Deadly Hall

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: When young writer Jeff was summoned back to his native city New Orleans from Paris, he was told hidden gold and a suspicious death 17 years ago in the Deadly Hall, where he spent his childhood. While they searched for the gold in the Hall, his hostess died under very similar circumstances. Are both murders or just accidents? Jeff's uncle, local attorney Gil, unraveled the mystery and found the hidden gold. Although New Orleans is a very unlikely stage for murder, the hundreds' year old hall, which was moved from England, makes up the Carr's typical ghostly atmosphere.

Like The Case of Constant Suicides, the main mystery in this novel is also a remote controll for murder. Cast-iron alibi cannot help readers rule out any of the suspects, and what the mechanism is largely depends on individual's imagination. I think that is why even Dame Christie was baffled by Carr's stories. The secondary mystery in the novel, the hidden gold, is very sherlockian and obvious, but nevertheless a good one too.

Romance often serves as a filling in Carr's novels. In this one, one finds a young lady carried a torch for the writer Jeff, who only met her twice under very embarrassing circumstances but was nevertheless tempted by her beauty. How ironic that Maugham's prescription for comedy (see The Razor's Edge) just never fails!