Three Coffins

Rating:
Summary: THREE COFFINS
Review: This is the book for mystery lovers who love a locked room mystery. John Dickson Carr is the king of the locked room mystery and this is his best work by far.

Rating:
Summary: The most famous of them all but not the best
Review: `The Three Coffins' fully bears out what I've felt about John Dickson Carr's work - his murders are often so diabolical and inexplicable that any rational explanation of them has to be somewhat of a letdown. In this case he successfully keeps the reader so focussed on the chilling circumstances surrounding the deaths that the reader barely stops to question what he/she is reading. I'm not convinced that the clue that enabled Dr Fell to overturn the apparent ordering of the facts was entirely `fair' (in that it does not give the reader a fair chance to decipher it). This sticks out as a flaw in what is otherwise a riveting read. The chapter where Dr Fell expounds on locked room crimes can be adopted as a thesis on the subject.