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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
amongst the best of a very dated literary genre...,
By lazza (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Three Coffins (Library Binding)
'Three Coffins' is certainly a class act. Complete with bizarre characters, a locked room murder, magic (!), and a sleuth who knowingly outwits everyone, this book is an over-the-top, hysterical example of detective stories (by the likes of Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Earl Stanley Gardner) adored by generations. It also has a delightfully dated 1930s London feel (think cardigans, fireplaces, smoking jackets, etc).So snuggle up on a winter's evening, place your brain in 'suspend disbelief' mode, and enjoy this very clever yet silly story by John Dickson Carr. If nothing else it will bring a smile to your face.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Greatest Detective Novel Ever Written,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Three Coffins (Library Binding)
In all my long experience of reading this genre (and encompassing the great names to the lesser-knowns such as Bell, Beeding, Bruce, the Coles, Gilbert, King, Masterman, McCabe, Rhode, etc.), I have never encountered so grand and so masterful a novel as this - a sheer joyful celebration of the detective novel, bearing within its hallowed pages the most famous digression upon the greatest pursuit known to literary characters: the Locked-Room Lecture. The plot is extravagant and improbable, aye, but the solution is sheer ingenuity, surpassing all other attempts at writing a detective novel. The characterisations are masterful, especially the powerful figure of Professor Charles Vernet Grimaud. The writing is excellent, and the book is, to quote the greatest detective of all time, a certain Dr. Gideon 'Gargantua' Fell: "Whang in the gold!"
4.0 out of 5 stars
I am not my brother's keeper,
By E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) I can just picture myself with his friends after a nice lunch in the pub, throwing myself about and moaning, "Not THAT lecture again. Let's get on with the plot." All I got out of the lecture were the many ways ice and frozen blood could be used to kill someone who is supposedly alone in a sealed room. Plus if you ask me, the murders in this book were cheats done with smoke (actually snow) and mirrors, and a clock that only the lumbering Dr. Fell had the brains to notice was incorrectly set. However, I don't read this author for his intricate murder set-ups. I read his books for their wonderfully ominous atmosphere. Here Carr does not disappoint. In "The Three Coffins," three brothers, jailed in Transylvania for bank robbery fake their deaths during an outbreak of the plague and are buried alive. The one with the shovel in his coffin digs his way to freedom, then leaves his brothers in their graves and runs off alone with the hidden bank loot. Let's just say that the two brothers who are left behind play important roles in the murder and counter-murder many years later in London. I don't want to give away the plot, gimmicky though it is. Read "The Three Coffins" for a few good shudders. Note: this mystery is also published under the alternate title, "The Hollow Man" (1935).
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