The White Priory Murders (Written by Carter Dickson)

The White Priory Murders (Written by Carter Dickson)

My love for locked-room mysteries is only surpassed by my love for stories about master criminals, like Arsène Lupin, Raffles or Fantomas. Hence the name of this blog(The Hollow Needle is a Lupin novel). But for now, I'm here with another locked-room mystery from the Golden Age: Carter Dickson's "The White Priory Murders".

A cover for the book

The Plot

James Boyton Bennett, an American, is in the UK and he visits his uncle, the head of the British Secret Service, Sir Henry Merrivale. It seems that Dickson (better known under his real name, John Dickson Carr) likes using young Americans as supporting characters, who come to Britain, meet an overweight amateur detective, and a young girl, who's involved in some sort of case, and on whom our young lad has developed a crush on. In "Hag's Nook", we have young Tad Rampole,a college graduate from America, Dr. Gideon Fell,an overweight lexicographer and amateur detective, and Dorothy Starbeth. Here we have James Bennett, Sir Henry Merrivale and Katherine Bohun. But to don't go far from the subject, let's continue.  We learn from Bennett, that someone sent a box of poisoned chocolate to Marcia Tait, an actress, who came back to London, where her acting career started(very badly). Emery, a journalist and Rainger, a director are the one who are responsible for Marcia's fame, and are not happy about her decision of appearing in a play, co-starring Jervis Willard, written by Maurice Bohun, and directed by John Bohun, and supported financially by Lord Canifest. Most of these characters are staying at a place called "White Priory", owned by the Bohuns. When James goes to this place, it turns out Marcia Tait has been murdered, but there is only one person, whose footprints lead to the cottage, where the crime has been commited: John Bohun's. Soon the police arrive, and the investigation begins. Obviously, the title of this book is "The White Priory Murders", so Marcia isn't the only one to leave White Priory dead, but I'm not spoiling the book for you.

The Characters

This book features one of Carr's two main series detectives; Sir Henry Merrivale, a baronet and barrister. Helping him is Detective-Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters of Scotland Yard, who works alongside Inspector Potter of the local police force. There's also James Bennett, Sir Henry's nephew, John and Maurice Bohun, the owners of White Priory, Tim Emery, a journalist, Rainger, a director, Lord Canifest, an aristorcrat, Katherine Bohun, the niece of the Bohuns, and Jervis Willard, an actor. Like in many Golden Age detective novels, this one also features two characters falling in love, like I mentioned above.

The Impossible Crime

The cottage, where the murder has been commited, is surrounded by snow, with only John Bohun's footprints. This is one of the most used methods in detective novels, however, here it's not combined with a locked-room mystery, like in "The Hollow Man". Despite this, the solution is simple, yet amazingly clever, and it's one of the best examples of this method.

About the author

John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) is considered the master of the locked-room mystery. He was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and he was the son of congressman Wooda Nicholas Carr. Carr enjoyed reading books, like the Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown stories, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and G.K. Chesterton respectively, and "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" by Gaston Leroux, which was his favourite detective novel. He' novel, "The Three Coffins" has been named as the best locked-room mystery ever written by many people, including the attendees of Edward D. Hoch's panel of authors, and by the Guardian. He had four notable detective heroes: Dr. Gideon Fell, who's working on his book about the beer drinking habits of the English, Sir Henry Merrivale, a barrister and baronet, Henri Bencolin, the cruel prefect of the Paris Police Force, and Colonel March, of Scotland Yard's Department of Queer Complaints. Carr was also a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and he was commissioned by his estate to write the biography of the author. Alongside Doyle's son, Adrian, he wrote "The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes".He pen names include: Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He was the first American member of the Detection Club. He died in Greenville, South Carolina.

Verdict

The book is very good. If you want to get into locked-room mysteries, this is definitely a good book to start with.  The characters are interesting, the crime is mysterious, and the solution is simple, yet clever.

Some facts

• In the Hungarian edition of the book (my copy is also this edition), Sir Henry Merrivale is renamed to Sir Samuel Merrivale. Yet, it's somewhat inconsistent with the name, as in some places, he's still named Henry. There's also a lot of errors in this book, even for an old pulp edition.