He Who Whispers: 117 (British Library Crime Classics)

I’ve read all the British Library Crime Classic releases and this is one of the very best. Well written and plotted with good characters. A great starting point for anyone looking at getting into this genre.

This is a classic,one of the best

According to the introduction this was the author's personal favourite of his own writing. I cannot say I share his opinion. While many Dr Fell stories are a little bit odd and rambling, this one just seemed to drift on and on without being engaging. I did finish it, but more out of morbid curiosity to see how he closed the narrative than anything else.

Miles Hammond has been invited to attend a meeting of the Murder Club, a dining club made up of people with an interest in crime who get together monthly to discuss murders. Normally guests are not invited, but on this occasion they’ve also asked Professor Rigaud, a Frenchman with inside knowledge of a scandalous crime that happened in France in the early days of the war. And when Miles turns up, he finds a third guest there – Barbara Morell, a young woman who claims to have been invited, like Miles himself, by Dr Gideon Fell. But none of the members of the club have turned up and none of them seem to be available by phone. At Barbara Morell’s request, the disgruntled Professor Rigaud agrees to tell Miles and her the story he had prepared to present to the club. It is a strange tale, of a man killed at the top of a tower, with witnesses who can prove that no one entered or left the tower at the relevant time. Suspicion fell on a young woman, Fay Seton, who had been engaged to the murdered man’s son, but since the police were unable to work out how she, or anyone else, could have done the crime, no charges were ever brought…John Dickson Carr is probably most famous for being the leader in the field of the howdunit – the “impossible crime” where the emphasis is as much on finding out how the crime could have been done as on whodunit. For me, though, what makes him stand out from the crowd is the wonderful way he often incorporates Gothic or Decadent horror into his mysteries. Sometimes the combination of those two skills – the howdunit and the horror – leaves the actual mystery somewhat weak and the characterisation a bit underdeveloped. But sometimes, and happily this book is one of those times, he gets the balance between all those factors just right, and then there’s really no one to beat him.This one chills from the very beginning and the horror aspects never let up. What has happened to all the club members? Why is it that every time anyone leaves the room in the club, from the servants to the Professor, they too seem to vanish? How could anyone – any human – have reached the top of the tower on which the murdered man died without going up the only staircase? Why were the locals so angry at Fay Seton, even before the murder, that they tried to stone her in the streets? Is she an innocent victim of unfounded suspicion or some kind of evil monster? Miles, gazing at her beauty in the photo Rigaud shows them, is convinced she must have been slandered and falsely accused. So when she turns up next day in response to his advertisement for a librarian to sort out his uncle’s library which he has just inherited, he decides to give her a chance, and the four of them – Miles, his sister Marion and her fiancé Steve, and Fay – go off together to Miles’ isolated house in the middle of the New Forest – and mystery and terror travel with them…Gosh, it’s good! It’s extremely rare for me these days to really feel that I can’t put a book down, but I literally had to keep reading this one, and any time I had to pause I took the fear with me into whatever I was doing. Creepy, with hints at the supernatural but always grounded in very human evil, it’s the horror that makes it so irresistible. But it also has an excellent mystery where the human motivations are not overwhelmed by the technical aspects of how the crime was done, as is sometimes the case with Carr. Here, the impossibility of the crime merely adds to the general atmosphere of dread, and the solution to the how, when it comes, is just about plausible. The characterisation is strong, and every character is given enough ambiguity for the reader to be in a constant state of suspicion. Told in the third person, Miles is the main character, but even with him we are not entirely privy to his internal thoughts, and we know that he has only recently recovered from severe illness brought on by his wartime experiences – an illness that leaves him sometimes dizzy and a little disorientated. Is Rigaud telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what happened in France? Is Fay as innocent as Miles wants to think? Who is Barbara Morell and what is her interest in this far away murder? Only Gideon Fell can see a clear path through these ambiguities but even he may not be able to prevent another tragedy…I’ve loved a few of Carr’s books (and not loved a few others) but this one has just leapt into the lead as my new favourite. If you enjoy that sensation of fear that relies on atmosphere rather than gore, if you like a strong mystery plot that doesn’t push too far over the credibility line, and if you like characters that you care about but can’t be sure you can trust, then this is the one for you! Brilliant!

A crazy and entertaining plot. However, once again edited, which is a shame.