The Sleeping Sphinx – John Dickson Carr (1947)

“The sand, the lock, and the sleeping sphinx”

I went into The Sleeping Sphinx knowing very little.  It’s not a famous work within Carr’s library, but it’s positioned at an interesting spot in his timeline.  The previous two Dr Gideon Fell novels – Till Death Do Us Part (1944) and He Who Whispers (1946) – are considered by most Carr fans to be among the author’s best work.  The next entry in the series – Below Suspicion (1949) – is criminally under-rated in my opinion.  Given the strength of this run, I was curious to see what The Sleeping Sphinx would hold.

Don Holden returns from WWII under unusual circumstances.  Involved in espionage during and after the war, he was sent on an assassination mission in Italy and declared dead as part of his cover.  He returns to a home that thinks he ceased to exist.  The beginning of the story is fairly engrossing as we watch Holden reunite with his old life and attempt to rekindle a relationship put on pause for seven years by the war.

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The Punch and Judy Murders – John Dickson Carr (1936)

The Magic Lantern Murders

When I first started reading John Dickson Carr, I leaned heavily on the top tier titles.  Part of that was intentional – wanting to read the best while first exploring an author – and part of it was the dumb luck of stumbling on a few not-as-renowned titles simply because they were readily at hand.  The consequence though was that I burned through nearly all of the early Henry Merrivale books published prior to 1940.  As I would later come to realize, this run of Carr’s novels features his most over the top impossibilities.

Each of the early Merrivale titles (published under the pseudonym Carter Dickson) stands out for an outlandish puzzle.  A man stabbed to death in a locked hut surrounded by untouched mud (The Plague Court Murders); a woman found dead surrounded by untouched snow (The White Priory Murders); a room that kills anyone who spends the night inside (The Red Widow Murders); a man stabbed by an invisible force in plain view of multiple witnesses (The Unicorn Murders).  These are simply the first four plots in a nine book run.  Not only is Carr delivering some of his best impossibilities, but his books pack a brilliant pace and some of his best writing.

Papa La Bas – John Dickson Carr (1968)

Ever since I started reading John Dickson Carr, one thing was clear – Papa La Bas was a title to steer clear of.  Across a career of over 70 novels, it’s inevitable that a writer is going to have a few duds.  What’s amazing is that out of the 50-some Carr titles that I’ve read, I’d only say that two are flat out bad and a handful have problems.  Papa La Bas appeared to be a consensus bad one, although I’ve oddly never stumbled upon a full blown blog review.

As I’ve detailed a few times by now, I’ve grown leery of the bad reputation that some Carr books have.  The Problem of the Wire Cage is a near classic.  Below Suspicion is an under appreciated gem.  I wouldn’t phone home about Patrick Butler for the Defense, but it was a decent read.  Even Carr’s supposedly dreadful final novel, The Hungry Goblin, was merely a mediocre read.

Getting started with John Dickson Carr

Ok, so you saw something that got you interested in John Dickson Carr.  Perhaps he was repeatedly featured in a list of top impossible crime novels, or maybe you saw him labeled as the king of golden age detective fiction.  The later description would be more appropriate – despite his name being synonymous with the impossible crime genre, Carr wrote plenty of non-impossible mysteries and many of them were classics.  Regardless, the big question is – what books should you start with?

The easy answer would be The Hollow Man (also released as The Three Coffins).  This is without question Carr’s most popular book – the title that tends to be tightly associated with his name and even with the very genre of impossible crime fiction.  Certainly not a bad place to start – it would be akin to jumping into Agatha Christie via And Then There Were None or Murder on the Orient Express.  Although, if you’re a Christie fan, you might find yourself questioning whether those really are the launching points you’d recommend…

John Dickson Carr published about 70 novels over his career, at times cranking out four or five books a year.  While that may sound like an author churning out cheap copy as fast as he can, most fans would agree that his best work stems from those most prolific years.  Although the quality of his output did vary (and slipped in later years), I estimate that I’d enthusiastically recommend over a third of his books.  The rest are mostly fine reads that fall just under the threshold of recommendation.

The Eight of Swords – John Dickson Carr (1934)

The Eight of Swords is one of those John Dickson Carr titles that flies a bit below the radar.  When I was first researching Carr’s library, I got enough of an impression that readers generally had a negative view of the work that I listed it in my article on Commonly Criticized novels by the author.  Bear in mind, that list wasn’t based on myself having actually read any of the books, but rather what I had gleaned from forums and blogs I had tracked down.

I’ve noticed recently though that JJ at The Invisible Event has made repeated comments suggesting that this is an under appreciated gem.  And you know what?  It all makes sense.  The Eight of Swords was published in 1934, the same year that Carr gifted us with The Plague Court Murders and The White Priory Murders.  While neither are perfect books, they’re the first salvo in Carr’s jaw dropping run that lasted roughly until 1939.  All of the author’s work that I’ve read from this period has been impressive, and so it followed that The Eight of Swords would be right up my alley.

Death in Five Boxes – Carter Dickson (1938)

When I look back at my early days of reading John Dickson Carr’s work, it’s almost obscene.  Hit after hit after hit after hit.  This wasn’t exactly an accident – I had done my research on the author.  At the same time, I wasn’t exactly being greedy.  My goal was to mix up the consensus classics with some well regarded books that flew a bit below the radar.  It just so happened that a lot of those below the radar books are astoundingly good.

My early days were also constrained by the books that I owned at the time.  One particular bulk purchase that I made towards the beginning was a package of early Merrivale titles in 1960’s Berkley Medallion editions.  Not only did these prove to be solid selections, but they had some great cover art as well.

Scandal at High Chimneys – John Dickson Carr (1959)

Scandal at High Chimneys is one of the John Dickson Carr novels that has remained somewhat of an enigma to me.  Prior to reading it I had never seen a review on a spoiler free site, and thus lacked any real background for the story.  I knew that the novel fell into the first period of Carr historicals – the books published between 1950 (The Bride of Newgate) and 1964 (Most Secret) that take place in 1600-1800 era England (Captain Cut Throat being a exception in location, and The Witch of the Low Tide being an exception in period).  The works tend to be better regarded than the second period historicals, which take place in the US south (with the exception of The Hungry Goblin) and are considered to have come after Carr began his later-year decline.

With the first era historicals, you kind of know what to expect.  The plot will focus on the plight of someone wrongly accused of murder – either the male lead or his love interest.  The story will follow a race against time to clear the name of the falsely accused as the law forces of the time period close in.  While the core mystery may bear some passing resemblance to an impossible crime, there will never be Carr’s trademark strength of puzzle nor cleverness of solution.