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Loading... The Three Coffins (1935)by John Dickson Carr
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Really spooky beginning, clever solution, and an (apparently famous) lecture in one chapter about the mechanics of the locked-room mystery. The only thing was, none of the characters did much for me. I found it odd that the brilliant sleuth had *two* Everyman sidekicks and wasn’t sure what the point of that was. And Dr. Gideon Fell is less interesting than Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. But as a locked-room mystery it’s first in its class. 'But, if you're going to analyse impossible situations,' interrupted Pettis, 'why discuss detective fiction?' 'Because,' said the doctor, frankly, 'we're in a detective story, and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not. Let's not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories.’ Soooo meta Somewhere I read that this was rated the number 1 locked room mystery of all time, so of course, I had to read it. Many parts were riveting, but the ending was too much of an explanation/reveal. I wish more of the clues had come out during the story instead of magically at the end. Chapter 17 was BRILLIANT--basically a lecture on how to create a locked room mystery. A how-to inside a whodunit. AND THEN THERE WERE NONE remains the best IMHO.
Carr boasts that he has devised over eighty different solutions to the locked-room puzzle, and in one of the novels Fell, a monologist with the best of them, delivers a fascinating lecture on the subject. This is The Three Coffins, to quote the inexcusable American retitling of the British edition The Hollow Man, which perfectly suggests the macabre menace of the story. That man must indeed have been hollow who, watched of course by a responsible and innocent witness, was seen to enter a room without other access in which, later, there is found the corpse of the room’s occupant, but of course no hollow man. This is Chestertonian, or Brownian, though its explanation has a Carrian validity. Belongs to SeriesBelongs to Publisher SeriesAdey's Locked Room Murders (0316) I classici del giallo [Mondadori] (1006, 234) Crime de la Crime (Arbeiderspers) — 6 more Is contained inA John Dickson Carr Trio: The Three Coffins/The Crooked Hinge/The Case of the Constant Suicides by John Dickson Carr Has the adaptationIs abridged inInspiredNotable Lists
Professor Charles Grimaud was explaining to some friends the natural causes behind an ancient superstition about men leaving their coffins when a stranger entered and challenged Grimaud's skepticism. The stranger asserted that he had risen from his own coffin and that four walls meant nothing to him. He added, 'My brother can do more... he wants your life and will call on you!' The brother came during a snowstorm, walked through the locked front door, shot Grimaud and vanished. The tragedy brought Dr Gideon Fell into the bizarre mystery of a killer who left no footprints. 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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" "When the cry of 'This-sort-of-thing-wouldn't-happen!' goes up, when you complain about half-faced fiends and hooded phantoms and blond hypnotic sirens, you are merely saying, 'I don't like this sort of story.' That's fair enough. If you do not like it, you are howlingly right to say so. But when you twist this matter of taste into a rule for judging the merit or even the probability of the story, you are merely saying, 'This series of events couldn't happen, because I shouldn't enjoy it if it did.'"
As I was starting this book, I realized that I had read a few other Gideon Fell mysteries before and that Fell wasn't as much fun as Gervase Fen. In other words, I do not much like Carr's mysteries or perhaps just not his writing style.
However, this seemingly insoluble, improbable locked-room mystery in which the murderer didn't even leave footprints in the snow was extremely clever. I thought I had suspected everyone in turn but not once did I come close to the true culprit! Carr plays fair with the reader -- there are no hidden facts brought out only during the solution. In fact, he tells you in the first chapter the names of certain witnesses whose testimony can be relied on to be truthful and complete!! Yet despite this broad hint and Fell uttering cryptic clues periodically, I only deciphered one small aspect of the crime.
In addition, Gideon Fell did make me chuckle several times with his pronouncements, such as when he gives rules about what ghosts should be like in English fiction (they should be seen in old abbeys or cemeteries, not lemonade stands). I also liked his mention of several other mystery novels and authors who excelled at certain types of mysteries during his discourse mentioned above.
Overall, I would recommend this as an excellent example of a certain style of mystery (the locked room) which is no longer fashionable.
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