The Lost Gallows

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; show more 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. show less

In general, I like the Bencolin series better than mot of Carr's work, but this is not my favorite Bencolin, perhaps in part because it is set in London rather than Paris, and perhaps also because there seems to be a racist attitude towards the unpleasant Egyptian character Nezam al Moulk (whose name seems to be borrowed from Nizam al Mulk, the great vizier of the Seljuks).

This one took me a while to get into, but it ended better and on a good twisty note.

THis is the second copy in my library; it was formerly in my parents' collection. See review of other copy.

Title page wanting.