You would think, with all the attention now being paid to classic-but-forgotten mystery writers from the Golden Age in both the U.K. and U.S., that some enterprising publisher would by now have acquired the rights to re-publish all or at least most of the works of John Dickson Carr (who also wrote as "Carter Dickson"). Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet, at least not that I can tell. If Carr's name is new to you, he was - and remains, I think - the ultimate master of the locked room/"impossible" crime mystery. For that reason, I thought it might be a good time to raid the vault for the text of my audio review of Carr's brilliant The Case of the Constant Suicides, which ran on the Classic Mysteries podcast about eight years ago. The book is out of print (again), but there do seem to be a few dozen copies out there in the wild, in case you'd like to see why I make such a fuss over Carr's books. As always, there has been some editing, mostly to update information about the book's availability:
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When Angus Campbell fell to his death from his room at the top of a high tower, he left several unanswered questions behind. First among them, certainly, was the question of whether Angus had committed suicide – or had been murdered. If suicide, why would he kill himself and so invalidate his fairly new life insurance policies, thus leaving his family as paupers? But if it was murder, how could it have been committed inside a locked and bolted room? Fortunately for the Campbells, Dr. Gideon Fell, that master at solving impossible crimes, was on hand – and he found himself confronted with more than one impossibility in The Case of the Constant Suicides.
John Dickson Carr was the acknowledged master of the locked room or impossible crime story. Almost all of his books feature crimes – usually murder – that apparently never could have happened – but somehow did. And Carr was scrupulously fair with his readers, giving them every clue they needed to solve his impossible crimes before his detective – if the readers were clever enough to pick up those clues and follow them. It was a game to both Carr and to his readers – the grandest game, he often called it, and it is one of the reasons why he remains one of my favorite authors.
Carr has been out of print for far too long, and I am delighted that the Rue Morgue Press has been reissuing some of his best books. [Note that the RMP is no longer in business, so the books are, once again, out of print. -Ed.] The newest addition to their list is The Case of the Constant Suicides, which has to be one of Carr’s finest books. It was first published in 1941, and it is set in a Britain which has begun blacking its lights out at night, in preparation for what would become the devastating Nazi blitz.
The Case of the Constant Suicides revolves around two young people – rival history professors, in fact – somewhat distant relatives and members of the Campbell family, who are summoned to the family’s castle in the Scottish highlands. The family’s patriarch, old Angus Campbell, has died in a fall from his locked bedroom, located in a virtually inaccessible high tower attached to the castle. If he was murdered, or if it was an accident (which seems highly unlikely), then his heirs will receive the payouts on some insurance policies which he took out shortly before his death.
But if it was murder – as the family believes, for suicide would be most unlike Angus, particularly as he would have known that suicide would mean no money for his heirs – if it was murder, how was it done? Angus was sleeping in his bedroom, which was locked and bolted, at the top of the tower, accessible only by an inner stairway – there was no other way to reach the room. But what happened to Angus’s diary, which disappeared from the bedroom after his death? And what of the empty animal carrier, found latched under his bed, empty? Did it contain some nightmarish creature that killed him by forcing him to leap out of that tower window? What of the later appearance of an apparent ghost in the tower – or another person’s fall from the tower room, under the same circumstances?
And just when we think we may know the answer to that question, there is another death – another man, found hanging inside a locked and bolted cottage.
The man who makes sense out of all these peculiar happenings is Carr’s wonderful character, Dr. Gideon Fell. Physically and mentally, Fell is based on the author G. K. Chesterton, the creator of Father Brown. Dr. Fell is an expert at solving impossible crimes, and he finds himself challenged by the events in this book – although he will eventually reach a solution and even bring about what he will consider a fair and just end to a difficult case.
What all this fails to tell you is that The Case of the Constant Suicides is also a wonderfully, laugh-out-loud funny book. Set in Scotland, the characters find themselves drinking a family whiskey known as the Doom of the Campbells – called that for excellent reason. There are drinking scenes perhaps best described as heroic. Here’s young Alan Campbell – one of our history professors – taking his first taste of the whiskey:
He lifted the glass, drained it, and almost literally reeled.
It did not take the top of his head off, but for a second he thought it was going to. The stuff was strong enough to make a battleship alter its course. The veins of his temples felt bursting; his eyesight dimmed; and he decided that he must be strangling to death.
The description goes on at some length. Be forewarned that, just as the drink itself was amazingly powerful, so too will be the hangover when Alan wakes up the next morning.
There are other brilliantly funny passages – particularly the rivalry and eventual romance between Alan and his second cousin twice removed, the other history professor, Kathryn Campbell. But there is also a marvelously frightening atmospheric quality to the nightmarish events in the book. Carr was always masterful at suggesting unseen and supernatural terrors – that would all, of course, be quite rationally explained at the end of the book.
Enough. It is funny. It is mysterious. It is fair to the reader. It is a delight. The Case of the Constant Suicides is one of John Dickson Carr’s best. It should not be missed.
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To hear the complete recording of the original review, click here.
Next: Death in the Stocks, by Georgette Heyer.
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