He Who Whispers (A Gideon Fell Novel)

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best Gideon Fell novel of four or five I've read
Review: I have gone off on "jags" reading Rex Stout or Agatha Christie, or others, but I always come back with a hunger for John Dickson Carr. This is not easy-- his books are very old and only Amazon provides a good source.

This is one of the very best by Carr. What draws me to Carr is the mastery of mood, tone, and atmosphere-- a brooding, semi-supernatural, atmosphere of the Gothic-- of terror, of raw fear-- of people literally frightened to death. To put it crudely, it's like "Sherlock Holmes" meets "Stephen King."

In this novel we have a fabulous beginning with an "impossible murder" that seems to have no explanation, a "femme fatale" woman, the setting of a ruined Norman tower in France, and a most sympathetic leading character, Miles. Dr. Gideon Fell is a colorful and delightful detective who usually enters the story at least a third into the book.

Frankly, the conclusions sometimes let the reader down -- or seem to -- because Carr's skill at "atmosphere" has got the poor fellow so on the edge of his chair with anxiety that no ending could totally meet the expectations.

This book-- like many Carr books -- has a neat love interest-- a totally improbable love between a convalescent British gentleman and a French "woman of the streets." The love interest alone drew me through some of the chapters.

Carr's style and descriptive skills are excellent. He will describe a setting with original turns of phrase. He will paint word-pictures that force one to reread the paragraph more than once, savoring the writer's skills. He's a highly literate man with a control of English that would have made him successful in writing more conventional novels.

This is probably the best Gideon Fell novel I have read, and one of the two or three best novels by Dickson Carr I have read. I urge you to enjoy the book, and wish you, er, "unpleasant dreams."

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best Gideon Fell novel of four or five I've read
Review: I have gone off on "jags" reading Rex Stout or Agatha Christie, or others, but I always come back with a hunger for John Dickson Carr. This is not easy-- his books are very old and only Amazon provides a good source.

This is one of the very best by Carr. What draws me to Carr is the mastery of mood, tone, and atmosphere-- a brooding, semi-supernatural, atmosphere of the Gothic-- of terror, of raw fear-- of people literally frightened to death. To put it crudely, it's like "Sherlock Holmes" meets "Stephen King."

In this novel we have a fabulous beginning with an "impossible murder" that seems to have no explanation, a "femme fatale" woman, the setting of a ruined Norman tower in France, and a most sympathetic leading character, Miles. Dr. Gideon Fell is a colorful and delightful detective who usually enters the story at least a third into the book.

Frankly, the conclusions sometimes let the reader down -- or seem to -- because Carr's skill at "atmosphere" has got the poor fellow so on the edge of his chair with anxiety that no ending could totally meet the expectations.

This book-- like many Carr books -- has a neat love interest-- a totally improbable love between a convalescent British gentleman and a French "woman of the streets." The love interest alone drew me through some of the chapters.

Carr's style and descriptive skills are excellent. He will describe a setting with original turns of phrase. He will paint word-pictures that force one to reread the paragraph more than once, savoring the writer's skills. He's a highly literate man with a control of English that would have made him successful in writing more conventional novels.

This is probably the best Gideon Fell novel I have read, and one of the two or three best novels by Dickson Carr I have read. I urge you to enjoy the book, and wish you, er, "unpleasant dreams."

Rating:
Summary: Another "impossible" murder from the mystery grandmaster
Review: John Dickson Carr (a.k.a. Carter Dickson or Carr Dickson) was one of the greats of the mystery genre, specializing in locked-room mysteries and always playing scrupulously fairly with the clues. In this entry featuring detective Gideon Fell, the murder takes place in a tower by the edge of a river. A man is seen to climb the tower's spiral staircase. Two people go up there to talk with him, and then he is left alone. The next anyone hears of him is when some children find him run through with a sword. And yet the evidence is absolutely clear that nobody else could have been on the tower.

For mystery readers who like their puzzles complex, there simply is no author better than Carr, who delighted in explaining the impossible. This, and his other novels, are highly recommended. (Note, though, that the solution here is one of the more complicated ones, and it might be better for those who have not experienced Carr to start with another book first.)

Rating:
Summary: A clever mystery coupled with an awkward one
Review: On the cover of this book, it quotes Madame Christie's words:

Few detective stories baffle me nowadays, but Mr. Carr's always do.

Madame Christie surely was baffled because Carr never gave away any clue until the very end. Carr's style is more like the old school of Wilkie Collins, who enjoyed telling tales rather than examing footprints or cigarette ashes. While Carr tried to draw readers' suspicion to a certain woman, the title partly gives the real criminal away.

Now let's take a look at the 2 mysteries in this book.

One is about a healthy girl being scared half dead in her sleep. In my mind, any ghost, real or fake, could not possibly have such a strong effect. While I prepared to ridicule Carr at the end, he gave me a total surprise, and I couldn't help admiring how smart it was, because it was totally human's hands, and the idea was so practical that you are bound to be scared half dead no matter how you lack imagination.

While the other one, about some one being stabbed in a tower, is the typical awkward Carr-ish stunt which can be also found in a few other novels (e.g. 3 coffins). I can never believe that a dying man can do so much stuff before death. While a sword wound certainly does not enhance one's intelligence, what the man did is such incredibly smart that it deceives every living soul except Dr. Fell. Even if I were thoroughly mistaken, at least Carr should give coroner's words: how much strength and intelligence still remains after the man receives the wound.

There are also other weak points which are left to readers as further comments will give the whole plot away. In summary, this book is worth reading for the sake of the clever mystery.

Rating:
Summary: A clever mystery coupled with an awkward one
Review: On the cover of this book, it quotes Madame Christie's words:

Few detective stories baffle me nowadays, but Mr. Carr's always do.

Madame Christie surely was baffled because Carr never gave away any clue until the very end. Carr's style is more like the old school of Wilkie Collins, who enjoyed telling tales rather than examing footprints or cigarette ashes. While Carr tried to draw readers' suspicion to a certain woman, the title partly gives the real criminal away.

Now let's take a look at the 2 mysteries in this book.

One is about a healthy girl being scared half dead in her sleep. In my mind, any ghost, real or fake, could not possibly have such a strong effect. While I prepared to ridicule Carr at the end, he gave me a total surprise, and I couldn't help admiring how smart it was, because it was totally human's hands, and the idea was so practical that you are bound to be scared half dead no matter how you lack imagination.

While the other one, about some one being stabbed in a tower, is the typical awkward Carr-ish stunt which can be also found in a few other novels (e.g. 3 coffins). I can never believe that a dying man can do so much stuff before death. While a sword wound certainly does not enhance one's intelligence, what the man did is such incredibly smart that it deceives every living soul except Dr. Fell. Even if I were thoroughly mistaken, at least Carr should give coroner's words: how much strength and intelligence still remains after the man receives the wound.

There are also other weak points which are left to readers as further comments will give the whole plot away. In summary, this book is worth reading for the sake of the clever mystery.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but eminently readable
Review: One of the darkest and most somber entries in the Dr. Fell series, HE WHO WHISPERS is as briskly written and clever as Carr's best. Unfortunately, the plot hinges on a turn of coincidence so jarring it fails to be wholly convincing. Nevertheless, the impossible crime scenario is resolved with admirable ingenuity. A great read.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but eminently readable
Review: One of the darkest and most somber entries in the Dr. Fell series, HE WHO WHISPERS is as briskly written and clever as Carr's best. Unfortunately, the plot hinges on a turn of coincidence so jarring it fails to be wholly convincing. Nevertheless, the impossible crime scenario is resolved with admirable ingenuity. A great read.