The Bowstring Murders - Carr Dickson (John Dickson Carr)

I've had my copy of The Bowstring Murders (1933) for decades. Why have I never read it until a few days ago? Well, for one thing it's a treasure. I own the hardcover first edition with the silly attempt at creating a new pseudonym for John Dickson Carr. Instead of "Christopher Street", the name Carr wanted as his pseudonym, an executive at William Morrow slapped the utterly giveaway name of "Carr Dickson" on the book. Copies of the original hardcover with this pseudonym are extremely hard to find these days. It's the only book with that dumb pen name.

Maybe Carr's angry reaction to that decision of which he was not notified as Douglas Greene records in The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) was the reason that this book is also the only one with John Gaunt, a detective consultant to Scotland Yard who shuns modern scientific advances. I was sorting through a box of vintage paperbacks and I found another copy of The Bowstring Murders, this one a 1970s era reprint from Belmont Books. I figured: Well, no time like the present. So I dashed off my long overdue read of this early John Dickson Carr book in a couple of days last week.  Interestingly, it seems more of a retread of both Carr's own books as well as the work of some of his influences.

The story takes place in a familiar Carr setting: the Gothic castle known as Bowstring, home of Henry Steyne, AKA Lord Rayle. Bowstring comes complete with a moat and a man made waterfall on the vast estate that feeds the water in the moat and keeps it flowing to avoid the stench and health hazards of stagnant water.  The reader is constantly reminded of the presence of the waterfall and its never-ending roar which prevents many of the characters from hearing certain crucial sounds related to the several murders that take place. Also notable is that the story takes place over only three days.

UK 1st edition. Used Carter Dickson as author.
Body is illustrated as face up unlike in the book.

Lord Rayle is an eccentric medievalist who prefers living in the past and lecturing anyone who will indulge him on his vast collection of medieval weaponry and suits of armor. The night before he is killed a pair of gauntlets go missing. Then Lord Rayle decides to nail shut a door hidden behind a tapestry in the armor room that leads to a secret alcove. It's almost a case of shutting barn door after the horse has fled.  Later, we learn that passageway was used a trysting spot for his daughter Patricia. She would use that hidden area to meet a handsome guest, Larry Kestevan, for midnight snogging sessions. As she is thwarted from meeting her lover Patricia eventually discovers her father's body, practically tripping over it in the candlelit armor room. Her father was apparently strangled by a bowstring and his body is crumpled in a strange position face down on the floor of the armor room.

Gaunt is called in to help Inspector Tape. Prior to the arrival of Gaunt the book is fairly colorless with lots of chit chat from Francis Steyne, son to Lord Rayle, and what amounts to a lot of malarkey about the collection of armor. For me, Gaunt was the only really interesting person in the entire cast.  Another in a long line of omniscient detectives with antisocial tendencies, a high opinion of himself, and critical opinions of everyone else, he's also a rampant alcoholic. Carr tries to hint at a tragedy in his past as a reason for his heavy drinking. (He caused the death of one of his partners, I think. I forgot to note it exactly.) Eventually he lost his job with the police due to his drinking, but still manages to be called in regularly to help with unusual crimes. And so we find him at Bowstring trying to make sense of not only the strangling death of Lord Rayle but also the strangling of the maid Doris, who claimed to have seen a suit of armor standing in a stairway a few nights prior to both violent murders. About midway through the book another character is killed. But this person is shot to death which immediately dismisses the idea of anything supernatural related to a ghostly figure in armor.

1973 Belmont paperback
This time the body is face down (sort of), but
his arms are wrong! They should be underneath.
And the clothes are all wrong, too.

The most impressive feature is not the bizarre murder method of strangling by gauntlets (already used by Carolyn Wells in 1931's Horror House) or the impossible circumstances surrounding the brutal murders. Instead what stands out as more ingenious is how Carr manages to take all the minute details -- details most readers will dismiss as ornament and filler -- and apply them to the overarching plot. Offhand comments and one particular insult, for example, all serve to support Gaunt's solution. All details reveal the strange weak character flaw of the murderer, a person with a lack of imagination whose lies are obvious. At least to Gaunt.

