Most Popular Books by John Dickson Carr

Golden Age mystery author John Dickson Carr displays his mastery of the historical mystery in this thrilling tale of courtship and punishment in Regency-era England To inherit her family fortune, beautiful Miss Caroline Ross must marry before her twenty-fifth birthday. But she has found only two breeds of husband: violent drunks and irresponsible dandies. To evade wedded agony, she chooses a spouse not long for this world—a convicted murderer with just a few hours left until his date with the hangman. But clever, cold-hearted Caroline does not yet realize it is her neck around which the noose is tightening and that she risks facing a life sentence far grimmer than one at Newgate jail.

Returning from the war, Don Holden discovers that his best friend''s wife has died under mysterious circumstances

The Judas Window by John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson), a Sir Henry Merrivale mystery. One of the five best locked room mysteries, as selected by 14 established mystery authors and critics (All But Impossible!, 1981. ed. E. Hoch). The Case: Avory Hume is found dead with an arrow through his heart--in a study with bolted steel shutters and a heavy door locked from the inside. In the same room James Caplon Answell lies unconscious, his clothes disordered as though from a struggle. The Attorney for the Defense: That gruff and grumbling old sleuth, Sir Henry Merrivale, who proves himself superb in court--even though his gown does tear with a rending noise as he rises majestically to open the case. The Action: Before H.M. can begin his defense, Answell, his client, rises and cries out that he is guilty. Sir Henry doesn''t believe it. But proof, circumstantial evidence, and the man''s own confession point to his guilt. So the great, explosive detective gets down to serious sleuthing and at last startles the crowd in the Old Bailey with a reconstruction of the crime along logical, convincing lines. The Judas Window. Also published as The Crossbow Murder. Included is the floor plan found in the print version, redrawn for better legibility specifically for this edition.

And So to Murder by John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson), a Sir Henry Merrivale mystery. “A first-class murder mystery [and] also a ribald satire of the motion picture industry.”—The Vancouver Sun DEATH RIDES THE TUBE... The speaking-tube whistled. Monica flew at it. “Who are you? What do you want?” She bent her cheek to the mouth of the tube to listen for an answer. Something was happening inside the tube. She jumped back. Something which looked like water, but was not water, spurted in a jet from the mouth of the tube. It splashed across the linoleum. There was a hissing, sizzling noise as half a pint of vitriol began to eat into the surface of the floor. The footsteps in the room above began to run. Monica Stanton has written a saucy best-seller that has landed her her dream job, scriptwriting for a movie studio. Things turn sour quickly as she''s saddled with a mentor she despises After someone makes a gruesome attempt on her life, however, her feelings begin to change about him as they are forced together during the investigation. Theories of Nazi “heiling enthusiasts” and espionage soon take form, leading to the entrance of Sir Henry Merrivale, who now works for Britain''s Military Intelligence division. Only Sir Henry can wade through the “fat-heads” and schemers to get to the bottom of this amusing and clever mystery.

Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library''s archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, these enduring crime classics were written in the golden age of detective fiction. With an introduction by Martin Edwards and featuring the Dickson Carr short story "The Shadow of the Goat" 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. Penned during the golden age of mysteries, this thrilling investigation brings a detective face to face with the darkest parts of Paris. And after the thrilling conclusion of the locked room mystery, sit back and enjoy the short story "The Shadow of the Goat", also included in this exclusive British Library crime classic.

A curse shall befall anyone who takes the bronze lamp out of Egypt, so a seer has said. Lady Helen Loring thinks such tales are sheer poppycock. She takes the lamp back to England, she places it on the mantelpiece at Serven Hall, and she disappears, just as the seer said.

Death and tennis meet in one of impossible crime master John Dickson Carr’s most memorable cases. John Dickson Carr is famous for his puzzling “impossible crime” plots in which corpses are discovered in scenarios that seem to lack any logical explanation. Among all of Carr’s ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of the best known: a dead man is found strangled in the middle of a clay tennis court just after a storm. In the damp dirt, there is one set of footsteps—his own—leading back to the grass; the court is otherwise untouched. It seems like a case of sudden death but, in order to find who’s at fault, the authorities must first solve the mystery of the body’s puzzling position. The bafflement has reached a harried volley by the time ace amateur sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell gets involved, bringing to the case a wit capable of cutting through the racket and discovering the truth. With brilliant deductive reasoning and plenty of humor, Fell untethers a confounding set of clues in search of a diabolical killer and a bizarre murder method, serving up a dazzling stroke of genius to expose whodunit. Reissued for the first time this century, The Problem of the Wire Cage is an atmospheric and amusing Golden Age mystery with a memorable puzzle at its center, perfect for both long-time fans and first-time readers of John Dickson Carr.

From the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of America''s greatest mystery writers, John Dickson Carr, comes twelve riveting tales based on incidents or elements of the unsolved cases of Sherlock Holmes. The plots are all new, with painstaking attention to the mood, tone, and detail of the original stories. Here is a fascinating volume of mysteries for new Sherlock fans, as well as for those who have read all the classics and crave more!

