The red widow murders

The prolific Carr, writing as Carter Dickson, penned the extensive Sir Henry Merrivale (H. M.) series between 1934 and 1953. He stands out among the Golden Age crime writers for his perfection of the locked-room mystery. Carr's talent is on full display in this entry in Otto Penzler's American Mystery Classics, which includes an outstanding introduction in which Tom Mead praises Carr's "effortlessly readable prose" and his Poe-like tendency to revel in the macabre. A man is found poisoned in a locked room, a haunted room, "a room that kills," the Red Widow's Chamber, which was sealed up following four unholy events there in the nineteenth century. It is now the 1930s. The victim was part of a group of eight oddly assorted people, including H. M., who had gathered downstairs, drawing cards until whoever pulled the ace of spades was required to spend the night in the accursed room. And now that person is dead. H. M. rumbles and grumbles his way through to a solution once again. A classic, indeed.

How could a room only be deadly for a solitary individual? That's the baffling question at the heart of this ingenious 1935 mystery from Carr (1906--1977). Lord Mantling invites Sir Henry Merrivale to test a curse at his London home, which contains a room that's been locked and sealed for 60 years. Over the decades, four healthy people entered it alone, only to be found dead, apparently from poison, but no source of the toxin was ever found, and the chamber was harmless to anyone not alone in it. The aristocrat's grandfather died inexplicably in 1876, and Mantling's father's will dictated that the deadly room remain off-limits while the house still stood. With the property scheduled for demolition, Mantling has members of his household and some guests draw cards to determine who will spend time locked in the room. But despite Merrivale's presence and all possible access points tightly sealed, the experiment's subject dies from curare poisoning. Carr provides vital clues in plain view that will elude most readers. Fair-play fans will be eager for more reissues in the American Mystery Classics series from this master of the impossible crime. (Feb.)