#20booksofsummer23 is a reading challenge started by 746 Books where participants attempt to read 10, 15, or 20 books off of their TBR and review them between June 1 – September 1, 2023. I am trying to read and review 6-7 books that I picked per month. You can see my complete reading list here.
The ruination of the Maynard family began with a swimming pool. In the 1920’s, the wealthy and well-to-do Maynard family had two houses, one in town, and a country house, The Birches, where the family held gay parties and many alfresco luncheons by the swimming pool. Many young men flocked to The Birches to be in the orbit of Judith Maynard, a rare beauty, and bask in her favor.
All of the Maynard family fortunes crashed with the stock market in 1929, and in January 1930, the patriarch of the Maynard family committed suicide. Leaving his wife, eldest daughter Anne and her husband dazzling Judith, college boy Phil, and young Lois to struggle without him.
Lois, the protagonist of The Swimming Pool, was only seven or eight when her father died and only remembers snatches of this confusing time in the family. Her sister, Judith going with her mother to Arizona. The rest of the family moved to The Birches full-time. The selling of her mother’s things. Judith’s resplendent wedding to Ridgely Chandler at The Birches in the autumn of 1930.
However, after two devastating world wars and significantly reduced circumstances, Lois and her brother, Phil, are the only ones still living at The Birches. Phil, a semi-successful lawyer, and Lois, a mystery novelist, eke out a modest living, while their sister, Anne, and her husband live in a small apartment, their sister, Judith, lives in an apartment on 5th Avenue, is the darling of society pages, with fancy jewels and classy parties. Her socialite life stops when she announces that she wants to divorce her husband, Ridgely Chandler, and move to Reno, Nevada.
Ridgely grants her a divorce but pays Lois a thousand dollars to accompany Judith on her train trip to Reno because she is acting very strange. Judith appears to have developed debilitating agoraphobia over night, refusing anyone into her berth and locking herself inside. Her odd behavior is noticed by ex-police detective Terry O’Brien, and he quickly makes acquaints himself with Lois and tries to aid her in comforting Judith.
Judith’s arrival in Reno is not the cure-all she hoped it would be, and she decides she will be safe at The Birches with Lois and Phil. They heartily protest her moving in, but she ensconces herself in Judith’s room and changes the locks. She has Phil nail her windows shut and refuses to leave the house alone. For Judith’s protection, Lois installs O’Brien, who is very interested in what’s happening with Judith in an empty cottage
A few weeks after coming to stay at The Birches, a woman unknown to the Maynard family is found drowned in their pool, and Judith is convinced that the woman was killed due to her resemblance to Judith. Lois decides to discover the identity of the woman and, in doing so, unravels decades-old family secrets. Blackmail, a twenty-year-old killing in New York, and why Judith Maynard really married Ridgely Chandler all come to light, but not before every member of the Maynard family is arrested for murder.
The Review
Whew, so The Swimming Pool has a lot going on: a mysterious death in a New York tenement in 1930, the murder of O’Brien’s superior officer, Flaherty, shortly after, blackmail, a suicide, a suicide attempt, a locked room element, and the epicenter of everything is Judith Maynard Chandler who is keeping her mouth shut, even if it kills her.
The mystery surrounding Judith and its far-reaching consequences in the past and how those terrible decisions fated the family is stretched too far for me. I liked how Judith, spoiled and coddled, could not stand up to her mother and let others protect her and bolster her privilege at the expense of a man’s life, ultimately destroying her family. Still, Rinehart’s decision to extrapolate that O’Brien and Flaherty’s lives were also harmed by Judith was a bridge too far for me.
I really enjoyed the creepy country house setting with mysterious men skulking around and the growing terror from repeated nighttime attacks on the maids, Lois, and others are having on Judith. This is well-trod territory for Rinehart, but she does it so well! I wish the story spent more time exploring The Birches nooks, crannies, and sprawling grounds because they were described so beautifully, but most of the setting was always brought back to the ill-fated swimming pool.
The swimming pool was an enigmatic element with many differing family memories surrounding it, and then the mysterious woman’s death brought past and present into a collision course. The destruction of the swimming pool at the end and the selling of The Birches put a big red bow on the mystery, which was a bit ham-fisted, but a good thoroughfare for a complicated puzzle.
The mystery will not be that difficult for the reader to solve. Still, I think a lot of the tragic beauty of the book is watching Lois sift through memories and piece together what truly happened instead of the prosaic image everyone wants to maintain. I think Lois has a bittersweet journey where she truly understands her parent’s legacies and ultimately rejects what has been instilled or gifted to her for what she wants: a happy life with O’Brien.
I found the love story between O’Brien and Lois Maynard surprisingly different from boilerplate: the girl begins amateur sleuthing to help a handsome cop. Ultimately Lois is sleuthing to answer her own questions and to help alleviate Judith’s suffering if she can. Lois and O’Brien often conceal evidence or how they work on the case from each other and rarely look for clues together. They are not a team and are each investigating because of wildly different motives. However, the mysteries surrounding Judith also don’t lead to relationship drama or issues between them, which is also a trope unfollowed.
Overall, I liked The Swimming Pool and was fascinated by the sprawling mysteries. Still, upon reflection, I feel like there was one element too many, a bit like a hat on a hat, a few unnecessary elements that distracted from the broody house mystery and sidelined the locked room mystery. The book is long but not tedious, with many things going on. I recommend The Swimming Pool, but I am not sure every element was used to its best advantage.
The Swimming Pool Reviews
My #20booksofsummer23 Reviews
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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