Castle Skull
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From the archives of the British Library, the master of locked-room mystery John Dickson Carr presents an atmospheric and haunting example of crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder.
Alison has been murdered. But his blazing body was seen running about the battlements of Castle Skull.
And so a dark shadow looms over the Rhineland where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris. Entreated by the Belgian financier D'Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison, the pair find themselves at the imposing hilltop fortress Schloss Schädel, in which a small group of suspects are still assembled.
As thunder rolls in the distance, Bencolin and Marle enter a world steeped in macabre legends of murder and magic to catch the killer still walking the maze-like passages and towers of the keep.
This new edition of John Dickson Carr's spirited and deeply atmospheric whodunit also features the rare Inspector Bencolin short story 'The Fourth Suspect.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First published in 1931, this excellent whodunit from Carr (1906 1977) makes the most of its creepy setting. French investigating magistrate Henri Bencolin and his Watson, Jeff Marle, travel to the Rhine at the request of J r me D'Aunay, a Belgian financier, following the murder of English actor Myron Alison, who was shot and set on fire at Castle Skull, D'Aunay's home on the Rhine. Witnesses saw Alison running around the battlements before he collapsed. Alison's own home was across the river from the castle, which once belonged to a legendary magician, Maleger, who was in business with Alison and D'Aunay. Seventeen years earlier, Maleger's body was recovered from the Rhine shortly after he disappeared from a train car that was under constant observation. Carr's gift for evoking atmosphere is very much in evidence: the castle's facade "resembles a giant death's head, with eyes, nose, and ragged jaw. But there are two towers, one on each side of the skull, which are rather like huge ears; so that the devilish thing, while it smiles, seems also to be listening." Golden age fans will hope that the British Library Crime Classics series continues to make more from Carr available.
