Rating: 
Summary: amongst the best of a very dated literary genre...
Review: '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.
Rating:
Summary: amongst the best of a very dated literary genre...
Review: '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.
Rating:
Summary: You get all the clues you need to solve it but.....
Review: Every clue you need to solve this well written mystery is in the book in plain sight but written so that you will probably miss them. The story is well constructed and written and pulls you in to trying to solve the crimes. Well worth reading if you like locked room mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: You get all the clues you need to solve it but.....
Review: Every clue you need to solve this well written mystery is in the book in plain sight but written so that you will probably miss them. The story is well constructed and written and pulls you in to trying to solve the crimes. Well worth reading if you like locked room mysteries.
Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding locked room mystery
Review: Fans of locked room mysteries are sure to enjoy this atmospheric, well constructed story. The clues are all right there for you but the story is so subtly crafted that you may find yourself reading it a second time.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Detective Novel Ever Written
Review: 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!"
Rating:
Summary: The Three Coffins
Review: It's such a pleasure to be able to begin a review by saying this is one of the best mysteries I've ever read. How often will I get to state such a bold thing, when many mysteries now seem to blend together, repeat past glories, or, in real sad cases, follow pre-established subgenre formulas to the dull letter? Not too often--but Carr's The Three Coffins (aka The Hollow Man) is so incredibly clever in its conception and execution that I sit here pleasantly walloped by the ultimate locked-room puzzle. In fact, never mind this simplistic "locked-room puzzle" assessment; the book features not one, but two, impossible murders! The starring corpse is found in a sealed study, but our supporting dead-guy dies in the street from a bullet at close range, while two honest witnesses swear no one was anywhere near him. (Claustrophobics and agoraphobics alike must both learn to beware the invisible, 'hollow' killer, it seems). Enter Dr. Gideon Fell (and his monosyllabic exclamations), who proceeds to turn every detail of the case upside-down in order to find out that every true thing that happened unwittingly creates one gigantic falsehood; this is the brilliance of the whodunit on display: twenty facts all point to something that has no apparent basis in fact. No wonder the book starts hinting at vampires, spectres, dead men, and true conjurings, as the only workable solution. And then Doctor Fell flips over all the facts, like they are stones, and the entire mosaic of murder looks different. He also sniffs out a few lies, and discards them. But mainly, he just turns the entire case on its head so it all makes sense. The solution to the crimes committed is stunning...complicated but logical. I confess to being outFawkes'd--sorry, outfoxed. Ignore this classic at your peril.
Rating:
Summary: I defy anyone to solve this mystery
Review: John Dickson Carr is one of the greatest mystery writers of all time, and THE THREE COFFINS is his masterpiece. A brilliantly plotted piece of work with a cleverly worked out deduction by Dr. Gideon Fell, who unravels not one, but two bafflingly impossible crimes. The reader is given more than enough clues to solve the puzzle, but the hints are so subtle, the plot so complex, and the red herrings so numerous, that even the most astute reader will probably be at a loss. A classic.
Rating:
Summary: Impossible murders committed by disappearing murderers.
Review: One of Carr's best -- atmospheric and complex. Murders take place in empty streets covered with snow, unmarked by footprints other than the victim's and in a "locked" room. Dr. Fell even gives an extended lesson in impossible murders during the investigation.
Rating: 
Summary: Alternate title: The Hollow Man (1935)
Review: This author is known as the Master of the Locked Room Mystery, and he does not disappoint his aficionados in "The Three Coffins." In fact Carr's serial detective, Gideon Fell takes a chapter off from the plot to present his famous 'locked room' lecture to a handful of long-suffering friends.
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.
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