A review by renae_reads
The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter, by Gaston Leroux

3.0

I was intrigued by the synopsis so I dived into it. I have never read Gaston Leroux but I didn't want Phantom of the Opera to be the one book by him that I read. This book is praised as being a great detective novel and a top notch locked room mystery. I can honestly say that I didn't not see the book playing out as it did; I had no idea who the murderer was or how they got out of the Yellow Room. I was probably as shocked as the courtroom at the time of the big reveal. While the story did its job stumping me, I thought the characters were insufferable. In the right story, this is a good quality of characters, but in this case, the characters felt very unbelievable, annoying, arrogant, and stupid.

Overall, this story could have been told in half the time with much less dialogue and would have been fantastic. I wish I had read Phantom first because now I am unsure if I will even attempt another Leroux novel in the foreseeable future.