Even though this was not a long book, I took my time with it. I love locked room mystery novels and I had notes and highlights all through the version of the Kindle book that I own.

Written in 1908, "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" is one of the first locked room mystery crime novels. The same man who wrote this, also wrote "Phantom of the Opera". He would go back and write a sequel to "The Mystery of the Yellow Room", "The Perfume of the Lady in Black (Joseph Rouletabille #2) that was published in 1909.

This story is narrator by a man named Sainclair who is a lawyer living in France. The story beings recounting how many people did not know the truth of
"The Mystery of the Yellow Room" but for unknown reasons Sainclair is now free to tell it in its entirety. Sainclair has befriended a young man named Joseph Rouletabille who is a reporter. Along with being a reporter, Rouletabille is also one of the smartest men that Sainclair has known who has solved mysteries that have baffled others. Rouletabille goes off to investigate a case at the Château du Glandier and Sainclair goes along.

The facts are these:

A 35 year old woman named Mathilde Stangerson is found assaulted in a locked room that was her bed chamber when she and her scientist father were working. The only way into the room is through a laboratory that her father (Professor Joseph Stangerson) and his servant Daddy Jacques were working.

The yellow room has a window that is barred. The door locks from the inside. There is not any hidden nooks and crannies a person could be secreted besides under the bed. Somehow when Mathilde calls out for help her father and Daddy Jacques try to enter the room and are unable. When they are finally able to gain entry they find no one there. However, it is impossible someone was able to slip past them without seeing him. So the question remains, how was entry gained and how was the person hidden.

Besides Sainclair and Rouletabille we also have Mathidle Stangerson's fiancee Robert Darzac. We also have a wily police detective named Frédéric Larsan and two concierges who work at the castle. Everyone in this book was so well drawn. I didn't know what was going on with a lot of characters and everything is explained in the end and I had a couple of of course moments (doesn't everyone when the story is finished?)

I loved every aspect of this mystery. I thought of several ways a person could have done it and then decided on the guilty party (yeah I was totally wrong about everything, I actually love it when that happens) and found out I was totally off base. If you solved this before the end, my hat is off to you.

The writing started off very slow, but I got why though. Gaston Leroux did a great job of setting up the entire surrounding of the nearby area, the castle that the Stangersons lived, the village, woods, etc. You even get a few diagrams in this book too so you can see how things are set up and what rooms are in the home. There were some words that I was not familiar with that I had to look up via my dictionary on my Kindle. Also these people ate a lot of omelettes and cider. I don't know why that tickled me, but it did. It also made me hungry.

The flow was a bit slow to start. Things definitely picked up though and by the end I was reading so fast and then doubling back a few times.

The setting of the book takes place in France which was new to me since most of the locked room mysteries I have read were written by Agatha Christie, and I don't think any Poirot or Miss Marple books took place in that country. ( )