What if the secret society of Eyes Wide Shut were combined with the atmospheric horror of The Mystery of the Wax Museum and the whole enterprise had John Dickson Carr at the helm? The Corpse in the Waxworks (32) doesn't quite live up to that promise, but it comes damn close. It's Paris, which means… Continue reading The Corpse in the Waxworks
When I gave my impressions of The Locked Room Reader, I felt I may have been too harsh. Though some of the individual stories didn't impress me, it was a pleasure embarking on one locked-room mystery after another. As I've now chosen another gathering of impossible delights to discuss, I'd like to make it clear… Continue reading The Realm of the Impossible
My introduction to Dorothy Sayers was the dense but ingenious The Nine Tailors, a book I might not have the fortitude to finish nowadays. Although it presents a witty, entertaining detective and an absolutely brilliant murder weapon (maybe the best I've encountered), TNT also has an unbearably tedious account of campanology. I still don't know… Continue reading The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
When I first became interested in detective fiction, I had difficulty finding blogs to foster my newfound passion. Perhaps I was entering the wrong words into Google, but most of the sites I encountered only wrote about modern fiction and not the sort I was reading. In December of last year, I was busy working… Continue reading Black Aura by John Sladek
It doesn't take far into Carr's oeuvre before a reader begins to recognize the signposts. Here's the meet-cute and there's the first brief mention of the curse/legend/myth which will soon be tragically reenacted for our ghoulish pleasure. The foolish authority figure (not quite so foolish this time round), the suspicious relatives, and the blusterous authority… Continue reading Hag’s Nook
Any discussion of Paul Halter's The Crimson Fog has to be done in two (very) distinct parts. We begin in 1887. A man goes back to his hometown to solve a decade-old impossible murder. Straight away, we get an entertaining series of narrative game playing. "Sidney" reveals a false identity to some characters, creates another… Continue reading The Crimson Fog
Advanced praise for John Dickson Carr's Death-Watch: "Wall-to-wall dialogue!" "The meager traces of romance are cynically used in service of the puzzle, appearing only when necessary and resembling little in the way of true human emotion!" "The chess-piece characters don't learn anything, nor do they change throughout the course of the story. The same goes… Continue reading DEATH-WATCH
