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The White Priory Murders

Page history last edited by PBworks 18 years, 2 months ago

Carr, John Dickson - The White Priory Murders (1934)

 

 

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

"This business is black enough, and tangled enough, as it is."

 

Near classic Carr, but not a smash-finish. Until the identity of the murderer is disclosed, this has all the hallmarks of Carr's masterpieces: a memorable setting (snow-bound country house), a memorable and seemingly insoluble impossible crime (Carr's first "no footprints"), interesting grotesques (Maurice Bohun in particular), convincing Christianna Brandish multiple solutions drawn up against the suspects by the suspects (note Carr's knack for making the reader think what he wants them to think — until his complicity in a minor mystery was revealed, I suspected one character, promptly eliminated him as a suspect, and then discovered that he was the murderer!), a strong (NOT a "ginch") leading lady (who promptly became one of my main suspects), and first-class atmosphere. The solution, however, is not the utter surprise that Carr's masterpieces (e.g., The Corpse in the Waxworks, The Plague Court Murders, The Three Coffins, The Unicorn Murders) are. It is an 'Oh! So ... did it', and, while not as bad as And So to Murder, still has that quality of lost ingenuity, of needless vulgarity. In short, the murderer's identity lacks inevitability. Furthermore, there are too many pseudo-villains and attacks not connected with the principal crimes. However, it is refreshing to see the character Carr originally envisaged for 'H.M.' — eccentric, yes, but still serious and intelligent, not the egregious clown he became after 1939.

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