SOURCE: "Anna Katharine Green," in 10 Women of Mystery, edited by Earl F. Bargainnier, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1981, pp. 152-78.

In the following excerpt, Hayne discusses the historical importance of Green's works in terms of her consolidation of the detective novel and the sensational novel and her contribution to the literary convention of the professional and amateur detective working together to solve a crime.

"It is admirable," said Poirot. "One savours its period atmosphere, its studied and deliberate melodrama. Those rich and lavish descriptions of the golden beauty of Eleanor, the moonlight beauty of Mary!"

"I must read it again," I said. "I'd forgotten the parts about the beautiful girls."

"And there is the maidservant Hannah, so true to type, and the murderer, an excellent psychological study."

I perceived that I had let myself in for a lecture. I composed myself to listen.

Thus Hercule Poirot, in The...