About the Author Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) was an American novelist and playwright best known for her mystery stories. Rinehart's work is very different from the cliches of Rinehart criticism. It has a lot in common with hard-boiled school, in both style and subject. It also is part of the American school of "scientific" detection. In fact, all three groups, scientific, hard-boiled, and Rinehart show common features. They form an American school that mixes adventure and detection. There is an attempt at realism in the depiction of modern life, with many different classes, corruption high and low, and a great diversity of characters. Her most memorable tales combined murder, love, ingenuity, and humor in a style that was distinctly her own. While her general novels were her best-selling books, she was most highly regarded by critics for her carefully plotted murder mysteries. It was one of her books that produced the phrase, "The butler did it," and in her prime, she was more famous than her chief rival, England's Agatha Christie. Her autobiography, My Story, appeared in 1931 and was revised in 1948. At Rinehart's death her books had sold more than 10 million copies.

The ill nature of the cartoon, for instance, which showed Tish in a pair of khaki trousers on her back under a racing-car was quite uncalled for. Tish did not wear the khaki trousers; she merely took them along in case of emergency. Nor was it true that Tish took Aggie along as a mechanician and brutally pushed her off the car because she was not pumping enough oil. The fact was that Aggie sneezed on a curve and fell out of the car, and would no doubt have been killed had she not been thrown into a pile of sand. It was in early September that Eliza Bailey, my cousin, decided to go to London, ostensibly for a rest, but really to get some cretonne at Liberty's. Eliza wrote me at Lake Penzance asking me to go to Morris Valley and look after Bettina...

The second of Mary Roberts Rinehart's classic "Tish" stories, reprinted in facsimile.

A volume of Mary Roberts Rinehart's classic "Tish" stories, reprinted in facsimile. Contents: "Tish Plays the Game" "The Baby Blimp" "Hijack and the Game" "The Treasure Hunt" "The Gray Goose"

Tish takes it upon herself to attend a coronation and save a king A naive observer might not immediately see a connection between the newspaper accounts of a man found naked on a church steeple, a constable attacked from the sky, and a grocer assaulted by “balloon bandits.” But these stories are tied together by a single word: Tish, the nutty maid who has never let old age get in the way of a good time. When her nephew announces a trip to England to write about the Coronation, Tish demands to come along. Fearing a diplomatic incident, her nephew refuses, but Tish resolves to find another way. It’s not long before she takes to the air—and the sky will never be the same. In these stories, Tish and her friends advise young lovers on bad haircuts, contend with fish in Florida and bears in the far west, and narrowly avoid confrontation with the waxworks at Madame Tussaud’s. With her unwavering, destructive enthusiasm, this sprightly old spinster gives new meaning to the phrase “young at heart.”