The Forsaken Inn

An old and dilapidated inn in upstate New York provides the setting for this gothic mystery involving two couples in the 1700s.

Edwin Urquhart, loved by two sisters, chooses to marry the elder. Arriving at the Forsaken Inn for their honeymoon, they occupy an apartment containing a secret chamber. That night, the young bride is murdered and buried in this secret room. Did her new husband commit the crime—or is something much more sinister afoot?

The Forsaken Inn by Anna Katharine Green is an exceptional novel of gothic horror set in late 18th-century Revolutionary America. The language is baroque and the plot contrivances are unbelievable. A classic mystery from the woman who is considered the "Mother of Detective Fiction" as her first book "The Leavenworth Case" (1878) introduced Inspector Ebenezer Gryce, the first fictional detective, 9 years before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes mystery. Anna Katharine Green is sometimes referred to as the "Mother of Detective Fiction." This novel is an excellent illustration of how that came to be.