A Strange Disappearance

Anna Katharine Green’s A Strange Disappearance is a fiction, mystery first published in 1879. Anna Katharine Green uses the form to consider secrecy, evidence, motive, and the difficult search for truth, keeping the emphasis on how ideas become choices, conflicts, and consequences. As part of a series, the book also contributes to a larger imaginative or narrative design while retaining its own identity. Anna Katharine Green relies on a carefully controlled structure that rewards attention to detail and shifting suspicion, allowing mood and structure to carry as much meaning as subject matter. At roughly 51,595 words with a fairly easy reading profile, it offers a reading commitment that is easy to judge before beginning while still leaving room for close attention. Beyond its immediate story or argument, the book matters for its role in shaping the pleasures and conventions of detective and suspense fiction. Readers drawn to fiction, mystery and secrecy will find a work that combines a distinct period voice with questions that remain recognizable today.