5 h 47 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 47 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A woman vanishes in New York, and those around her cannot—or will not—explain how.
In Anna Katharine Green’s A Strange Disappearance, detective Ebenezer Gryce faces an absence surrounded by silence. Victorian New York offers fine houses and careful manners, but neither makes the truth easy to reach. Behind the missing woman lie private secrets and a past someone wants to keep hidden.
The question is not simply where she has gone, but who she really is. Gryce works through patience and observation as clues raise doubts and public names conceal private truths. Green builds suspense through questions rather than shocks, inviting you to linger over what people reveal—and what they leave unexplained.
What you’ll discover
- A troubling absence Follow a missing woman’s case into the secrets surrounding her life and identity.
- A patient detective Watch Ebenezer Gryce rely on close observation rather than a rush toward answers.
- Behind careful manners Enter a Victorian New York where fine houses offer no guarantee of plain truth.
- Names and hidden truths Explore the unsettling distance between the identity someone presents and the past they conceal.
- Suspense built on doubt Let unanswered questions draw you onward through a mystery that rewards slow, attentive reading.
Who will love it
For readers who love early detective fiction, Victorian atmosphere and puzzles solved through observation, with hidden identities, private secrets and reputations at stake.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A missing woman in Victorian New York
- Gryce works by patience and observation
- Secrets and hidden identity drive the plot
- How Green builds suspense on the page
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Una extraña desaparición
by Anna Katharine Green · 1880
A woman vanishes in New York, and detective Ebenezer Gryce follows clues into secrets that threaten reputations.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A Strange Disappearance is a detective novel by Anna Katharine Green, the American writer who helped shape the crime story in the 1870s and 1880s. It came out in 1880, soon after her first success, and it again follows the New York police detective Ebenezer Gryce.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A missing woman in Victorian New York
The story is built on one disturbing fact. A woman has vanished, and the people around her cannot or will not explain how. In a crowded city of the 1880 period, that is a hard thing to do without help, and the novel makes the reader ask who helped and why.
Green sets her mystery among respectable people. Houses, families, reputations and social rules matter as much as streets and rooms. A scandal could ruin a household, so many characters have a reason to hold their tongues. That pressure of silence drives the plot more than any chase does.
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What is A Strange Disappearance about?
It is a Victorian detective novel about a woman who vanishes in New York. Detective Ebenezer Gryce investigates, and the case leads into family secrets, a hidden identity and the fear of scandal among respectable people.
Who wrote A Strange Disappearance and when?
Anna Katharine Green wrote it, and it was published in 1880. It followed her first success, The Leavenworth Case, and it again features the police detective Ebenezer Gryce, who works alongside a younger detective known as Q.
Is A Strange Disappearance part of a series?
Yes, it is one of the novels featuring Ebenezer Gryce, who first appears in The Leavenworth Case. Each book tells its own case, so you can read this one without knowing the others.
The author
Anna Katharine Green
1846–1935 · American detective novelist
Anna Katharine Green (1846–1935) was an American novelist born in Brooklyn, New York. She wrote detective fiction, including The Leavenworth Case, published in 1878, and That Affair Next Door, published in 1897. She married actor and furniture designer Charles Rohlfs in 1884. She lived in Buffalo, New York, where she died.
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