The Circular Study

Anna Katharine Green (1864 - 1935)

In this well-plotted, character-driven mystery, Detective Gryce receives a cryptic message calling him to the scene of a “strange” crime. He soon finds that the adjective is correct, for in a quiet brownstone house in a respectable New York City neighborhood, he finds the body of a man brutally stabbed to death, yet lovingly laid out on the floor of his study. The only apparent witnesses are a deaf and dumb butler driven mad by the event, and a caged bird that sings out a vital but puzzling clue. Before he solves the crime, with the help of the redoubtable Miss Amelia Butterworth, Gryce must uncover a motive that spans generations and the passions that have kept it alive. Anna Katharine Green was a pioneering writer of detective fiction in the United States. Her first such novel, The Leavenworth Case, was published in 1878. She is credited with changing the genre by making her stories legally accurate. She invented the "girl detective." But her works remained popular because of their lively, twisting plots and the strong characters she developed. (Summary by Christine Dufour)

Genre(s): Detective Fiction

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 01 Book I, Chapter 1 Jacquerie
00:11:45
Play 02 Book I, Chapter 2 Jacquerie
00:17:30
Play 03 Book I, Chapter 3 Jacquerie
00:10:08
Play 04 Book I, Chapter 4 Jacquerie
00:15:22
Play 05 Book I, Chapter 5 Jacquerie
00:27:02
Play 06 Book I, Chapter 6 Jacquerie
00:27:42
Play 07 Book I, Chapter 7 Jacquerie
00:20:26
Play 08 Book I, Chapter 8 Jacquerie
00:20:37
Play 09 Book I, Chapter 9 Jacquerie
00:10:21
Play 10 Book I, Chapter 10 Jacquerie
00:26:41
Play 11 Book I, Chapter 11 Jacquerie
00:19:46
Play 12 Book I, Chapter 12 Jacquerie
00:08:16
Play 13 Book I, Chapter 13 Jacquerie
00:12:39
Play 14 Book I, Chapter 14 Jacquerie
00:06:13
Play 15 Book II, Chapter 1, Part 1 Jacquerie
00:21:04
Play 16 Book II, Chapter 1, Part 2 Jacquerie
00:14:36
Play 17 Book II, Chapter 2 Jacquerie
00:15:26
Play 18 Book II, Chapter 3, Part 1 Jacquerie
00:22:29
Play 19 Book II, Chapter 3, Part 2 Jacquerie
00:15:35
Play 20 Book II, Chapter 4 Jacquerie
00:09:00
Play 21 Book II, Chapter 5 Jacquerie
00:28:49
Play 22 Book II, Chapters 6 and 7 Jacquerie
00:13:41