I’m partway through a series of posts where I categorize Carr’s books based on the reputation that I’ve found on line. You can read my previous posts on The Classics and Highly Recommended books.
For this post, I’ll be looking at “Recommended”. These books show up occasionally on Top 10 lists, but not nearly at the rate of my previous categories. Here they are, listed in order of reputation.
- The Reader Is Warned
- The Plague Court Murders
- Castle Skull
- The Arabian Nights Murder
- The Lost Gallows
- The Unicorn Murders
- The Peacock Feather Murders
- Poison in Jest
I’ve only read The Reader is Warned so far. The plot of a claimed telepath whose threats to kill by “teleforce” are followed by unexplainable deaths is appealing. Although I enjoyed the story thoroughly, I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the ranks of the books I’ve read from The Classics and Highly Recommended categories. Well, maybe on par with The Nine Wrong Answers. Although the premise was extremely intriguing, there is enough wiggle room in the circumstance to where Carr could have provided any range of solutions.
I’m curious to see how the rest of these fair. The plots of these stories sound very intriguing, and I’m expecting to spend the next few months covering this stack.
As with my other posts on Rating Carr, I’m curious on thoughts from the community. Are these the books positioned appropriately? Are there any obvious stories I’ve excluded?
4 thoughts on “Rating John Dickson Carr – Recommended”