Tropes: Manor Houses

In today’s episode, Brook and Sarah discuss the role that manor houses had in shaping mysteries and a few of their favorite books featuring them.

Discussed and mentioned

And Then There Were None (1939) Agatha Christie

Rebecca (1938) Daphne du Maurier

“Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) Edgar Allan Poe

The Manor House (2023) Gilly Macmillan

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) Agatha Christie

Crooked House (1949) Agatha Christie

The Secret at Chimneys (1925) Agatha Christie

The Seven Dials (1929) Agatha Christie

Towards Zero (1944) Agatha Christie

The Christmas Murder Game (2022) Alexandra Benedict

Crooked House (2017 movie)

Death at Morning House (2024) Maureen Johnson

Charleton House Mysteries by Kate P Adams

The Golden Spoon (2023) Jessa Maxwell

Wuthering Heights (1847) Emily Brontë

The Wife Upstairs (2021) Rachel Hawkins

The Villa (2023) Rachel Hawkins

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.

Sarah	Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
Brook	And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery.
Sarah	Hi, Brook.
Brook	Hi, Sarah. So, I love an old historic home. And so, I have been anxiously awaiting this episode this season.
Sarah	Well, you’re in luck because today we are talking about old homes or manor houses and the mysteries that we love that are set in them. We’ve spoken before about mysterious buildings, but today we’re going to dive a little deeper into manor houses specifically as the settings for mysteries. And it’s easy to see why they are popular. They are large homes with enough bedrooms to accommodate several guests and staff for what turns out to be a deadly weekend.
Sarah	Manor houses often have secret passages and hidden rooms. Dark woods and forgotten attics. perfect for stashing a clue. Some manor houses, like And Then There Were None, are modern, bright spaces that don’t hint at the future that’s awaiting the characters. Instead, it’s their remoteness that induces a chill. Or it might be a member of staff who sets the tone, like the housekeeper in Rebecca. So, let’s explore some of the most mysterious manor homes that we’ve encountered.
Brook	That sounds great, Sarah. This is going to be a lot of fun. And you know I think we can find the seeds of this, I guess we’ll call it a trope, all the way back Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher”. And I also think we’re using the term manor house kind of loosely because we’re not necessarily talking about like the feudal system home, but it’s that idea of this big stately, historic place.
Brook	And that definitely counts in “Fall of the House of Usher”. We have the house that is basically a character in this story because it is disintegrating just like this family is disintegrating. And it plays a very thematic part in the story. And I think those seeds of then what become ah a more of a murder mystery are way back there with, with Poe.
Sarah	Yeah, I think you’re right, Brook. I think that Poe really set the tone for this trope right. And I think you’re right to call it a trope because as soon as you pick up a book and the house is either part of the title or featured in the description, you’ve got a pretty good sense of what you’re going to be in for.
Brook	Mm hmm. Definitely. Probably closed circle because we’re going to have this limited number of characters all in one place. And so, yeah, that gives us a really good feel for what type of a mystery this is going to be. Something you said that kind of made me chuckle is “if it’s in the title,” because if you look like.
Brook	The Manor House Mystery or you know Mystery at the Manor House. Like there are so many titles that just like directly tell you because the It is in the title itself. It’s almost. ah comical actually.
Sarah	Yeah, no, you’re right. There are, there are so many examples of that. So, um, uh, relatively recent release in 2023, Gilly Macmillan’s Manor House.
Brook	I’m reading it this week, Sarah. It’s so good.
Sarah	Yeah, it’s pretty good, isn’t it?
Brook	Yeah.
Sarah	And so in that one, it’s… ah It’s actually a combination of two, right? the The modern, very modern house that’s built on the grounds of a manor house. And ah there’s… kind of that history that comes with the older home and the family that has had that for years and then this other couple that’s that’s living in this you know very state-of-the-art building. Um, so yeah that’s a that’s a great example.
Sarah	Agatha Christie, of course, had several books that were set in stately homes and they’re featured in the title. So the first one is the Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was her first book. And then The Crooked House, The Secret at Chimneys. Ah. You know. There are countless other examples of her books that feature In the title you know, a home.
Brook	That’s right. And is anyone else like me, like once you start seeing these, you… kind of want to give your house a name.
Sarah	Yeah, very much so. But maybe not because you don’t want something. Um, very mysterious and, you know, a number of deaths on your hands.
Brook	Yeah, for some reason when they have a catchy name, things go south there.
