Book description
In the shadowy hallway of clockmaker Johannes Carver's house a
policeman is found murdered, the arrow-tipped minute hand of an antique
clock embedded in his neck.
For Dr Gideon Fell this is the only case that has ever really
frightened him, and before he can solve it he must find answers to some
seemingly impossible questions: why was Calvin Boscombe standing near
the corpse with a silencer on his gun? Who locked the attic door? And
what has become of the sixteenth-century death-watch? John Dickson
Carr, the master of the locked-room mystery, was born in Uniontown,
Pennsylvania, the son of a US Congressman. He studied law in Paris
before settling in England where he married an Englishwoman, and he
spent most of his writing career living in Great Britain. Widely
regarded as one of the greatest Golden Age mystery writers, his work
featured apparently impossible crimes often with seemingly supernatural
elements. He modelled his affable and eccentric series detective Gideon
Fell on G. K. Chesterton, and wrote a number of novels and short
stories, including his series featuring Henry Merrivale, under the
pseudonym Carter Dickson. He was one of only two Americans admitted to
the British Detection club, and was highly praised by other mystery
writers. Dorothy L. Sayers said of him that 'he can create atmosphere
with an adjective, alarm with allusion, or delight with a rollicking
absurdity'. In 1950 he was awarded the first of two prestigious Edgar
Awards by the Mystery Writers of America, and was presented with their
Grand Master Award in 1963. He died in Greenville, South Carolina in
1977.
