Most Popular Books by John Dickson Carr

The corpse of Frank Dorrance is discovered in the center of a tennis court and Dr. Gideon Fell searches for the killer.

Death and tennis meet in one of impossible crime master John Dickson Carr''s most memorable cases.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

"[John Dickson Carr] is the supreme conjuror; the king of the art of misdirection...once you begin a book of his, you simply cannot put it down."—Agatha Christie First published in 1942, this reissue is one of Carr''s most tense and enjoyable game of cat and mouse pitting detective Gideon Fell against the "chief" suspect. When police arrive at Justice Ireton''s holiday bungalow to find a man killed by gunshot and the high court justice brandishing a pistol, the case seems as straightforward as it is scandalous. But, with physical evidence that doesn''t add up, the justice''s vehement denial of wrong doing, and recent events in his daughter''s love life turns the deceptively simple case on its head. Stumped, the local force calls in the larger-than-life sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell, who just yesterday contended with Ireton over a brutally challenging game of chess. With Fell and the judge now facing off as detective and suspect, a new battle of wits begins in this fiendishly plotted masterclass of the mystery genre.

A BLACK DAGGER CRIME edition of a novel in which someone is murdering Napoleon''s personal enemies and is spreading terror through the army poised to invade England, and a Briton, forced to discover the identity of the killer, pits his wits against Napoleon himself.

When the fake defense Patrick Butler used to clear Joyce Ellis is used to prove Lucia Renshaw is guilty of murder, he turns to Dr. Gideon Fell for help

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.

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

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

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.

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

An acknowledged master of the classic "locked room" mystery, Carr wrote 71 books from the 1930''s through the 1960''s. The evidence shows that while waiting to kill wealthy Septmus Depping, the would-be murderer ate the victim''s dinner and promptly died. Before famed sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell can finger the poisoner, another course of murder is served.

Historical mystery.