Clyde Clason's The Whispering Ear (1938)

John Launay is about to get a 50K cheque from Hollywood for the film rights of
his debut novel. His twin brother Gregory comes back from oblivion, kidnaps John
and leaves him captive in a cottage with his clothes stripped off so to delay
his escape once the drug effect wears off. Gregory collects the cheque on his
brother's behalf and encashes it immediately. When John returns back to his
house, he finds his brother dead (due to Taxin poisoning) with the cash missing.
Finding himself in this precarious position where he will obviously be suspected
of his brother's murder, our hero & Westborough (who is staying in the same
complex) decide to take the investigation into their own hands and let the world
continue to believe that it was indeed John who was killed. Before he goes into
hiding, he gets a call from Thalia asking John (and not Gregory) to meet her.
Thalia is one of the 13 Angels put in place to look after the proceedings of
Temple of the Whispering Ear, an influential organization set up to impart
wisdom and service to troubled souls. More importantly, she turns out to be
John's ex-wife who would have left him to run away with Gregory! When the two
investigators confront her, she is killed mysteriously from a gunshot in the
bathroom with no visible murder weapon or any person who could have used it in
the vicinity. It is explained off immediately as a mechanical contraption set by
the murderer, thereby lessening the effect of an impossible crime scenario.

This book looks like an experiment on Clason's part with the story being told
from the young novelist's point of view with Westborough playing a very minor
role. This means that there are no unnecessary ramblings or lengthy pedagogic
lectures from the historian and the story is complete in 260 pages as against
the customary 300+. But for me, it felt like a big void. The saving grace of the
book is the solution where Westborough unmasks a well concealed murderer - well
concealed only if you haven't read the synopsis at the front of the book. The
last 2 lines of the synopsis clearly points where the reader should look for the
murderer and having read this in the beginning, it turned out to be a pretty
ordinary read for me. Hope the others have better luck with it.

- Arun Pkumar (a.k.a. Poirot13)