Carr, John Dickson - Below Suspicion (1949)

Review by Nick Fuller

2/5

Following two excellent Dr. Fell cases, this tale of witchcraft covens and poisoning falls rather flat. The two murders of respectable people high up in the coven are by antimony; the companion-secretary is believed guilty of the first crime but acquitted, while the innocent wife, the only person who could have poisoned the water-bottle, is suspected of the second. Although Dr. Fell is present, he does very little; the hero of the mystery (as opposed to a detective-story) is the intolerable Patrick Butler, arrogant and colossally stupid, who, after functioning tolerably well in court, calls the judge an “old swine” and engages in bouts of fisticuffs in a burning Satanist chapel with a common or garden thug he believes to be “a real sportsman…the finest breed in the world”. (Understandably, the heroine has either divorced him or committed suicide by the time of Patrick Butler for the Defence.) Although Carr has obviously been researching witchcraft, his handling of it leaves a lot to be desired: with the thriller sequences, gangsters and marijuana, it becomes sensation rather than detection: the A.E.W. Mason flaw. This problem is apparent in the solution: although there is some ingenuity, the murderess (whose identity is obvious from page 4) is quite clearly barmy and hence unconvincing.