Lying and the art of lying seem to be central to the book.  Gaunt has a mini lecture on the dubious science behind the lie detector machine, a fairly new invention and used regularly in police investigations since the mid 1920s. He describes in detail the lack of understanding of psychology of liars' behavior and how that will almost certainly backfire the moment a lie detector machine is introduced.  He believes that the machine's recording of the body's reactions (pulse, heart rate and respiratory signals) are not the telltale signs of lying. In fact, the liar he believes will immediately be put on guard and the usual giveaway of a liar -- elaborate storytelling -- will be substituted for short colorless answers lacking in the details that will always reveal a liar.

Due to a rather small set of suspects the ultimate reveal of the killer is no real gasp-inducing surprise. It's clear that of the small pool of suspects -- Francis, Patricia, Larry, the footman Saunders, and Bruce Massey, Lord Rayle's secretary and financial advisor -- it can only be one of three people. Greene mentions in The Men Who Explained Miracles that the solution seems to very similar to another book Carr wrote prior to 1933 which featured Henri Bencolin.  He says that it may be one of Carr's many cases of self-plagiarism in his early career. Carr was known to recycle ideas form short stories and put them into his novels. This happened several times in the stories that appear in Department of Queer Complaints, for example. Ultimately, it was fun to see just how Gaunt caught the killer who he says acted mostly on impulse even though his crimes had been well thought out in advance. In one way this novel is more satisfying as a howdunit and whydunit than it is the old-fashioned whodunit.

It's Her Own Funeral - Carol Carnac

THE STORY:  Anne Tempest is recuperating from a broken leg. Her primary caretaker and niece, Isobelle Verringer, decides she has  had enough of her aunt and the gloomy house. She summons two young cousins to come live with their great aunt, to take over as caretakers of both the bedridden woman and the grounds so Isobelle can finally leave.  The cousins -- brother and sister Roland and Jane -- move in and make substantial improvements to the antiquated home. The major renovation project is getting a gas cylinder operated stove to replace the immense, impractical and ancient range in the kitchen. Within weeks there is a horrible gas leak and the Palings, husband and wife servants working for Aunt Anne, succumb to gas inhalation and pass out in the kitchen. Jane rescues both servants then rushes upstairs to Aunt Anne whose bedroom is directly above the kitchen. The rafters have cracks in the ceiling and anyone can see through those cracks into Aunt Anne's bedroom floor. Jane fears the gas made its way into the bedroom and rushes upstairs. But she is too late. Her great aunt is dead and has been for hours, her body rigid and a disconcerting smile on her face.

THE CHARACTERS: It's Her Own Funeral (1952) is a claustrophobic story confined to a small cast of only five major characters along with policeman Julian Rivers who shows up to investigate the suspicious gas leak. The ruinous Tempest estate is a character unto itself. It consists of the old main house, filled with empty rooms and decrepit furnishings dating back centuries, and a cottage which was the home of the Palings. They've been displaced by Isobelle so that Roland and Jane can move in and make their home there. The Palings are ordered to move into the main house where they can be closer to Anne. Maggie Paling and her husband do not leave too willingly as they love the cottage, but eventually relent and give up their treasured cozy home for the young people.

The book is as much a murder mystery as it is a study of differing generations. Aunt Anne representing the eldest generation clinging to a past, honoring the antiquity of the only home she's known since her childhood.  Isobelle, one generation removed from Anne Tempest, is the haughty indifferent and impatient agent of a generation so desirous of moving forward with little room in her heart (what little heart she has) for a past best forgotten and buried. She cannot abide Dene Manor with its dust filled rooms, museum like atmosphere filled with useless relics and dour faced portraits of her ancestors hanging on the dingy walls. In fact she outright states she loathes the place on every occasion she can. Of course Jane and Roland, the youngest members of the cast, are the symbols of a bright and carefree future.

