Cavalier's Cup

Rating:
Summary: The Cavalier's Cup
Review: An entertaining change of direction for Carter Dickson's irascible sleuth, Sir Henry Merrivale. It is a typically ingenious and baffling locked-room mystery centering on the fabulously valuable goblet of the title, and why a thief should NOT have stolen it when he had the chance; but for the most part, it resembles P.G. Wodehouse or possibly the Marx Brothers, as Dickson indulges himself in the manner of country-house farce. This is good fun on all levels. Those who have never read Dickson before should know that John Dickson Carr, the man behind the psedonym, ranks with Christie and Marsh among the greats of the golden-age detective novel, and was arguably more versatile than either. His speciality was the locked-room or 'impossible' crime, and he created two memorable detectives in Merrivale and the Chestertonian Dr. Gideon Fell. The latter stars in The Hollow Man (or in the US, The Three Coffins), one of his best.