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Slow, even for MRR.

This is one of Rinehart's lesser known books and with good reason. It moves so slowly that it requires almost super-human patience to stick with it to the finish. I DID finish it, but it's a book I'm hesitant to recommend to others.

I think you're either a Mary Roberts Rinehart fan or you're not. She wrote during a slower, more leisurely time and even her very best books can't be said to gallop along. This one is like a tired, old horse who trudges so slowly you could get out and walk faster. And yet, it has charm and the characters are intriguing and totally true to life.

The heroine seems too good to be true, but she's simply a naive, sheltered young woman who follows her heart. While her older sister married for money and is caught up in the Roaring '20s, Elizabeth Wheeler is content to stay home with her parents. She would like to fall in love, but isn't in any hurry. But when love comes, she is totally devoted and prepared to face down opposition in order to marry the man of her choice.

Not that her parents are opposed. Young Dr Livingstone is a dedicated general practitioner and devoted to the elderly aunt and uncle who raised him. He has a fine war record as an Army doctor. He, too, could live a more exciting life by moving to a large city and specializing, but he's content to be a junior partner in his uncle's practice, knowing how important it is to the old man. The two young people seem to be a perfect match, even if worldly friends and relatives think both of them could "do better."

But Elizabeth doesn't know about Livingstone's life in the years before he came to live with his uncle. And HE has no memory of it, either. Then a play comes to town, starring an actress who's no longer young, but still beautiful and desirable. And her brother-manager recognizes the man now known as "Dr Livingstone." The siblings have no desire to rake up the past, but an eager newspaper reporter smells a story that will make national headlines. There is no one more dangerous than a reporter on the trail of a scoop.

Soon the newsman is headed to the small town in Wyoming where Livingstone grew up. And soon Dick Livingstone follows him, determined to find out about his heritage and his past BEFORE he marries an innocent young girl.

It's a complicated story because the action takes place in the present (1922) in the East and ten years previous in the West. Some of the people who know what happened are dead and some have their own secrets to hide. Dick Livingstone doggedly pursues the truth, but is he also pursuing a woman he once loved? And how long will Elizabeth wait for him?

Rinehart knew middle-class, suburban American life in the first half of the 20th Century. She was married to a doctor and knew all about the life of a profession that was respected, but not very well paid. As a wife and mother, she knew how families operate and she builds a faithful picture of the Wheeler family and of old Dr Livingstone's household. She knew about gossip and how quickly it could destroy the career of a doctor. Medical care was primative by our standards and testing was almost non-existent. All the patient had was his faith in his doctor and that faith required conviction that the doctor was morally sound.

If you have the patience to stick with it, it's a charming picture of America before television homogenized the country. To middle America, the East Coast was sophisticated, the South was exotic, and the West was wild. The majority of Americans never traveled more than 10 miles from their birthplace. WWI shook things up, but life for most Americans was stable and governed by firmly held beliefs. The "new" or unknown was viewed with deep suspicion.

This book would have benefitted by severe editing and a large dollop of Rinehart's signature humor. Still, I'm glad it's available as an ebook (for free!) and I'm glad I read it. Rinehart was an intelligent woman whose experiences as a war correspondent in Europe during WWI gave her a broad outlook on the American experience. Her books have value because she knew so much about human nature. And human nature hasn't changed a bit between 1922 and 2022.