Roland is a would-be poet who looks forward to steeping himself in his family's rich past. Snuggled in the coziness of the warm and inviting cottage he plans to draw on that past to inspire him. Before Great-Aunt Anne dies she remarks that Roland is a remarkable dopplegänger for her brother, Roland's namesake and the black sheep of the Tempest family. The long dead and elder Roland, grandfather of Jane and her brother, had fallen in love with a servant and was disowned by his father. Roland the younger shares with his grandfather the Tempest temper; both Rolands have an angry violent streak. Inspector Rivers learns that Roland displayed that anger when the intrusive Guy Deraine, another cousin in the Tempest dynasty, barged into the cottage uninvited to lecture Jane on her "thievery." Guy suspects that the siblings took not only furniture from the main house but valuable objects and he wants them returned.  Roland interrupted the argument and ended it by punching Guy in the nose.  rivers suspects that Roland' temper may be a sign of a murderous streak.  Could the brother and sister be truly guilty of stealing from their aunt and killed her to get their hands on everything they wanted?

Complications arise with the introduction of two neighboring families who are tenant farmers on the Tempest estate. Of these two families the most intriguing of them are the Boltons and their strange daughter Kathie. Kathie is described by nearly everyone -- especially disdainful Isobelle -- as a deviant or a half-wit. She behaves oddly, chants in a sing-song manner, is often found hiding in bushes and shrubbery spying on the members of the Tempest household.  Rumor has it she also enters the Tempest kitchen uninvited regularly helping herself to food she may find on the table. Maggie Paling insists that Kathie has never set foot in the kitchen. And so Rivers tests the rumor with a fascinating experiment and learns that Kathie is easily tempted with treats.  In fact, it's quite possible that the girl entered the kitchen without anyone knowing. Was she responsible for monkeying with the gas taps? And did she cause the accidental death of Anne Tempest and the gas poisoning of the servants?

There is more to Kathie than any reader may suspect. She becomes instrumental in the story and her mother, a drunken woman of mercurial disposition with an ethnic background as a "gypsy", is the most surprising character of the entire novel. Mrs. Bolton has an adversarial relationship with nearly everyone due to her "gypsy" nature. She thinks very little of Mrs. Paling, and Rivers soon learns the feeling is mutual. But the relationship between Kathie and her mother and the somewhat startling secret that Mrs. Bolton keeps from everyone except the penetrating interrogation of Julian Rivers adds quite an unexpected twist to the already very convoluted and twisty plot.

INNOVATIONS:  Witchcraft comes up frequently throughout the story.  Mrs. Bolton is a gypsy with strange powers. Many people Rivers interviews mention the day Kathie wandered into the woods and "came back changed."  This coupled with the heavy Gothic descriptions of Dene Manor add a level of superstition and "the unknown" to a novel already teeming with unease and creepiness. Additionally, Rivers finds witnesses who talk of Anne Tempest as a witch for she eschewed modern medicine and concocted her own remedies using herbs from her rich and varied garden.

A subplot is introduced ever so subtly when Guy Deraine pursues his suspicions of Jane and Roland as stealing "valuables" from the main house. When Rivers questions Guy about what exactly the valuables consist of the man cannot name anything specific. He has only feelings and instinct that the brother and sister came to Dene Manor with ulterior motives. But Rivers sees the odd relationship between Isobelle and Guy (she openly insults Guy and belittles his accusations of the young people as petty thieves) as an artifice covering up something far more sinister. Anyone familiar with detective novel conventions would immediately suspect haughty Isobelle of ulterior motives herself. Her personality is so cultivated in its contempt for everyone and everything it can't possibly be genuine. Carnac handles the subtleties of this subplot and strews about a plethora of red herrings with mastery.  I was sure that Isobelle was a villain of some sort, but was ultimately surprised when Rivers exposes a truly devious clash of wills between several unsuspected villains that had been cleverly embedded throughout the entire book.

