"[John Dickson Carr] is the supreme conjuror; the king of the art of
misdirection...once you begin a book of his, you simply cannot put it
down."--Agatha Christie
First published in 1942, this reissue is one of Carr's most tense and
enjoyable game of cat and mouse pitting detective Gideon Fell against
the "chief" suspect.
When police arrive at Justice Ireton's holiday bungalow to find a man
killed by gunshot and the high court justice brandishing a pistol, the
case seems as straightforward as it is scandalous. But, with physical
evidence that doesn't add up, the justice's vehement denial of wrong
doing, and recent events in his daughter's love life turns the
deceptively simple case on its head.
Stumped, the local force calls in the larger-than-life sleuth Dr. Gideon
Fell, who just yesterday contended with Ireton over a brutally
challenging game of chess. With Fell and the judge now facing off as
detective and suspect, a new battle of wits begins in this fiendishly
plotted masterclass of the mystery genre.