JOHN DICKSON CARR (1906-1977)Doctor Gideon Fell SeriesDr Fell | Bencolin & Others | Historical Novels | Henry Merrivale | Carr Main PageWARNING: Some of these capsule reviews hint at the solution, so do not read the footnote to the review if you have not read the book Annotated Book List
1. HAG'S NOOK (1933) §§
* Granted, it all works out very well for the murderer in an opportunistic way and is very cleverly misleading according to the narration, based on an assumption that an exprerienced Carr reader would learn not to make. That bit is brilliant, plus the character and motives of the surprise villain.
* The only dubious point is the assumption that one could depend on catching a tube train (subway) right away -- twice, no less -- without having to wait 20 minutes or encounter some delay or breakdown. However, one has to assume that like the post office, public services were more efficient back then than they are now.
* It is surprising that Carr, as an American, couldn't manage the idiom very well when it came to what he thought of as gangsterese. However, he never exhibited any great talent for handling slang or even phonetic rendition of accents in any of his books. In dialogue, he is no Elmore Leonard!
* Drinking and smoking feature prominently in JDC books. No problem except that attitudes to those activities have changed in 50 years -- the 1990s US postage stamp of Humphrey Bogart erased his cigarette, for example. Modern readers must be prepared to find alcoholism presented as either sheer fun or pathetic (the latter case basically implying some sort of character flaw where the person can't handle getting drunk all the time and still functioning). The effect of drinking on the characters usually results in some really funny comedic situations, even if it comes across as very adolescent and naïve. -- Carr and ocean liners: Of course this is the way he always travelled on his frequent transatlantic crossings, but they make marvellous backgrounds to many of his books and radio plays. There is something very captivating and evocative about an ocean voyage, which makes it similar to the mileu of the snowbound house, etc. in other mysteries. (See also Nine, and Death Makes Ten and Panic in Box C as other nice efforts in this category.)
* The motivation for the murder and especially the secondary plot, unless one could say the villain was absolutely bonkers, is very weak and unsatisfactory.
* Includes the noted 'locked-room lecture, as well as nice disquisition on ghost stories and magic tricks. The solution is generally very 'satisfying'.
* All a matter of timing, which could only have worked out that way because the author arranged it. This could have happened, but if a single incident were off by a minute, the whole thing would have been chaos.
* This was Carr when he was in a very a workmanlike stage, not going to extremes of comedy, grotesqueness, and confused locked-room plots. Didn't like this book much when I first read it in the 1960's, because it didn't have those elements, now in the 2000's on a rereading I find it has the elements of very good construction, so this ranks with Mad Hatter as one of his cleaner-plotted books. But see deconstruction of a JDC plot.
* It's interesting to see where Carr's sympathies fall in regard to his characters; one would normally tend to another view.
* One of JDC's best puzzle plots. Too bad he couldn't create any characters here that one could give a damn about, not even the heroine. Well worth reading for its mystery, but not for anything else -- one could not conceive of anybody, even this murderer as described, poisoning children for any motive, even this one, that isn't sheer lunacy. It don't compute! The subtitle is the Psychologist's Murder Case -- if anybody needs one it is either the murderer or the author.
-- By the way, watch out for that silly mistake, showing up Carr's ignorance of math and physics or even basic experience, where he moves the movie projector CLOSER to the screen to make the image BIGGER. That is irritating, although it really had nothing to do with the solution. One assumes the author never had anything to do with such machines in his life. Carr had problems with the 'cussedness' of machinery, as do a lot of us, even though he is said to have tested out his shenanigans hocussing with bolts, doorknobs, etc., usually with the help of some friends and plenty of drinks to go round.
* There are several alternate solutions to how this murder could have been done, but the actual one is pretty silly. The second murder would have you believe in an acrobat's being shot from the back of a theatre with a .22 handgun, no less than three times with nobody noticing anything wrong until the victim finally misses his trapeze, even though the theatre setting is excellent -- JDC did this sort of theatrical background very well, just as he did ocean liners -- one could almost call this a forté of his. One must object to this person's being killed -- he was such good character -- but this at least is one of the books where the villain is dragged kicking and screaming to the gallows.
