Editorial Review:

Product Description:
A divorced man's life unfolds at a dinner party in the this classic humor story with an active table of contents.

Rinehart is often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," and also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing.

Rating: - A comedy of errors
I enjoyed this book and I'm coming to enjoy Mary Rinehart's style of writing. It's a shame she's been sort of forgotten nowadays when she was a best selling author way back at the beginning of the 20th century.

The story is a comedy of errors among the privileged class. Society gal Kit McNair tries to do her friend Jim a favor by posing as his wife so his aunt (who holds the purse strings) won't know he's divorced. A small dinner party at Jim's house quickly falls apart when the servants run for the hills after the butler is initially diagnosed with smallpox and the entire house is quarantined. Things are made even more difficult when Jim's actual ex-wife invades the scene and is forced to be cooped up with the now helpless group. (The men don't even know how to shave themselves!)

As they attempt to survive the week, and each other, to see if anyone will come down with the disease, there's a minor mystery of some missing jewelry. But we're not here for that, we're in it for the romance. For Jim, who's still in love with his ex, is trying to woo her back, making it look like he's cheating on Kit when he's really not since they're not married. Meanwhile, Kit is developing a soft spot for Tom, one of the other guests, but he thinks she's married to Jim and Tom is livid at Jim's blatant infidelity.

Add to the melee demanding Aunt Selina, who doesn't like Kit but expects her to fight for her man (which really _isn't_ her man), a group with cabin fever determined to break OUT of the house, a swarm of reporters and cops determined to keep them IN the house, and the struggle to figure out how to make an omelette and you have a pretty funny book with loveable characters and a quick pace.