Sarah	Your observation that ah they are usually closed circle, I think is a really important. part of this trope right so you’ve got a lot of people who’ve gathered. Sometimes it’s family and we’ve talked before about kind of the tensions that family can bring. Or sometimes it’s friends like in The Seven Dials. A, a group of people have gathered. out of home for a for a fun weekend. And then someone ends up dying and that kicks off this mystery. So most of that mystery doesn’t actually happen in the house, but that is the setting for that initial murder.
Brook	Mm hmm. Yeah. There’s typically some sort of hierarchy. I mean, it might be, you said family, like so it could be in the inheritance. Like what’s going to happen with the family line. That’s often a thing it also could be like upstairs downstairs because most of these large stately homes have servants or staff. And so they’re meant to be just invisible living in their own sequestered spaces, but we know that that there’s that interplay between the upstairs, downstairs ah people. So that can also be a hierarchy and another place where there’s some… you know, secrets and tension.
Sarah	So often, Brook, these… homes are a little bit isolated. So I mentioned, And Then There Were None and you know that houses is on this island. Another of Agatha Christie’s is Towards Zero, where, the house is, I don’t remember if it’s on an island or a peninsula, but it’s not super easy to to access. um And that one, I think, if I remember correctly, has an inheritance theme associated with it as well.
Sarah	The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict, in which was published in 2022, that features an inheritance theme as well and its family have collected at Christmas and and ah there’s a game that’s part of the holiday festivities that… leads to murder. It’s a great read for anybody who’s looking particularly if you’re looking to read something at Christmas time, um it’s a good read then, but it’s it’s a good read anytime.
Sarah	And their isolation lends itself to you know really cutting the characters off from the world. Right. So the power goes out or the road gets blocked, so you know it’s like a closed circle plus. Nobody else can even come and help them.
Brook	Mm hmm. It’s almost a necessity because otherwise why wouldn’t the police ah you know, be dispatched and they get saved. And so, um i mean and that’s like another trope isn’t it where you’re cut off from the rest of the world.
Brook	But, I think that even though you know that this is going to happen. We’re in a manor house and there’s going to be this group of people in it. Something’s probably going to happen so that they can’t reach the outside world. We don’t mind because this is the game, this is the fun of it. And to see how that particular author strings it all together and and and makes it work. You know you were talking about uh the Christmas Murder Game and I think that one is done really well because it plays with so many of these things that we’ve talked about, the hidden rooms, the family, the, um you know, the, the happy atmosphere that goes south. Because that’s something else we have in this is this this grand beautiful exterior, but on the inside you know there’s seedy darkness. Um and You get all almost all of the different components put into that story really well.
Sarah	What about … I’m just thinking about films Knives Out, the first Knives Out movie, I think I would categorize as being a manor house mystery right it’s family who’ve all gathered in um the ancestral home and one of the characters dies.
Brook	That’s an excellent example and one that’s really accessible if you haven’t, if you’re not familiar with this, like I would say, “Go watch Knives Out and you’ll get a sense of like what these manor house mysteries are all about.” Even down to like the beauty of the home, right? Like the architecture, the beautiful staircases, the stained glass. Like these are very special places. They don’t have to be. We mentioned that some of the houses can be more modern, but I think that the real traditional way of looking at this trope is some of these you know more ancient places.
Brook	Another movie that I particularly love in this category is a adaptation of Crooked House, which you mentioned earlier. ah So yes, obviously Agatha Christie, but it’s a 2017 adaptation. I think it’s available on Netflix right now and Glenn Close stars in it. And it is fantastic. It’s, it’s really good. It’s quite chilling, actually. And Crooked House is a rather dark story, so be prepared.
Sarah	Yeah, I I think it’s maybe one of the darker ones that Christie did.
Brook	Yeah, I would agree. It it it definitely seems that way to me too, Sarah.
Sarah	I have read a couple of books in a series by Kate P Adams. And those books feature… a manor house that has been converted into a tourist attraction in the UK. It’s a very cozy series and the… um mysteries are, as you would expect in in cozy mysteries or you know a little bit lighter but features you know some of the the people who work at this manor house that’s now at a tourist attraction.
Brook	Oh, that sounds really fun, Sarah.
Sarah	So from a YA perspective, Maureen Johnson, who wrote the Truly Devious series, has a standalone novel called Death at Morning House. And that was published in 2024. It’s a dual timeline. So, there’s, ah you know, something happening in present day that’s influenced by something that happened in the past at this…it’s a um… I think it’s been converted into a tourist attraction in kind of ah a beach summer community on the Eastern part of the United States. Ah and it was it was a It was a great read i i as I enjoy all of Maureen Johnson’s books.
