Carr, John Dickson - The Four False Weapons (1937)

Review by Nick Fuller

A good solid mystifying problem. Henri Bencolin, mellowed since his retirement and hence more believable than the tiresomely theatrical puppet of earlier books, does a good logical job of clearing the play-boy from suspicion of having murdered his poule-de-luxe (murdered, it later transpires, in a particularly ingenious way). The book's theme is the triumph of common sense over science: none of the physical clues (sleeping pills, fingerprints, an electric clock, champagne, and the four false weapons themselves) are to be trusted, and the ingenious theories of Auguste Dupin, criminologist of L'Intelligence, which rely heavily upon physical clues, are invariably wrong. Ironically, the book is in the tradition of R. Austin Freeman, who wrote several scientific satires (e.g. The Red Thumb Mark). The book's principal flaw is its over-reliance on "the innate perverseness of all human events"; and, although the solution is logical and impeccably fair, the murderer's character and relationship with his victim are not sufficiently built up to make the motive convincing.