A tarot card discovered at a murder scene provides a clue for Dr. Gideon Fell In a house in the English countryside, a man has just turned up dead, surrounded by a crime scene that seems, at first glance, to be fairly straightforward. He’s found with a bullet through the head in an unlocked room, and all signs point to a recent strange visitor as the perpetrator. The body is even accompanied by an ostentatious clue, presumably left by the killer: The tarot card of The Eight of Swords, an allusion, perhaps, to justice. But when Dr. Gideon Fell arrives at the house to investigate, he finds that certain aspects of the murder scene don’t quite add up—and that every new piece of evidence introduces a new problem instead of a new solution. Add to that the suggestion of a poltergeist on the property, the appearance of American gangsters, and the constant interruptions of two dabbling amateur sleuths adjacent to the case, and you have a situation puzzling enough to push Fell’s powers of deduction to their limits. But will Fell be able to cut through their distractions and get to the heart of the matter, before more murders take place? Reissued for the first time in years, The Eight of Swords is an early Carr novel that highlights many of the qualities that made him such a successful writer, including his baffling plots, his twisty investigations, and his memorable characters. It is the third installment in the Dr. Gideon Fell series, which can be read in any order.

In this baffling whodunnit from the master of the locked-room mystery, a man falls dead in a guarded room, and Sir Henry Merrivale searches for a devilishly-clever killer. They say that Lord Mantling’s mansion is haunted — at least, one room of it is. Known as the Red Widow’s Chamber, the now-sealed quarters once housed the wife of a guillotine operator in the French Revolution, and, since her passing, have been host to a century of unsolved horrors, including the death of a man in 1802, the death of a child in 1895, and a number of mysterious mortalities in the years in between. Now, in 1935, eight men and women join at the manor for a sinister experiment to determine the truth behind the haunting once and for all: they each draw a card, and whoever pulls the Ace of Spades must spend a night in that terrifying room. But the challenge turns fatal when the man selected for the task is found poisoned the next morning when the doors are opened. The locked room was guarded all night, so nobody could have entered or escaped; what’s more, the deadly toxin could only have entered through a break in the skin, but no wounds were discovered on the body. Is this evidence, at last, of a nefarious spirit at work, or of a diabolical and ingenious killer? Only Sir Henry Merrivale, called in to take note of the night’s proceedings, will be able to examine the clues and deduce the truth.

Everything you could ever want in a Golden Age of Detective Fiction novel. — Booklist Also known by its US title The Problem of the Green Capsule, this classic novel is widely regarded as one of John Dickson Carr''s masterpieces and remains among the greatest impossible crime mysteries of all time. A sinister case of deadly poisoned chocolates from Sodbury Cross''s high street shop haunts the group of friends and relatives assembled at Bellegarde, among the orchards of ''peach-fancier'' Marcus Chesney. To prove a point about how the sweets could have been poisoned under the nose of the shopkeeper, Chesney stages an elaborate memory game to test whether any of his guests can see beyond their ''black spectacles''; that is, to see the truth without assumptions as witnesses. During the test – which is also being filmed – Chesney is murdered by his accomplice, dressed head to toe in an ''invisible man'' disguise. The keen wits of Dr, Gideon Fell are called for to crack this brazen and bizarre murder committed in full view of an audience.

Rita Wainwright''s love affair with Barry Sullivan is flamboyant enough to deserve a dramatic ending, so that when the pair of them vanish over a cliff one rainy night, leaving a farewell note for Rita''s husband, no one doubts for a moment that it is a case of suicide – except for Doctor Luke, one of the few people who genuinely liked her. Sir Henry Merrivale – the fabulous ''H.M.'' – is staying in the area, having his portrait painted as a Roman senator. Although confined to a bath-chair with an injured toe, this does not stop him getting about – occasionally in toga and laurels – and solving what is too much for the sharp-eyed doctor.

Visiting friends in London, Bencolin, an inspector of the French Surete, encounters a baffling murder, whose most important clue seems to be a small model of a gallows.

The scene in Papa La-Bas is New Orleans in 1858. There, strong men, lovely women, dark magic and violence swirl around Senator Judah P. Benjamin, who can solve any problem by logical analysis, and Richard Macrae, Her Majesty''s Consul, when they witness a devilish murder.

All of Carr''s stories featuring Dr. Gideon Fell, including previously unpublished ones in radio-play form, are accompanied by six other mystery tales and a locked-room novella

Gideon Fell searches London for a gilt-painted creature who was present at the scene of a murder

When Pennington Barclay is found murdered in a locked room, his sister claims that he was killed by a ghost and Dr. Fell is called to investigate

Monsieur Bencolin investigates a series of baffling murders involving a gloomy wax museum and the mysterious Silver Key Club

Dr. Gideon Fell solves the dagger murder of a frock-coated, false-whiskered man whose corpse is discovered in the great black carriage of the eerie Wade Museum of Oriental Art

First pub 1935. Mystery.

A biography of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, depicting him as a romantic, a politician, a warfare expert, and an amateur detective