Sarah	But, I like the way. And there are a couple of other examples where authors take, you know, the sad past of a home that you know has all the tensions of the family that used to live there and kind of the secrets that have been forgotten or, or never fully answered and then several decades later there’s someone who is in this home and uncovers the truth and i i like that kind of uh that kind of mystery.
Brook	Yes, I think you just hit on what my favorite part about some of these are is this bit of history or this secret that has been laying dormant and for some reason someone uncovers something and then it’s dangerous either for them or someone else. I think you’re I think that’s right on what I love about a lot of these stories is when you they can weave in some history and in multi-generations because obviously these homes have been around for generations. So, yeah that’s wonderful.
Brook	Another book I read recently and didn’t realize when I picked it up that it was going to be a great manor house mystery example is The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell. And this was a 2023 release that was kind of a big deal when it came out and i I missed it, but I had a friend recommend it and said, you’ve got to read it. And this one is fun because it’s definitely the manor house trope because we have the one of the main characters who has this is her family home and for generations they’ve lived here. ah But it’s a mashup with a culinary mystery because it’s sort of like the Great British Baking Show, right?
Brook	Like this person who lives in the manor house. She is a ah pastry chef and she started hosting this television baking show. And so everybody convenes on her grounds and they’re going to have, ah they’re going to tape this season of the baking show and a mystery ensues. I thought it was really well done. Definitely has the part that you’re talking about like there’s this mystery in the past or this event that happened in the past that everyone has sort of forgotten about. But in the course of the story, it comes to light. and I just really liked it. Have you read that one, Sarah?
Sarah	Yeah, I did. I did read that book when it came out. And um you’re right, it is a ah a great example of a mystery that’s set in one of these older homes. And then that contemporary element of the cooking show I think makes it um perhaps a little bit more relatable because I think a lot of us have never, you know, maybe we’ve visited a manor house as as a tourist, but… you know, certainly never spent a weekend um at a at a manor house party um you know, with a bunch of other guests.
Sarah	So don’t have any. you know, ah um only have the experiences that we’ve seen or read about to to draw from. So I think the way that she um modernized that story. I think she did that in ah in a really great way.
Brook	Well, Sarah, you know, over ah the various episodes, I have brought up Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier several times. And I know you read it fairly recently. I think that even though… this is a different kind of story, we don’t have a group of people convening. We don’t have um you know, that traditional murder mystery taking place, I definitely think that it… Maybe it’s sort of like the Poe reference I said. It’s like a seed to some of these other stories because we have this house that is definitely a character in the story.
Brook	. We have the upstairs downstairs thing because Mrs. Danvers is a is the housekeeper who is very secretive and makes Rebecca feel off kilter most of the time. So, I still think it counts as a good example of a manor house mystery.
Sarah	Yeah, I I agree. I think it’s that element that you were talking about that it’s you know Mrs Danvers setting that ah setting that tone for the story.
Sarah	I think another one that I would include is Wuthering Heights.
Brook	Mm hmm. Definitely, yes.
Sarah	For some of the reasons that you just mentioned, right? There’s not a a huge cast of characters, but there’s definitely some mystery about that house.
Brook	Right, right. So, a couple of more classic. maybe not straight mystery stories, but influences on this trope. Very heavily.
Sarah	An author who’s drawn on this trope in a couple of different books is Rachel Hawkins. So her 2021 release, The Wife Upstairs, I think is… ah I think it’s a retelling of Wuthering Heights. [Note, Sarah mixed up Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre here.]
Sarah	um And. Uh… More recently, her 2023 release, The Villa. Uh, features a home in Italy, I believe. And it has dual timelines. So there’s something that happens in the 1970s and something that happens in present day. And this house has some secrets that that get uncovered.
Brook	Yeah, those sound fantastic. Rachel Hawkins has a lot of books, and I’ve read some of the other ones, but The Wife Upstairs, I think seems like one that I would really enjoy.
Sarah	Okay. okay Well, Brook, this has been a lot of fun to chat about manor houses. I hope that We’ve talked about all of the things that you love about this trope.
Brook	We did. This was so much fun, Sarah. And listeners, here’s your question of the week. When you’re reading a manor house mystery, do you prefer the more traditional stately home or do you like the modern takes on these large homes that mystery can happen in? Let us know. You can reach out to us by email or on social media. But until next time. Thank you for joining us on Clued in Mystery.
Brook	I’m Brook.
Sarah	And I’m Sarah. And we both love mystery.