QUOTES:   Those who worked with Rivers at Scotland Yard knew how deceptive were his sleepy glance and his amiable if sometimes flippant manner. Rivers had not only an observant and retentive mind, he had a lively imagination, and a very small item of evidence sometimes set his imagination working, so that he saw the relevance of a fact which, however small, seemed anomalous.

"Nonsense is mischievous sometimes," said Rivers, "especially if people let themselves get frightened by it."

An Isobelle rant:  "If I have to put up with much more melodrama, I shall be a mental case Have you got enough imagination to realise what it's like for a civilized being in this charnel house? It's as if death were gibbering at you round every corner. Look at it!"

He thought hard as he strode along, and it occurred to him that his progress through the mist was very akin to his detection in this case.  In front of him was still the impenetrable mist of uncertainty. On either side were indications of progress--small facts which could be likened to the frosty verges which his torch illuminated. And how easy it would be to fall into the ditch or to take a side turning in detection, Rivers was only too well aware. [...] the ditch ready to fall into--the bottomless ditch which awaits every detective whose awareness fails to interpret the facts which edge his path.

EASY TO FIND?  Remarkably this Carol Carnac mystery was reprinted in a variety of formats apart from the original UK and US hardcover editions, some of which are out there for sale but of course are also the most expensive options. In the UK and Canada It's Her Own Funeral was reprinted by Collins in a paperback edition under their "White Circle Crime Club" imprint.  I found two of those offered for sale online. In the US the novel was reprinted as part of the ubiquitous Detective Book Club in a 3-for-1 omnibus. There are a handful of those DBC editions out there waiting for purchase.  These are always the cheapest options and you get two other books: Dead Man's Plan by Mignon G. Eberhart and Death Begs the Question by Lois Eby & John C. Fleming.

Oh, one more thing (as Lt. Columbo liked to say)... You can buy my copy  Sorry…it sold in only three days. Happy hunting for another copy.

Exit Screaming - Christopher Hale

THE STORY:  It's 3:00 AM in Avondale, Michigan and Jill Trent has been awakened by a bloodcurdling scream followed by the sound of four gun shots. Against her better judgment she goes outside to investigate and meets up with her neighbors Gene Ramsay and Mr & Mrs Truax.  They find blood on the cement terrace of the home belonging to Mrs. Warner.  But there is no sign of any person anywhere near these bloodstains.  Two more pools of blood are found near a barn.  And inside a feed barrel covered with glass bottles they find the body of Mrs. Warner.  Soon Sheriff Perry Simmons, ill equipped to handle a murder investigation and too busy with some cattle thieves, is forced to call in help from the Michigan State Police. Lt. Bill French shows up in his Rolls Royce coupe dressed in smartly tailored clothes and gets to serious work very quickly. Before the killer is revealed there will be an attack on a dog, an escaped cottonmouth snake, a missing chauffeur, numerous rifles as possible murder weapons, several phony identities and two more murders.

THE CHARACTERS: The action of Exit Screaming (1942) is mostly confined to Avondale, a small town mixing wealthy Michiganders with cattle farmers and country folk. The primary characters consist of:

Jill Trent - our intrepid heroine with a violent secret in her past. She seems like she might have tiptoed out of a Mignon Eberhart "woman in peril" mystery novel because she is always at the mercy of insane dangers. She survives several shooting attempts and the attack from the escaped venomous snake mentioned above. Though she may have a bandaged head wound for most of the book she proves to be not only intrepid but pretty damn smart unlike the often foolhardy heroines found in neo-HIBK novels.

Gene Ramsay - the requisite dark and handsome man with a mysterious past. No one really knows what he is doing in the cottage on the grounds of Mrs. Warner's estate. Rumor has it he's writing a book. Others claim he is a doctor who gave up his profession. But Gene isn't revealing what he does for a living or what he's settled in Avondale. He does have a rifle that matches the caliber of the bullets found in Mrs. Warner's body and that makes him Suspect # 1 in the eyes of Sheriff Simmons. Jill wavers in and out of suspecting him. Gene proves to be her savior on more than one occasion. Can he possible have murdered his landlady? And if so, why?

