Dr Gideon Fell is up against a diabolical murderer: a man has been stabbed to death with the hand of an outdoor clock. What kind of person would think of using that as a weapon? What is the motive for killing the victim? And how strange are the coincidences that point to one person in particular as the killer?

I acknowledge Carr's mastery of plotting locked-room mysteries and his writing style, which sounds British to my ears even though Carr was American. But I do find these mysteries exhausting sometimes because suspects are raised and cleared, and the case goes topsy-turvy at least once, more likely twice, before settling down at the end. They're best suited for extended periods when you can concentrate. ( )

Found this in the building laundry room. Searched it in Your books and apparently hadn’t read it before, although I can’t help thinking I haven’t cataloged all of the ones I own. Most of the Carr I’ve read (and enjoyed) was in the late 70’s when cheap paperback reprints were readily available, many in the Collier Book reprint series (the particular copy is a 1976 printing). The entertainment is in the baroque plotting; don’t expect characters you can “like.” Interestingly, the villain is a creator of elaborate plots involving staged murder, arbitrary murder, and intentional indirect murder. Dr Fell has the utmost contempt for the killer, who is cowardly, petty, conceited and indifferent to the characters harmed. The perp is a mirror of Carr himself: creator of mysteries of over the top complexity that depend on the reader’s emotional disengagement in order to function as entertainment; one assumes the mirroring is intentional. Not the best of the ones I recall reading, in part because of Hadley’s unusually poor police work (check for blood on the glove and for left handedness before theorizing, inspector), and Fell’s use of staged threats to get the confession rather than hard evidence. While the fake threats may be related to Fell’s apologia for the Spanish Inquisition, the strategy for me was too reminiscent of generic TV police drama. Also, red herrings are expected, a given of the genre, but were not really incorporated into the novel as a whole; perhaps I was expecting more backstory with the detours. However, this may be a characteristic limitation of golden age plotting. Finally, one really needs to focus on detailed spatial visualization at the Temple Grandin level to truly follow scenario and counter-scenario, and I’m not sure this is still a pleasurable investment of time for me at my age. Reminded me of recent jury duty on a liability claim. ( )

This is an excellent British mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie. ( )

Murder in a London clock shop with a clock hand. ( )

In so many ways this is the uber Golden Age mystery. It has all of the elements of the great Golden Age mysteries, but it has them in extremes. There's the quirky sleuth- Dr. Gideon Fell- a portly academic who mostly watches the police and occasionally adds a mumble or guffaw. There's the complicated plot and this one is truly complex. There are many moving parts, and even more red herrings. The mystery involves a department store employee stabbed by a shoplifter and a detective found dead in a house, stabbed with the hands of a clock. There is a panel of potential suspects, and they are an odd lot. One of them considers the Spanish Inquisition to be his hobby. There's also a lovesick student, a disgraced police officer, and a nosy landlady. When the solution is revealed all the reader can do is wonder why they didn't figure it out.

All of this said, so many of the Golden Age mystery writers were women that I have become accustomed to more fully developed female characters. The women in this book are all stereotypes. In addition to the aforementioned landlady, who is also histrionic and sexually frustrated, there's a pretty young ingenue, and a female attorney who is, of course, unpleasant, and not quite as feminine as she should be.

In sum, many tropes, though they are comfortable ones, and one of the most complicated mysteries I have read in some time. ( )