Mon 9 Nov 2009
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: JOHN DICKSON CARR – Dark of the Moon.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
by Marvin Lachman
JOHN DICKSON CARR – Dark of the Moon.
Harper & Row, 1967. Paperback reprints: Berkley, February 1969; Carroll & Graf, 1987. UK edition: H. Hamilton, hc, 1968.
John Dickson Carr was living in South Carolina when he died, so it is somewhat fitting that the last Gideon Fell mystery, Dark of the Moon, should be set in that state.
A deviously plotted mystery, with its roots going back to the Civil War and even two centuries before, is only part of the attraction here. This is a book of many contrasts: ghosts are prominent, yet there is the fair play detection we expect from Carr.
There is the spooky atmosphere of an old Southern mansion, and yet there is a hilarious baseball game, reminiscent of the time Carr/Dickson gave us Sir Henry Merrivale at bat in A Graveyard to Let.
Finally, there is Fell, English to the core, having to function in hot weather in the US, after arriving in the South in his typical “shovel hat and a black cloak as big as a tent.”
(very slightly revised).
November 9th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Although this one has got bad reviews, I enjoyed it when I read it as a teenager. Certainly much better than PANIC IN BOX C – that bloody Irishman! I also enjoyed THE GHOSTS’ HIGH NOON and DEADLY HALL. PAPA LA-BAS was one of the first three or four Carrs I read, and I found it quite boring – it’s also one of the very few where I looked at the last chapter halfway through. (Still, I read it at the same time I played Sierra’s computer game, GABRIEL KNIGHT, also set in New Orleans and involving voodoo.)
November 9th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I’d drifted away from Carr’s books around this time, which was later in his writing career. I’m not sure why, only an impression that the books were nowhere as strong (detection-wise) as those he wrote in his prime.
On the other hand, I’ve just finished reading THE BLIND BARBER from 1934, Carr’s attempt at doing a detective novel as an ocean-going farce, and while the comedy comes fast and often, I don’t think the detection stands up very well.
The key here is the dead girl whose body completely disappears. On page 157 of the Perennial edition, it is categorically stated by the ship’s officers: “Two of us have made a complete round of the ship. We have investigated every passenger and member of the crew. There was nobody hurt last night.”
Of course there was a dead girl and she was on board. Somebody must have slipped up somehow in their rounds and their investigation mentioned above, but how? Unless I missed it, this passage is never referred to again.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:32 am
I’ve revisited some of the later Carr’s and felt a bit more kindly to them, but at the time they put me off of him for a while.
Still, for one of the masters of the form he didn’t always seem primarily interested in the fair play aspect. More often than not his primary interest was to pull the wool over your eyes. Atmosphere plays as important a role as plot in many Carr novels.
But at his best Carr is one of the most entertaining and audacious writers of the genre. No one ever used misdirection half as well, and he had a real talent for instilling a hint of the uncanny and a bit of swashbuckling.
And though the detective aspect got a bit lost at times he was a fine hand at a bit of slapstick and even screwball comic elements. Sir Henry Merrivale may be the only great detective that can take a proper pratfall.
As for that slip-up in The Blind Barber, it happens to the best of them. There’s an implied assistant to Stapleton in Hound of the Baskervilles who ends up just dropping out of the narrative, and Murder on the Orient Express is either a tour de force or completely preposterous depending on how you look at it.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I think that’s an astute observation, David. Carr wasn’t as interested in “fair play” detection as he was in fooling the reader — though he was awfully good at the former.
But (going back to THE BLIND BARBER again), he hides the clues in the nastiest of ways — way at the beginning before the reader is even introduced to the characters, for example, and by the awkward wording in one passage, which when interpreted correctly, is just as awkwardly worded.
But Carr had a lot of fun writing THE BLIND BARBER, which is acknowledged by Anthony Boucher’s introduction to the book as Carr’s best attempt at out-and-out farce, and it carries over to the reader as well, in spite of its weaknesses in fair-playness.
— Steve
November 10th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
One of the Gideon Fell novels has a nice bit of mis-direction where Fell wants everyone to think that a group of coffins disturbed in a crypt were moved supernaturally so he uses the term “tossed around” when the actual explanation is that the crypt flooded and the water moved them.
I can recall at the time thinking you’d have to be pretty unobservant not to notice the place had been flooded. The smell alone would give it away, but to be honest I just gave Carr that one and enjoyed the book anyway.
Carr wasn’t afraid of being high handed. Another Fell book turns on the fact it turns out a devastating fire was in fact arson set by Fell to protect an “innocent” killer.
Carr was playing games and not always fair play. He certainly didn’t mind playing fast and loose when it was called for. That said, some of the other Detection Club members that were more scrupulous than Carr or even Christie weren’t half as much fun.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I can’t resist weighing in on the discussion here although I may not add anything to what has already been said about his methods as a writer. Carr was one of those writers I “grew up on” and I have pleasant memories of buying paperback copies of his books at the newsstand in either the bus or train depot on my way home from college on the weekend. I usually had most of the book read by the time I arrived at my destination. I’ve been reading a lot of Carr lately, but mostly the short stories, plays and radio scripts. I also re-read Douglas Greene’s 1995 biography. During the course of that exercise I remembered having been asked in a college English class to name a writer I would like to meet. I was certain the teacher meant us to name someone like Hemingway or Faulkner, but the writer I would have most liked to meet at the time was John Dickson Carr. I said nothing and I do not recall how many of my fellow English majors voiced their opinions. Reading Doug Green’s biography I realized I had just had that old desire fulfilled. The nearest I came to that desire while Carr was still living was when I boxed up a number of my copies of his books and sent them to him to be autographed.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Randy
Carr was one of those writers you felt you knew whether you ever met him or not. I ‘discovered’ him in my high school years, but mostly the historicals and a few of the Merrivales. It wasn’t until later I began to read and appreciate Dr. Fell, Henri Bencolin, and the stand alones.
I don’t know why, but Patrick Butler For the Defense was the one that cinched the deal although I freely admit it is only minor Carr.
But to be honest, as with Philip MacDonald, the nonsense that so often bothered the purists was what made Carr so readable and enjoyable for me. In Carr’s case the reader always felt Carr was having fun, and that was infectious.
Now I’ve got to break out those short story collections and reread them, and get around to transferring some of my radio adaptation cassettes of Carr to CD. Been too long since I listened to Mr. Markham, Cabin B-13, The Burning Court, or a couple of the Fell’s that were done on Suspense. And some of the plays read almost as well as the short stories.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
As long as we’re getting nostalgic here, David’s mention of PATRICK BUTLER reminded me that that was the first Carr (or Carter Dickson) I ever read.
I would have been 15 or 16 at the time, which was exactly the right time to make a life-long impression on me.
I don’t know if it would hold up for me today, but back then I thought it was wonderful fun, and between it and some early Perry Mason’s, a detective fan was born.