Has anyone read the novel
Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson? Among the eight fictional murders the protagonist calls perfect (i.e., almost impossible to crack) is the one in
The Red House Mystery. I have not read Swanson's book (because it gives away all the murderers in the eight books, and I haven't read all of them), so I don't know what his criteria are. Still, it seems surprising to include Milne's book.
FYI, the eight "perfect" fictional murders occur in these books:
- Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders
- Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train
- Ira Levin’s Deathtrap
- A. A. Milne's The Red House Mystery
- Francis Iles's (Anthony Berkeley Cox's) Malice Aforethought
- James M. Cain's Double Indemnity
- John D. MacDonald's The Drowner
- Donna Tartt's The Secret History
I suspect Swanson's protagonist is looking at these as cases that would baffle the police or a detective and not the reader, because in at least a few of them, the murderer is known to the reader from the outset.