THE PLAGUE COURT MURDERS

Sir Henry Merrivale, everyone’s favorite blustering detective, returns in this reprint of his first appearance, originally published under the gossamer-thin pseudonym Carter Dickson in 1934.

After his introduction on the first page, H.M. has to wait for over half the story before he’s allowed onstage. In the meantime, all manner of alarums and excursions have broken out around Plague Court, the home of hangman’s assistant Louis Playge, who’s been reputed to haunt the place for more than 200 years. The estate’s latest owner, Lady Anne Benning, determined to exorcise the malign spirit, brings in psychic Roger Darworth and his half-wit medium, assistant, and frontman, Joseph Dennis, to push Louis Playge out for good. As Lady Benning; her nephew, Dean Halliday; his fiancee, Marion Latimer; and her brother, Ted Latimer, form a circle with Joseph, DI Humphrey Masters, and narrator and Dean’s old friend Ken Blake, Darworth locks himself in a stone building that’s padlocked in turn from outside and is promptly stabbed to death by Playge’s dagger in one of the earliest impossible crimes favored by Carr. The logistics of this one strain credulity, and the revelation of an accomplice who literally helps the killer get away with murder is a shade too convenient. But the post-17th-century atmosphere in the first half of the tale is thick enough to cut with a dagger, and fans with long memories will cheer the arrival of the aggressively no-nonsense H.M., who pauses just long enough between complaints and imprecations to unlock the mystery.

Like its own creepy backstory, the hero’s 86-year-old debut has now become a treasured chapter in criminal history.