This book had such a promising start but once the main plot event happened and the police investigation gets under way, the story becomes ridiculously convoluted and stops making sense.

It was almost as if Carr had a really novel idea and then suddenly balked at executing it. Instead of a well-thought-out plot with a sound motive and fleshed out characters, we get caricatures and snippets of plot that seem to be formulaic. The only characters that I felt were truly well crafted were the two victims.

The ending was a let-down, too, I felt. There are certain similarities in the structure of this book with one Dame Agatha’s and even tho I suspected that Carr had not copied the entire idea, it gave me enough pause to suspect the culprit reasonably enough.

There was no way I could figure out the motive, tho. There was just way too much going on in this plot to figure out any logical conclusions, and to be honest, the conclusion that was presented seemed to have been magically drawn out of a hat.

It just did not work for me. However, I look forward to trying some of Carr’s other titles. ( )

Just about every book written by John Dickson Carr is a locked room mystery, and all of them try to play fair (thus also trying to drive the reader nuts), but I always feel Carr tried too hard. His books are so convoluted that they become almost unreadable. I’m a bit reluctant to continue reading books wherein the intricacies become utterly unbelievable (why do some authors bother to impinge on our consciousness crap like this?) I’m better off reading Agatha Christie. This Carr was me being back to 'easy' reading after a hard week reading hard stuff. This one is among his middle-rankers. The method of murdering two persons close to a cliff with only his own footprints on wet sand was clever - maybe a bit too clever-clever - and the characters a touch clichéd - but then you do meet the same people over and over again in a Carr novel. The fun is in trying to out-guess him, and in the wonderful, spooky atmospheres he creates. Unlike Christie, the Carr’s leave a lot to be desired. In this case the solution just doesn't hang together. The characters and motivations are there but the explanation of the murder is just too weird. Carr once again didn’t play fair. ( )

A very good read in an enjoyable series fro one who likes the classic mysteries.

One of those quasi locked room stories where the the "how" though preposterous, nevertheless has its own internal logic, and as such is believable.

Cannot say much aboutthe plot without giving too much away, save that 2 lovers appear to had walked to a cliff face (leaving only footprints going out) and then disappear,.

Big Ship

28 January 2017 ( )

One of the better Merrivales. Intriguing puzzle (variation on the footprints-in-the-snow gimmick) against well-drawn background of WWII Britain. Characterization of the central players is nuanced though as usual with Carr the gender views are patriarchal in the extreme. The strained comedy of HM's antics is kept to a minimum.

Coincidentally, the only other Merrivale I really enjoyed is also a footprints-in-the-snow puzzle, The White Priory Murders. The sharply different solutions Carr devises to the same basic puzzle highlights his virtuosity. ( )

Carter Dickson's sleuth Sir Henry Merrivale gets to work on the mystery of an apparent suicide pact which in fact is no such thing. The unhappily married Rita Wainright and her lover Barry Sullivan seem to have walked to the edge of a sheer cliff and jumped off to their deaths, and the impossible situation is that they have left their footprints in soft earth so that they could not just have walked away from the edge. The local doctor who discovers the crime, and narrates the story, still believes they were murdered, as does H.M., but which will solve the crime first? A tragic twist at the end will almost certainly catch most readers off guard. ( )