Plague Court is old and crumbling, long neglected after its lord,
hangman's assistant Louis Playge, fell victim to the black death
hundreds of years before. Famously haunted by Playge's ghost, the
property finally has a new owner and banishing the spirit is the first
order of business. And when the medium employed with this task is found
stabbed to death in a locked stone hut on the grounds, surrounded by an
untouched circle of mud, the other guests at Plague Court have every
reason to fear an act of supernatural violence--for who among them would
be diabolical and calculating enough to orchestrate such an impossible
execution?
Enter Sir Henry Merrivale, an amateur sleuth of many talents with
deductive powers strong enough to unspool even the most baffling crimes.
But in the creepy, atmospheric setting of Plague Court, where every
indication suggests intervention from the afterlife, he encounters a
seemingly-illogical murder scene unlike anything he's ever encountered
before...
Reissued for the first time in thirty years, The Plague Court Murders is
the first novel in the Sir Henry Merrivale series. Originally published
under the name Carter Dickson, it is a masterful example of the
"impossible crime" novel for which John Dickson Carr is known.