John Dickson Carr

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiancée the mysterious newcomer to the village, Lesley Grant. When Grant accidentally shoots the fortune teller through the side of his tent at the local fair – following a very strange reaction to his predictions – Markham is reluctantly brought into a scheme to expose his betrothed as a suspected serial husband-poisoner. That night the enigmatic fortune teller – and chief accuser – is found dead in an impossible locked-room setup, casting suspicion onto Grant and striking doubt into the heart of her lover. Lured by the scent of the impossible case, Dr Gideon Fell arrives from London to examine the perplexing evidence and match wits with a meticulous killer at large.

London was wrapped in fog when Inspector John Cheviot got into a twentieth century taxi. The city was still fogbound when he got out - but the cab was a hackney coach, the year was 1829, and murder was a safe and profitable business. There were things Cheviot remembered but couldn't use - like how to analyze fingerprints; and things he didn't know that he could have used - like how advanced his romance with the luscious Lady Flora really was. And there wasn't time to learn, because Cheviot suddenly found himself pitted against the cleverest murderer of his career.

The murderer of Dr Grimaud walked through a locked door, shot his victim, and vanished. He killed his second victim in the middle of an empty street, with watchers at each end, yet nobody saw him, and he left no footprint in the snow. It is left to the gargantuan Dr Fell, with his rumbling laugh and his bandit's moustache, to solve this most famous and taxing of locked-room mysteries.

We are thrilled to welcome John Dickson Carr into the Crime Classics series with his first novel, a brooding locked room mystery in the gathering dusk of the French capital. In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Inspector Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer, imprisoned for his attempt to kill his wife, has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. His whereabouts remain a mystery, though with his former wife poised to marry another, Bencolin predicts his return. Sure enough, the Inspector’s worst suspicions are realized when the beheaded body of the new suitor is discovered in a locked room of the salon, with no apparent exit. Bencolin sets off into the Parisian night to unravel the dumbfounding mystery and track down the sadistic killer.

In his detecting debut, larger than life lexicographer Dr. Gideon Fell is entertaining young American college graduate Tad Rampole at Yew Cottage, Fell's charming home in the English countryside. Within sight of his study window is the ruin of Chatterham Prison, perched high on a precipice known as Hag's Nook. The prison's land belongs to the Starberth family—whose eldest sons must each spend an hour in the prison's eerie "Governor's Room" to inherit the family fortune. Rampole is especially interested in the family, having met the young and beautiful Dorothy Starberth on the train from London. He readily agrees when Fell and the local reverend, Thomas Saunders, ask him to accompany them as they watch and wait for badly frightened Martin Starberth to complete 'his hour' in the prison. Martin has every reason to be afraid; more than one Starberth heir has met an untimely end. Will his turn come tonight?

Hubo dos crimenes: uno, impremeditado y casual; las circunstancias lo convirtieron en un milagro. Otro, planeado y cuidadoso que proyectó la sombra y el temor en una casa de New Forest.

Book by Carr, John Dickson