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#710: “And what would you call the right surroundings for reading a ghost...
Two weeks ago I looked at the first four plays in this collection, so let’s get on the with final five. ‘Death Has Four Faces’ (1944) GORON:You cannot tell me he offered ten thousand francs to have a...
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#730: The Lost Gallows (1931) by John Dickson Carr
It’s rather a coup of scheduling that the British Library opted to reissue this November-set second case for Henri Bencolin in November 2020, because there’s something distinctly eerie the...
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 14: The Island of Coffins (2021) by John Dickson...
We’re all prone to speculate at times about how wonderful it would be to discover a previously-unpublished work by a beloved Golden Age author, and for today’s podcast episode Tony Medawar rejoins me...
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 16: Modern Writers in the Golden Age Tradition [w’...
Let’s get the new year off to a happy start by showing some appreciation for contemporary authors who make life difficult for themselves by upholding the traditions of Golden Age detective fiction in...
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#761: The Skeleton in the Clock (1948) by Carter Dickson
On the afternoon of November 4th 1927, Sir George Fleet stood unaccompanied on the flat roof of Fleet House and was, as several independent witnesses assert, pushed to his death by invisible hands....
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 19: Reissue! Repackage! Repackage! [w’ Various People]
On the back of the Reprint of the Year Award run by Kate at CrossExaminingCrime, I thought it might be interesting to see what those of us who submit titles for that undertaking would choose to bring...
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#782: Below Suspicion (1949) by John Dickson Carr
After a year — a year, people — of mind-numbing repetition and drudgery against a background of tragedy, Below Suspicion (1949), John Dickson Carr’s forty-sixth book in twenty years and the 18th to...
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#790: On the Morals of Golden Age Detective Fiction, via Crime and Detection...
That title is doing a lot of work, isn’t it? Fair warning: this goes on a bit. At the online Bodies from the Library conference last weekend, I gave a talk inspired in part by E.M. Wrong’s...
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 21: The Diversity of Approaches to Detective...
The detective fiction genre is built around the essential structure of a crime, an investigation of that crime, and the revelation of the guilty party who committed the crime, and good heavens didn’t...
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#800: The Plague Court Murders (1934) by John Dickson Carr [a.p.a. by Carter...
The Plague Court Murders (1934), the debut of John Dickson Carr’s sleuth Sir Henry ‘H.M.’ Merrivale and published under his Carter Dickson nom de plume, struck me when I first read it as among the ne...
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 22: On Making a Good First Impression [w’ Sergio @...
After the interruption to the schedule of two weeks ago, here’s another In GAD We Trust podcast — and given the topic of ‘Making a Good First Impression’ it’s only fitting to welcome returning guests...
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#811: Reflections on Detection – The Knox Decalogue 9: The Watson
The end of the Knox Decalogue is in sight! This week it’s Watsons, next week it’s Twins, and then — oh no! — there’s a final Tuesday in the month that I have to fill with something. A flashy dance...
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 26: The Maxims of Misdirection
I’m as surprised as you to see a new episode of my In GAD We Trust podcast, especially as I said on Thursday that there was unlikely to be one this weekend — well, okay, perhaps a I’m little less...
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#835: The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin...
It is perhaps unsurprising, given the impact of John Dickson Carr’s radio play ‘Cabin B-13’ (1945) from the series Suspense, that a series of mystery and suspense plays should take that title when...
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#838: The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin...
Another tranche of seeming impossibilities from John Dickson Carr’s radio series Cabin B-13, tales of murder and bafflement told by Dr. John Fabian, ship’s surgeon aboard the Maurevania. This week...
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In GAD We Trust – Episode 27: The Impossible Crime on Screen [w’ Nick Cardillo]
Does In GAD We Trust have a hype train? If so, stoke the conductor, point the rails, wake up the boiler, and do other train things, because episode 27 is here and Nick Cardillo wants to talk about the...
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#841: The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin...
