Customer Reviews

And So to Murder (Black Dagger Crime Series)

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John Dickson Carr (a.k.a. Carter Dickson) is perhaps my favorite author, and by far my favorite mystery writer, but this is one of his weaker efforts.

Although I greatly enjoyed the initial volatile banter and friction between the two main characters, who are obviously destined to fall desperately in love; and despite actually having laughed out loud while reading Carr's portrayal of the scandal that would lead to the heroine's gaining her independence; the relationship eventually became your run-of-the-mill, made-in-Hollywood romance, and the humor wasn't sustained throughout the majority of the story.

My biggest gripe, though, is that the solution to the mystery is wholly unbelievable and leaves far too much to chance. Any faithful reader of Carr knows that he is the master of the locked room mystery, describing impossible murders and other crimes, yet eventually revealing how easily it all was done and pointing out all the clues that were provided to the reader along the way. How many times have I read one of his books only to kick myself at the end for not having remembered such obvious details.

Here, there's none of that. First, despite the title, no one is murdered, which is not an absolute necessity, of course, but the murder attempts were not satisfactory reading. Too often I thought what a slipshod job the assassin was doing. I (and I suspect most mystery readers) prefer a clever murderer who makes very few mistakes and might just outwit his foes.

Second, instead of subtly steering the reader down the wrong path as is his general custom, here Carr tricks the reader in a way that left me feeling cheated when the solution was revealed.

What's more, in the majority of Carr's works, the reader comes to believe that the suspect is so-and-so, and Carr knows precisely what the reader is thinking, having guided him to just such a conclusion through subconscious machinations. He then mocks the reader by seamlessly fitting into the storyline some character's observation that so-and-so obviously cannot be suspected because of such-and-such which happened 30 pages prior. Reading this book, I suspected everyone and no one and for no reason in particular.

Finally, as previously stated, the solution was too iffy. The near murder at the end demanded too much planning, attention to detail and observation of human nature from such a clumsy would-be killer as ours. It is too hard to believe that he/she wouldn't have been caught long before by trippin over his/her own shoelaces.

For the end-all-be-all in murder mysteries, I highly recommend John Dickson Carr's "The Three Coffins" and "The Crooked Hinge," both of which are masterpieces of the genre and will have the reader banging his head when the solutions are revealed.