Just because I describe this series of some of my earlier reviews as being "from the vault" doesn't mean the reviews have to be of very ancient books and stories. I'd like to think that at least a few of the mysteries I'd describe as "classic" are examples of modern authors writing in the style and with the traditions of classic mystery. To those who insist that nobody writes that way any more, I like to have a few examples that I think may make those disgruntled readers change their mind. Take the case of Paul Halter, a French author who began writing mysteries - most of them "impossible crime" stories - with The Fourth Door (La quatrième porte) in 1987 and continues to write new ones today. Here's my original podcast review of The Fourth Door, as usual with minor edits:
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What kind of a book does it take to make me happy?
How about a book with not one impossible murder…but two?
A book with spiritualists and séances?
A book where a medium can read a message written on a slip of paper sealed inside an envelope that is never out of sight of the witnesses?
A book in which a man is seen at exactly the same time in two separate locations, about 100 miles apart?
But a book which turns out to be fairly clued…if the reader can spot the clues?
Sound intriguing to you? As they used to say, you ain’t heard nothing yet. The book is written by a modern French author, Paul Halter. It is called – in English – The Fourth Door.
For our book this week, I’m turning to a relatively new book – only about 25 years old – by a prolific French author who is still turning out what I am told are first-rate books, many of them locked room mysteries.
Paul Halter has spoken lovingly of John Dickson Carr, that master of the locked-room mystery, and Halter’s books have often been compared with Carr’s. Now that some of Halter's books have finally been published in an English translation – thanks to the first-rate work of John Pugmire – I have the pleasure of recommending his first book, which goes by the English title, The Fourth Door.
Published originally in 1987, “The Fourth Door” is narrated (more or less) by a young man named James Stevens. James lives on the edge of a small – and unnamed – English village. (It’s worth noting that Halter’s books are set in England, even though they are written in French.) He has two good friends who will be central characters in the unfolding tragedy: Henry White, an athletic young man, and John Darnley. Darnley’s mother died some years before this story begins, an apparently gruesome suicide inside a locked room in the Darnley house. Ever since then, visitors to the house – prospective tenants – have complained about lights, footsteps and other noises apparently coming from the room where the woman died.
For some reason, this seems to discourage long-term tenants – until a couple decides to move into the mansion as tenants. Alice and Patrick Latimer are a bit unusual, in that Mrs. Latimer claims to have a medium’s spiritualistic skills. She is the one who – as I mentioned earlier – is able to read the message which has been sealed, unread, into an envelope which has been in sight of several people at all times.
And – as events seem to go from bad to worse in the haunting of that attic room – Patrick Latimer decides to spend the night inside the room where John’s mother had died. He is sealed into the room with a wax seal which has been imprinted by a rare coin – chosen moments before its use and never out of the possession of one reliable witness. But when the room is opened, Patrick has disappeared…and another unidentified man’s body is found, stabbed in the back, inside the sealed room.
Like it so far? It gets better. A second murder is committed…inside an otherwise empty house, surrounded by an unbroken layer of snow from a fresh snowfall.
And there are so many other details – that case of “co-location,” for instance, where a man is seen in two different places by two reliable witnesses – at exactly the same time. And how DID the medium manage to read that note sealed inside the envelope? And did I mention the connection to the great illusionist Harry Houdini – or at least to his spirit?
Is it spiritualism? Magic? Well…you’ll have to read The Fourth Door to find out. I will say only that you are presented with all the clues…but you may find them obscured in a carefully-created and maintained atmosphere of evil and madness.
There’s more going on here. Near the end of the book, after the second murder has happened, our narrator, James Stevens, reveals himself to be a mystery author – named John Carter, by the way, which is undoubtedly a reminder of Halter’s homage to John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson. And the narrator turns his seemingly insoluble mystery over to Dr. Alan Twist, the central character, Dr. Fell-like, in many of Halter’s mysteries. Dr. Twist comes up with a breathtaking solution – or, perhaps more accurately, a series of breathtaking solutions which will not be fully resolved until quite literally the last words in the book.
In an article about Halter, his translator, John Pugmire, writes:
It is no mean feat to create thirty or more puzzles worthy of Carr that the maestro himself never imagined. Furthermore, Halter, while every bit Carr’s rival in the creation of eerie atmosphere, is closer to today’s writers in his willingness to incorporate gore and horror more explicitly in his stories.
I’ll admit it. I am hooked. Translator John Pugmire has done English versions of a couple more of Halter’s books, and I am looking forward to reading them. They are available in both paperback and – far less expensively – as Amazon Kindle editions. Certainly The Fourth Door manages to create an atmosphere of horror and mystery which does really remind the reader of John Dickson Carr at his best. Paul Halter continues to write his books – and I hope they will find new audiences in their English language versions.
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You can listen to the original podcast review on Classic Mysteries by clicking here.
Next: Plot it Yourself, by Rex Stout.
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