-- Digression here, but I have to point out one of my favorite scenes in a mystery novel, end of Anthony Berkeley's Trial and Error, where the condemned man, who has an aneurysm, asks the hangman, "Has anybody ever done this to you before?" punches him in the face as hard as he can and then drops dead. This is a wonderful book, though I shouldn't be mentioning it on a Carr page, even if Berkeley was a co-member with Carr of the exclusive Detection Club.
* This is not vintage Carr; a certain degree of lying is acceptable, but in this case there is hardly any reason for most of it except to obfuscate the plot.
* Carr's only book with a Scottish setting, even though he was of Scottish ancestry; too bad he didn't set one in Edinburgh, which is a perfect 'murder' city.
* The motive is appalling. Immorally, Dr Fell nevertheless covers up for the murderer and leaves a falsely accused person dangling in the wind in spite of implied guarantees. Death Turns the Stomach it should have been called. Nevertheless one of Carr's most effective plots.
* Many JDC books are set in the country, but this is one of the best at evoking a real atmosphere for that sort of place that doesn't involve anything supernatural or sinister (well, not much anyway). The locked-room gimmick is also very convincing.
* Chartres and the New Forest, the nostalgia of 1939 and the grimness of 1946, as nasty but realistic a murderer as you will ever find, and a really diabolical murder method. Great characters, and Dr Fell at his best. A masterpiece.
* The only baffling locked-room element really has nothing to do with the story at all, as though the author came up with a gimmick and didn't know how else to use it -- waste not, want not. He should have used it in The Burning Court instead of the similar but not as convincing thing he did use there.
* A note on JDC's political/social philosophy: He was basically what we would call now a Libertarian, which is a combination of laissez faire and old-time 18th-century conservatism. Regimentation of the people by government regulation, enforcement of rigid social respectability codes, heavy taxation, hypocrisy -- these are bad. On the other hand, the ideal woman is a 'ginch', basically a bedworthy hand-maiden type with bobbed hair and a saucy tongue who should never work for a living but depend entirely on her man's Three-Musketeer ability to deal with every situation in a macho way, the more idiotic the better.
* Nice simple locked-room trick, but otherwise this book is too long and talky, and the 'psychology' is not very convincing.
* Armadale has one of the most complex but mechanical plots ever written. Protagonist has a detailed 80-page or so dream, every element of which comes true in various ways. Gripping story, but only for reading once.
* This was one of my first JDC books read, so maybe I rate it higher than it should be -- first impressions linger in spite of post-analysis. This book really grips.
* On the first page, somebody gets a phone call and says: "About four years ago, in the summer of sixty, I hadn't heard your voice or set eyes on you for just under twenty-one years, when both of us were boys of not quite sixteen...." This is absolutely a hogwash way to establish a background for the characters and time setting. What was the matter with Carr, unless he had been corrupted by writing radio plays? Instead of a floor plan, which was always a good thing, he has people say 'over here on the left just beyond that wooden door, as you will observe, is the back hall with its three rooms, one of which is the butler's pantry....' The habit became so pervasive in the later books that it irritates to the detriment of the reader's enjoyment, no matter how good the plot.
* Nice scene-setting in New York just before the 1964 World's Fair. It was fresh to JDC after long absences in England and is described in the way of one returning to a high-school reunion (baseball stats, commuter trains, etc.); now is almost an historical document. Although it's a flaw in the novel, the extraneous matter is very entertaining, including digressions about Stonewall Jackson and why the Confederate flag has 13 stars even though only 11 states seceded. However, one can do without that whole chapter in a bar where dignified old men (mayors, judges, and so on) are singing college songs, and bashing each other with bar stools, boola boola, puh-leeze, John, grow up!
* The dialogue is discursive and nobody talks to the point; very hard to follow what is happening in this mystery. But there is a nice spooky scene set in an abandoned high school, and the business of the pirate's ghost is well done.  This is G.K. Chesterton, aka Dr Fell
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