Tue 27 Mar 2007
Review by Mary Reed: EDGAR WALLACE – The Clue of the Twisted Candle
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[4] Comments
EDGAR WALLACE – The Clue of the Twisted Candle
George Newnes, London, hc, 1917. Small Maynard & Co.,Boston, hc, 1916. Numerous reprints in both hardcover and paperback. TV Film: An episode of The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, 15 August 1960, with Bernard Lee as “Superintendent Meredith.”
Assistant Commissioner of Police T. X. Meredith, a man of unorthodox though successful methods of detection and best friend of mystery writer John Lexman, has been investigating Remington Kara, an extremely rich Greek with something of a turbulent history and a former suitor for the hand of Lexman’s wife.
Kara was almost murdered years ago, and such is his fear of another attempt being made his bedroom is “practically a safe.” It features burglar-proof walls, reinforced concrete roof and floor, an unreachable window, and its sole door has in addition to a lock “a sort of steel latch which he lets down when he retires for the night and which he opens himself personally in the morning”.
Of course Kara is eventually found dead, locked in this safe-like room. How was Kara’s murder accomplished, why did his secretary disappear and his manservant run away, and for that matter who killed the dog in the basement of his house? Was Kara killed by the men he has feared for years or someone else, and if so, who was it and why?
Answers to these conundrums are revealed at a gathering at the end of the book in which All Is Explained, including how the challenge presented by the locked room was overcome.
My verdict: On the negative side I felt there were perhaps one too many coincidences and the identity of the murderer was not as well hidden as it might have been. On the other hand, the locked room explanation is ingenious, clues to how it was accomplished are revealed in a fair fashion in the narrative, and I confess I did not foresee one of the final twists. I would sum it up as a diverting, light read.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:12 am
A real classic. A basic pillar of the how-done-it variant in mystery fiction. After reading the infinity of far-fetched solutions to “impossible crimes” provided by many “specialists”, the simplicity of the final outcome is a gratifying reading experience to the authentic connoisseur. A nourishing mental delicatessen. A suggestion: try to solve the candles enigma comfortably sitting in an armchair while you listen Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
Good reading!
January 16th, 2009 at 8:29 am
My one recent attempt to read an Edgar Wallace thriller was not entirely successful. See my review of The India-Rubber Men on https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=636.
But now with two rather complimentary descriptions of Twisted Candle like this, it certainly sounds as though it’s the one to try next.
— Steve
June 25th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
very different from the usual mystery. it takes place over several years and the murder of Kara occurs midbook. The final denouement is very contrived but revealing. Much of the book is pleasurable and the dialogue of the principals not overly stilted for the most part. a quick enjoyable read.
March 4th, 2014 at 4:52 pm
Astoundingly-prolific author Edgar Wallace came from humble origins, a desperately poor boy from the East end of London.
He joined the British Army as a medical orderly and served in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa. There, he began writing brief war despatches for the London Daily Mail, then quickly branched into fictional short stories.
He was an unusually quick and prolific writer, producing so many best-selling books, stage plays, and movie scenarios, he became known as “The Fiction Factory.”
Edgar Wallace was himself such a figure, that I included him as a character in my book — “KRUGER’S GOLD: A Novel Of The Anglo-Boer War.” http://amzn.to/1hAchCm