams of terror interrupt the night, di Ponari introduces them to his daughter, but asks them to pay her nervous anxiety no attention. Winant being the heroic type, senses he must rescue her, discover the cause of the wife's illness, and what experiments the doctor is conducting in his mysterious sanitorium in the woods. Complete with a strange 'butler' Guiseppe who speaks no English, candlestick-lit explorations through secret darkened hallways and the discovery they are continually being poisoned, this has everything you would want in a hair-raising mansion mystery.
Written by William Livingston (and this was not liked in the reviews I've read), he is the author of The Mystery of Burnleigh Manor, also published by The Mystery League (for which he is given the highest rating in reviews of that book!).
Yes, this is corny, but suspend your disbelief and enjoy the melodrama of being trapped in a creepy old mansion in 1931. The daughter proves herself very capable, there are some ingenious escapes, romance, and mutant creatures. Livingstone even manages to wrap it all up in a believable package.
For fans of classic chilling mysteries, I recommend it fully.
Like many Mystery League titles, this includes a chapter from the next title to be published, in this case The Hunterstone Outrage by Seldon Truss.
1931 / Hardcover / 269 pages
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