I love the way she tells you who the murderer is almost immediately and still builds a novel full of suspense. A very fun read!

More suspense than mystery as the killer is revealed quite early in the book. Love this cheesy cover, but it's not the edition I read. Published in 1948 and somewhat dated.

It's probably a formula that has been copied many times since this thrilling thriller first appeared in 1948, but it's difficult to imagine that it has ever been excelled. -- The reader knows who the murderer is fairly early on, as well as the intended victim(s). There is a somewhat elaborate backstory to the set-up: some twenty years previously, there was a temporary mix-up at a hospital involving the Garth and Garrison families: a boy and a girl were born almost simultaneously, but their ident...

This is a romantic suspense novel with Gothic overtones, set in California in the later 1940s. When Amanda Garth learns, at the age of twenty-three, that there could have been a mix-up at her birth, she is intrigued. Especially when the other father turns out to be well-known artist Tobias Garrison. Since Mandy is an art student, she attends visits a gallery showcasing Garrison's work, and wangles an invitation to his mansion. She finds herself drawn not only to Tobias, but also to his son, Thon...

Fun to read

I read this book when I was 13! I loved it then, but who knows what I or any other adult would think of it now! I just remember loving it and thinking it was an excellent book. If I remember correctly the murderer is one of the narrators and her identity is not a mystery. The true mystery is about whether or not the beautiful, young protagonist will figure it out. I'll have to see if my library has a copy and reread!

From 1948I loved this so much at first. The modern gothic house, upside down off a canyon. The paintings. But I found the whole Mixed Up At Birth mystery hard to swallow. I know they didn't have DNA tests back then, but still. There was a murder plot, and that was good.

Gracefully writtenThe author is in complete command of the English language. I was struck by the easy grace of some of her passages. The plot was unusual. Not exactly a mystery...but not exactly not. Strong female heroine. Very well plotted. A pleasure to read.

I am delighted to see some classic mysteries reprinted, giving another generation a chance to enjoy them, shout I have to say this cover is better than the reprint. Sure, it has a bit of a dated look, but color is very important to the story. Mandy is a budding artist, and is intrigued by the family story of her birth. She was born at the same time as the son of a famous artist, and for a few minutes at the hospital, the artist believes she is his child. While there's no chance of a true changed...

Synopsis: When art student Amanda Garth found out that she might have been switched at birth with the son of the famous artist Tobias Garrison, she turned the bizarre anecdote into an off-beat introduction to this past master of her calling. Once she met Garrison and his handsome son, Thone, she knew she didn't want their acquaintanceship to end. And then Thone's stepmother, plump, motherly Ione, accidentally knocked over a thermos of hot chocolate and quickly as that Amanda was caught in a peri...

***** "The Chocolate Cobweb" by Charlotte Armstrong spins a mystery around a sweet-seeming Mrs. Santa Claus who poisons hot chocolate. We look over her shoulder yet cannot stop her. We know whodunit, but how to expose her long-ago murder of the previous wife? and convict her of new attempts without allowing deaths? Suspense builds to the very last chapter.Lovely artistic single Mandy discovers a mixup at her birth. Can she convince the handsome bachelor son of his danger without dying herself? I...

A spellbinding howdunit centered in 1940s Los Angeles, The Chocolate Cobweb is a real treat. We follow Amanda (Mandy) Garth on her search for truth, beauty, art, and justice, all centered around the Garrison family. We learn who the killer is early in the telling, but that does not take away from the suspense about how the crime will be carried out, and if the killer will ultimately succeed. The title gives the unfortunate impression this is a cozy mystery (not a bad thing in its own right, but

I remember reading this back in about 1976, picking it up by pure chance in the library. It held me spellbound, and I devoured all the Armstrong books I could get that summer. Armstrong has a penchant for telling us her tales backward: we know who dunit and how, and we slowly learn why. Or sometimes, who's gonna do it and why...and then we learn how. Even though I knew how the story ended, at this second reading decades later it still made a rattling good suspenseful page-turner, in spite of Arm...

Perfect thriller structure set in a domestic sphere. Great fun!

I love this book! This was a re-read, probably my third or fourth. Published in 1948, my first copy was a 1971 tattered paperback that had made the rounds through several paperback book exchanges before I nabbed it and kept it. I was delighted to see it had been re-printed by the Otto Penzler Presents American Mystery Classics, snapped it up, and happily re-immersed myself in its pages. Charlotte Armstrong was called the 'Queen of Suspense' and I totally agree. Several of her novels have been ma...

The reverse mystery is not my favorite, but if you want to read a story where you know the murderer from close to the start, and watch while the plot slowly unravels, you could do worse than this classic by Armstrong. Amanda, a young art student finds she has a very slight connection to a famous artist, and uses it to strike up an acquaintance. Quite by accident, she sees something sinister happening. Her mere presence is enough to stop a murder attempt, but also lead her to suspect that the sub...

When I picked up this book at a garage sale I wasn't really sure whether I'd like it or not. I guess the title intrigued me more than anything else. The copy I bought was an old "Pocket" brand books. Published in 1949. But I truly found this book to be amazing and I highly recommend it if you can find it.

Charlotte Armstrong often starts with the murderer, deftly building excruciating suspense as the protagonist tries to set things right. Here, you have a young woman whose past history included a possible mix-up at birth with an artist parent. She's drawn to one of his showings and is surprised with the affinity she feels for his work, and manages to meet him and his wife and son (the other switched one?). On that first night, she sees an attempt at murder that she realizes she can't really prove...

Regrettably meh. The writing was fine but it was very weird that both the female and male main characters referred to their parents by their first names. Maybe that was what hip 23-year-olds were doing in the 1940s but it was jarring.Also the structure didn't work for me. The murderer and their motivation is revealed near the beginning so there's no real mystery. It wasn't a very fun read.

Early Bird Book Deal | Good tension builds up | I've only read one other by Armstrong, so I don't know if all her books are in the Lt Columbo style, in which the reader knows from the start who the killer is and watches to see how they're caught and if anyone else is killed, or if it's just the two I've stumbled onto. It works very well here, even when you tell yourself that books of the time didn't kill the hero, you know they'll sacrifice somebody, so you're whisked along wondering. Good pace,...