Randolph & Ivabell Truax - Mrs. Truax is more of a bogey character as far as I'm concerned and appears in only two scenes. Let's just skip over her. It's Mr. Truax who is of interest. A lawyer, another rifle owner and innately suspicious of Mrs. Warner, her mother Mrs. Lynch and the shifty chauffeur he seems to know too much about medicine to be a real professional driver.  Lt. French thinks Mr. Truax has too much of a lawyer's mind, but spurred by TRuax's seemingly outrageous ideas begins to dig into Mrs. Warner's past and uncovers some intriguing details. Notably that her mother died more than 30 years ago. Then who is the elderly woman living in the house?  Mrs. Warner claimed that Mrs. Lynch was her mother.  And what happened to Mrs. Lynch? No one can be found inside the Warner house since the night of the gun shots, the scream and Mrs. Warner's murder.

Minnie MacDuff - What would one of these mystery novels be without the garrulous, foolish town gossip. Minnie fills this role extremely well. A dress designer and seamstress by profession she makes it a habit of visiting her customers in their homes for frequent dress fittings and alterations. A convenience for her customers but also an opportunity for Minnie to pick up free lunches and snacks at tea time while dishing the dirt about everyone in Avondale and the surrounding area.  Her thirst for info on everyone makes her a target...or is that just a clever ploy?  I was sure she was involved in something. Hale paints Minnie as such a scatterbrain I was convinced this was a cover for a shrewd and devious women with revenge in her blood.

Mark Macduff - Minnie's invalid brother who is also a ham radio enthusiast constantly broadcasting from his bedroom. Minnie is overprotective of her brother. Anyone who reads mystery novels ought to be immediately suspicious of an invalid.  When Gene and Jill find mud-stained shoes in Mark's closet and burrs on his trousers it seems to indicate that Mark is shamming his inability to walk.

There are also a variety of dimwitted gossipy servants who supply Hale with an unfortunate opportunity to make fun of "stupid farm girls" but also an intriguing way to reveal the small-minded prejudices of privileged wealthy "upper class" types who make up the majority of the characters. I felt sorry for the Lamb women, Jennie and her niece Alma, the butt of insults and jokes, but who also are rather observant and catch things that their snobby employers dismiss as irrelevant.

ATMOSPHERE: Hale does a good job of setting a scene of a sinister countryside in the town of Avondale.  Though the residents think of it as quiet farm country where the wealthy can escape their past and start life anew, from the very first page violence intrudes and never leaves. Mrs. Warner turns out to have alternate life and identity and her chauffeur, as suspected by Mr Truax, turns out not to be a chauffeur at all.  The story is replete with violent attacks. Rifle shots going off constantly. Jill and Gene are shot at many times , windows are shattered on an almost nightly basis, and even a birdhouse becomes a symbol for criminal activity.  For a book set in the WW2 era this story resonates with our 21st century world of constant gunfire and random acts of violence. 

QUOTES:  Hale has a wry sense of humor and often she can dish out some acerbic wit. Here's a single sentence summing up the bigoted, not too smart, deputy who helps Sheriff Simmons: 

Verne Hoskins' well-weathered face looked as if he had been expecting the worst for years and hadn't been disappointed.

When French accuses Gene Ramsay of not being trustworthy because he has both lied and withheld vital information, Gene retorts: 

"But, damn it all, I'm not guilty of anything but being an ass, and they aren't arresting people for that yet or the jails would be full."

