“What was the most influential book you ever read?”
The answer for me is easy. THE RED ROOM RIDDLE by Scott Corbett singlehandedly sparked my insatiable hunger for mysteries and is partially responsible that I’m a mystery writer now.
I remember discovering the book while watching “ABC Weekend Special” when I was about nine or ten years old. It’s a story about two boys who are lured into a haunted house by a strange boy and his dog. Without giving away too much, there’s a scary red room (hence the title) reminiscent of the mysterious nook in the basement in “The Amityville Horror,” and a burning, ball of light that chased them around.
It scared me to the core. I wanted more.
The next day (or one day soon after) I rushed to the library and checked out the book. After returning it, I checked it out again and again. Rereading it. Absorbing every word. I think I took it out so often that no one else got to read it. The librarian should have just sold it to me.
A few years ago, my sister gave me a used copy for Christmas that she found online and it has been proudly displayed in my library ever since. Let’s see how it holds up after re-reading it now as an adult who has written a few mysteries of her own. (Note: There are many reviews of it in Goodreads, but I purposefully ignored them to avoid being influenced.)
THE RED ROOM RIDDLE is a great gothic horror story. It checks off most of the tropes in classic gothic tales: an old decaying house in an unfamiliar part of town, a disorientating atmosphere, a strange room and secret passageway (a mysterious nook!), a storm, nighttime/darkness, religion, ghosts, secrets, and fire. Scott Corbett did an excellent job of setting the scene and the characters, making the narrator and his friend’s willingness to go ghost hunting with a strange boy and his dog on Halloween—and their reactions to what they experienced—entirely plausible. It’s more than two boys hearing noises and seeing a floating bedsheet. The book tackled some deep psychological and criminal issues that would have flown right over the heads of his target audience. I was even scared reading this time around, and I knew how it ended.
Though it was published in 1972, the story takes place at some unspecified point in the past, when not all houses had electricity and there were no televisions. The phrases the boys used were old fashioned, reflecting the time period and were totally appropriate for the voice of the narrator. I suspect that if it had been written today, it would have been edited to make it sound more modern. I found some of Corbett’s word choices annoying and distracting, and some of his sentence structures repetitive. However, a ten-year-old probably would not be so critical.
I was shocked with Corbett’s repeated use of a particularly disturbing and violent religious image. Midway in the book, the narrator prayed which seemed forced and not in character. I chalked it up as Corbett trying to illustrate the narrator’s background. However, later his knowledge of religion became important. He recognized a graphic image of Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents, first depicted in a tapestry then in two separate instances when the boys were being chased. Without giving too much away, the narrator (a young boy) described Roman soldiers slicing children in half (!!!) This seemed way too graphic for his target audience and I wondered how this did not affect me when I read this as a child—I didn’t even remember it all. It was a different time back then, I guess. Kids were tougher than they are today. We were allowed to walk home alone, play outside by ourselves until dark, and walk to school barefoot in the snow.
Two aspects personally resonated with me as I re-read THE RED ROOM RIDDLE. First, my obsession for red velvet and my painting a room red in every house I have ever lived most likely resulted from this book. Also, the book described wall lights lit by gas jets. My home was built over 100 years ago and the gas pipes are still present, though not in use. Now when I look at them, they seem more meaningful. Especially next to my red ottoman.
All in all, I really enjoyed re-reading THE RED ROOM RIDDLE and totally understand why I became so obsessed with it years ago: it’s a classic gothic horror book that provides a gateway to the genre for children. Therefore, it’s a perfect addition to the library in my Mysterious Nook. I cannot wait until my son is old enough to read it and fall in love with it himself.
The Mysterious Nook 