Another six tales of intrigue from aboard cruise liner the Maurevania, with ship’s surgeon Dr. John Fabian keen to baffle and then elucidate us from his eponymous quarters. As these series have...
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In GAD We Trust – Bonus Episode! The Highs and Lows of Jonathan Creek [w’...
Last week, Nick Cardillo and I discussed the impossible crime on screen, at the end of which he casually asked about Jonathan Creek like I’d be able to condense my thoughts into a pithy bon mot and...
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#845: The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin...
The final six trips aboard the Maurevania during the Golden Age of radio, with Dr. John Fabian leading us through the apparently impossible. Whether by design — to add a little variety — or by...
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#847: “Vital and immediate. Vital and immediate.”–‘Secret Radio’ [rp] (1944)...
If you were fortunate enough to get one of the 150 hardcover editions of The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin B-13 (2020) by John Dickson Carr — and I was — you also...
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#870: The Eight of Swords (1934) by John Dickson Carr
The recent undoing of whatever logjam had prevented the reissuing of John Dickson Carr’s novels is a cause for much celebration among fans of classic detective fiction. It Walks by Night (1930),...
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#888: A Graveyard to Let (1949) by Carter Dickson
Sir Henry “H.M.” Merrivale, having travelled over to the United States aboard the Mauretania (I guess Maurevania was already taken) on his way to business in the nation’s capital, is summoned by...
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#895: “There are some jokes, young man, that are not permitted here.”– Speak...
The recently-published The Island of Coffins (2020) brought several of John Dickson Carr’s previously-unavailable radio plays to public attainability, and gave many of us the chance to appreciate the...
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#913: “You people have the most cheerful imaginations…”– It Walks by Night...
With the superb British Library Crime Classics range having recently published its one hundredth title, and with doubtless many more books still in its future, the time seems ripe to revisit one of...
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#919: “Tonight, in this house, is there going to be another killing?”– Bodies...
Another year, another collection of forgotten or unknown tales from the luminaries of detective fiction’s Golden Age brought to us by the tireless efforts of Tony Medawar. So how does Bodies from the...
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#930: Night at the Mocking Widow (1950) by Carter Dickson
I love a good village poison pen mystery but, as I’ve said before, they’re difficult to write because both the village and the mystery must convince and compel. Night at the Mocking Widow (1950), the...
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#952: Verdict of Twelve – All the Fun of the Fair in Crime on the Coast (1954)
Another collaborative effort in the style of Behind the Screen (1930) and The Scoop (1931), with six authors each taking up the challenge of continuing this story, published in instalments in the News...
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#996: The Nine Wrong Answers (1952) by John Dickson Carr
In order to read the full text of The Nine Wrong Answers (1952) by John Dickson Carr you must read the first edition hardcover, as all paperback printings having been reduced by what Carr’s biographer...
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#1000: A Locked Room Library – One Hundred Recommended Books
In the back of my mind when I started The Invisible Event was the idea that exactly half of what I’d post about would feature impossible crimes, locked room mysteries, and/or miracle problems — and...
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#1018: “If it’s a new wrinkle in the art of homicide, I want to know all...
It speaks volumes about the excitement that the work of John Dickson Carr provokes in me that, with still around 20 of his novels unread, I’m revisiting some favourite titles from his output. Of...
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#1044: To Foe of Theirs I’m Deadly Foe…– My Ten Favourite Literary Detectives
Perhaps April Fool’s Day isn’t the best scheduling of this post, but the recent experience of dragging my way through Helen Vardon’s Confession (1922) by R. Austin Freeman got me thinking about the...
View Article#1106: Captain Cut-Throat (1955) by John Dickson Carr
Just as you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, don’t judge Captain Cut-Throat (1955) — John Dickson Carr’s breathless tale of Napoleonic-era espionage and swagger — by its first chapter. The opening...
View Article#1130: The Red Widow Murders (1935) by John Dickson Carr [a.p.a. by Carter...
I’ve written previously about The Red Widow Murders (1935) — John Dickson Carr’s first take on the Room That Kills, originally published under his Carter Dickson nom de plume — but this American...