THINGS I LEARNED:  During none of Minnie's  gluttonous visits while she is chowing down on more free food she spiolls grvy on her silk dress.  She says, "Dear me, best silk, too. Guess I ought to try a little Energine..." I figured this was some type of detergent.  Actually Energine was a dry cleaning fluid made with naphtha, highly flammable, that was apparently in many homes. It was still being made as late at the early 1960s much to my surprise. The popularity of commercial dry cleaning operations that became all the rage in the 1970s eventually replaced the need for private individuals taking care of their stained clothing. In looking for photographs of this defunct product I was a bit horrified to learn that vintage bottles (some still full!) are being sold on eBay. Bizarre.

At the start of chapter 17 Jill is served some coffee and ginger  flavored cookies by one of the young policeman. She refuses the coffee but samples the cookies while waiting for French to question her.  Hale writes: "Jill went on nibbling at the gingery cooky. It was rectangular, with MARY ANN stamped on it. She felt she'd never again taste ginger without thinking of this moment."  I wanted to know if these were also real, but all attempts at internet searching for "Mary Ann Ginger Snaps" yielded absolutely nothing. I know that Lorna Doone shortbread cookies are still made with the name stamped on them. That's a very old cookie, kids! Introduced in 1912, the same year as Oreos, another cookie with the name stamped on it. I figured if a Mary Ann ginger snap existed it must've been from Nabisco, the company that sells both Oreos and Lorna Doones. Sadly, I failed to find anything about a ginger snap with ANY name stamped on them. Ah well.  Anyone out there have any clue?

EASY TO FIND?  Only a few of Hale's books were reprinted in cheap editions outside of the original Doubleday Doran Crime Club hardcover.  Exit Screaming was one of them. Alas, both hardcover and paperback digest (see photo above at right) are difficult to find these days. I located three copies out there for sale at various online bookselling sites. Hurry if you want one. 

The Bloody Tower - John Rhode

THE STORY:  Jimmy Waghorn comes to Lydenbridge to inform Inspector Appleyard of a gang of professional thieves robbing tobacco vending machines but ends up helping the Inspector with the unusual shooting accident of Caleb Glapthorne.  What at first appears to be a malfunction of a hunting rifle turns out to be a diabolically orchestrated murder with a doctored rifle cartridge filled with high power explosive instead of the usual smokeless powder. Waghorn eventually consults with Dr. Priestley who offers up a few suggestions and ultimately reveals the puzzling motive and the identity of the ingenious murderer.

THE CHARACTERS:  The Glapthorne family is headed by a dying patriarch Simeon who refuses to sell his crumbling estate to a handful of inquiring potential landowners.  He firmly believes in a strange prophecy that until the Tower on the family estate falls the Glapthorne family must remain on their land so that their fortunes will prosper.  But so far their money has been dwindling with no signs of achieving newfound wealth. He withers away in his bedroom rarely leaving and being attended to by two gloomy servants and his niece...

Joyce Blackbrook - devoted to her crotchety uncle , the one member in the household who seems to understand his odd personality.  Or at least she offers a bit of sympahty. She works as a clerk in a bookstore owned by...

Mr. Woodspring -- pompous, officious, enamored of the gentry.  H atns to but the GLapthorne land wiht the "ugly towe" so ha e can build a house there.

Ben Glapthorne --Younger son and brother to the murder victim.  He's a marine engineer and has been at sea on the ship Niphetis. Of all characters he seems to have a ironclad alibi for Caleb's death

 Chudley -- farmer with land adjacent to the Glapthorne estate. Had a recent physical fight with Caleb about use land and Caleb's frequent trespassing while hunting rabbits.  He even threatened to blast off Caleb's face which is exactly how he died.

Vera Chudley -- daughter sent away supposedly because she was carrying on an affair with Caleb.  Her mother vehemently denies this rumor.  Gossip says otherwise.

Horning & Mrs. Horning - the servants in the Glapthorne home. The housekeeper wife is a hysterical drunk.  Only person mourning for Caleb and alcohol is helping to aggravate her grief.  She literally wails and keens.  Her husband dismisses it with a laughable comment: "She's Irish."

