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Loading... Lost Gallows (original 1931; edition 1986)by John Dickson Carr
Work InformationThe Lost Gallows by John Dickson Carr (1931)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This one took me a while to get into, but it ended better and on a good twisty note. ( ) I absolutely love the British Library Crime Classics series, which brings novel from the "era of great detective fiction" into the present day, where they can find new readers. In general, the plotting in these novels is supurb. They really do keep one guessing until the last moment. The Lost Gallows is one of the most recent additions to the series. It's set shortly after World War 1, and that war casts a shadow across the story, as does the damp, unpredictable London fog. In it, Inspector Bencolin and his American sidekick, who serves as Bencolin's Watson, have come to London and are staying at a club where one of Bencolin's long time friends is a member. The novel offers gallows after gallows: a small model that turns up at the club; another, that a character has seen while wandering in the London fog, appears as a shadow cast across an alleyway; and there's a back story in which a potentially innocent man has been hanged for the murder of his best friend. Carr deals out a bounty of clues and conundrums that appear impossible to resolve into a single case, but Bencolin is up to the task. All the gallows, plus a dead man driving a car, a London street that disappears, a series of unpleasant characters: Bencolin knows how these pieces will fall into place, while those around him struggle to make sense of events. If you like classic crime novels, this is a must-read. And, once you've read it, you'll want to look for more of these classics that are being brought to light once again. I received a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesHenri Bencolin (2) Belongs to Publisher SeriesAdey's Locked Room Murders (0321) British Library Crime Classics (Novel) Pocket Books (436) Is contained in
John Dickson Carr lays on the macabre atmosphere again in this follow up to It Walks by Night in which Inspector Bencolin attempts to piece together a puzzle involving a disappearing street, a set of gallows which mysteriously reveals itself to a number of figures traipsing through the London fog, and the bizarre suggestion that a kind of No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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