View Article#1135: “Don’t be so infernally bloodthirsty!”– Who Killed Father Christmas?...
Astoundingly, Who Killed Father Christmas? (2023) is the fifth collection of seasonal mysteries collated by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics range. And, with the BL kind enough to...
View Article#1161: “Who was murdered? When? How? Why?”– The Art of the Impossible, a.k.a....
In a bizarre turn of events, I have no memory of acquiring the much-sought-after anthology The Art of the Impossible, a.k.a. Murder Impossible (1990) edited by the legendary pairing of Jack Adrian and...
View Article#1162: “Front door locked on the inside, Johnny…”– The Art of the Impossible,...
Having previously looked at the first ten stories in this collection of impossible crime tales selected by Jack Adrian and Robert Adey, let’s crack on with the final eleven stories, shall we? I did not...
View Article#1168: Patrick Butler for the Defence (1956) by John Dickson Carr
It is perhaps fitting — though, I assure you, completely accidental — that a locked room murder in a novel by John Dickson Carr, doyen of the apparently undoable nevertheless rationally explained, is...
View Article#1199: “There was undoubtedly method in the old boy’s madness…”– The Punch...
I have in the past referred to The Punch and Judy Murders, a.k.a. The Magic Lantern Murders (1936) — the fifth book to feature Sir Henry ‘H.M.’ Merrivale under John Dickson Carr’s Carter Dickson nom de...
View Article#1209: For This New Value in the Soul – My Ten Favourite Orion Crime Masterworks
I’ve written before about the impact the long-defunct Orion Crime Masterworks series had on my discovery of classic-era crime and detective fiction, and a recent pruning of my shelves brought back to...
View Article#1220: “About ghosts in particular he was a blatant and contemptuous...
Let’s take a moment to reflect on what Tony Medawar has done in recent years for GAD fans, with Wicked Spirits (2024) being the eighth collection of lost, forgotten, and...
View Article#1243: The Judas Window, a.k.a. The Crossbow Murder (1938) by Carter Dickson
One of many classic detection titles I read before I started this blog, The Judas Window (1938) is arguably among the most popular books John Dickson Carr ever wrote, under his nom de plume Carter...
View Article#1244: To Take a Backward Look – My Ten Favourite Mysteries of the 1930s
I picked my ten favourite crime and detective novels published in the 1930s a little while ago for my online book club, but I only do a Ten Favourite… list every four months or so and thus am only just...
View Article#1282: I Knew So Perfect Yesterday – My Ten Favourite Mysteries of the 1940s
Last year my book club picked our favourite 1930s mysteries, and earlier this year we moved on a decade and each selected a top 10 for the 1940s. So, well, here’s mine. Again, the only restriction I...
View Article#1284: The Dead Man’s Knock (1958) by John Dickson Carr
As my grandfather used to say, “Good god, it’s tough being a John Dickson Carr fan — he wrote some of the genre’s best and most enduring masterpieces, and yet the decline in his later works like Behind...
View Article#1312: Curious Incidents in the Night-Time in The Mystery of the Invisible...
Mary Virginia Carey was not, it seems, scared of a little velitation in her stewardship of The Three Investigators. Having written arguably the strongest post-Robert Arthur title in The Mystery of the...
View Article#1397: The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941) by John Dickson Carr
A man sleeping alone in a bolted room, five storeys up in the tower attached to his grand old house, wakes in the night and hurls himself out of the window to his death. Refusing to believe in spooks,...
View Article#1398: “It’s goin’ to take a bit o’ thinkin’ out…”– As If by Magic: Locked...
A second anthology of impossible crimes from the British Library Crime Classics range, As If by Magic [ss] (2025) is another genre-spanning collection from editor and Detection Club President Martin...
View Article#1484: No Police Like Holmes – The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes [ss]...
Fourteen alternative takes on the Great Detective — editor Sebastian Wolfe is unable to distinguish “parodies, pastiches and burlesques” from each other — fill out The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes...
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