Arthur Blackbrook - Joyce's brother. Lives in London. Rarely visits the family. he's married to a tarty, simple-minded woman.

INNOVATIONS:  Priestley appears at the start of Chapter 7 at exactly the halfway mark. He is most interested in a strange code that was found in the Glapthorne family Bible. This is the first time that the police discuss the weird code with odd geometrical shapes placed beside Bible quotes.  The quotes all refer metaphorically to wealth, foolishness, reputation and possibly love. One telling quote is "the gift of God...cannot be bought with money."  Priestley is most intrigued by an odd symbol that Waghorn says looks like a balloon shape. This code is later solved by Priestely and can almost be worked out by the reader based on a few comments made off-handedly.  Those who know their Bible well or who take the time to examine the quoted passages may catch on to the solution of the puzzle without ever really breaking the code. Ultimately, Priestley's breaking of this code will lead to some startling discoveries related to the true purpose of the "ugly tower" and the secrets it contains.

Moreso than other John Rhode detective novels The Bloody Tower (1938), in the US re-titled The Tower of Evil, has an overarching theme as in a mainstream novel. Rhode is most definitely commenting on family destiny and the illusion of nobility.  Simeon Glapthorne exhibits the hubris of a tragic Greek hero in his near worship of the Glapthorne lineage and also ironically is the most foolish member of the household for his steadfast belief in the prophecy. In the end we learn that Glapthorne wasted his life aspiring to something he could never attain for the family lost their money all while Simeon was too stubborn to heed the code created by his ancestor Thaddeus Glapthone back in the late 18th century. Had he done so perhaps all the prophecies might have been fulfilled.

ATMOSPHERE:  I've not read many of the Dr. Priestley mysteries but a handful of them I've read draw on elements of Gothic fiction. This may perhaps be the most Gothic of the Priestley detective novels. Rhode does admirable work in creating a sinister atmosphere using conventions and motifs that are the staples of true Gothic fiction: the crumbling house, the patriarch to whom family is all, the curse and ominous prophecy attached to the Tower, and the splendidly creepy descriptions of the barren landscape. When Waghorn first approaches Farningcote Priory, the name Simeon gave to his home, Rhode writes:

As the car turned in at the ruined entrance gates, the dilapidated stone pillars seemed to resemble the mournful sentinels of a shattered army. Beyond, the melancholy fir trees swayed and moaned like a troop of sombre mourners.

THINGS I LEARNED: Picric acid is discussed at length early in the book.  According to the plot is has multiple uses and was apparently easily obtained at a pharmacy for its medicinal uses primarily as an antiseptic and for treatment of burns. In the context of the story, however, picric acid is exploited for ite volatile properties as a high explosive.

Electra House is mentioned when the police are trying to confirm data associated with some telegrams.  This may have cropped up in some other detective novels of this era but I don't recall coming across the name. Electra House first opened in 1902 as the home for the Eastern Telegraph Company and moved a couple times in the years preceding World War 2.

EASY TO FIND?  If you like digital books, then O Happy Day! It's available in a Kindle version (see photo at left). It's been released under the original UK title but the publisher appropriated the US 1st edition DJ illustration from the Dodd Mead book retitled The Tower of Evil. Guess it looked suitably 21st century for a digital book.

But as for a real paper book... Now it's ridiculously scarce.  I don't know why this one wasn't chosen to be reprinted back when Collins reissued several of the Dr. Priestley books. It's fast moving, engaging and has several intriguing puzzles besides the "whodunit" aspect.  But good luck finding a used copy now. Only three hardcovers are out there -- two US editions all priced in the "collector's market" and one volume in French translation.  No paperbacks reprints were found for sale when I looked though they do exist. If you're persistent and like to haunt used bookstores you might be lucky to find the Collins White Circle (shown up at top of post) paperback reprint cheaply. My copy was a pristine White Circle paperback, but it's now in the hands of someone living in Wisconsin. I sold it three days after I finished reading it last month.