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Castle Skull

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Castle Skull

By: John Dickson Carr
Narrated by: John Telfer
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About this listen

A dark shadow looms over the Rhineland, where Inspector Henri Bencolin and his accomplice Jeff Marle have arrived from Paris. Entreated by the Belgian financier D'Aunay to investigate the gruesome and grimly theatrical death of actor Myron Alison, the pair find themselves at the imposing hilltop fortress Schloss Schädel, in which a small group of suspects are still assembled. As thunder rolls in the distance, Bencolin and Marle enter a world steeped in macabre legends of murder and magic to catch the killer still walking the maze-like passages and towers of the keep.

©1931 The Estate of Clarice M Carr (P)2021 Soundings Detective Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction

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Mediocre murder-mystery from Golden Age 'Locked Room' maestro, John Dickson Carr. Here, a burning man plunges from the titular castle's parapets and the curious legacy of a dead magician sets the story in motion. First published in 1931, this is the third of four novels featuring Carr's Mephistophelian French detective, Henri Bencolin, and his 'stooge assistant', American writer, Jeff Marle. Carr was only in his mid-twenties when he wrote this, so perhaps it's unfair to judge him too harshly, but Castle Skull displays little of the complex ingenuity upon which his reputation rests; instead, we have a journeyman mix of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, but without the charm of either. The plotting feels perfunctory, the culprit arbitrary (well, one of them anyway); at the conclusion, sub-plots and red herrings still dangle in the breeze. The only real points of note are the lurid nature of the crimes and the Gothic melodrama of the setting (a skull-shaped castle overlooking the Rhine). Still, Carr's characterisation is briskly efficient and some fun is to be found with the outré cast, particularly the boisterous old "Duchess" and Bencolin's heel-clicking, monocle-sporting Teutonic rival, Baron von Arnheim (basically Herr Flick). Bencolin himself seems a stepping stone between Poirot and George Smiley.
Carr would abandon Bencolin shortly afterwards and concentrate on his more famous creation, Dr. Gideon Fell. He also has the distinction of co-writing a book of officially-sanctioned Sherlock Holmes stories with Conan Doyle's son. This last point leads me neatly to the narrator, John Telfer, who has done much excellent work in the extended Holmes universe. Telfer has a refined, elegant voice, a versatile range, and it's a little bit of a shame that he has to adopt an American accent for the central POV character in this story.

Startling Bulges In Extraordinary Places

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Recently started reading John Dickson Carr and don't know why I haven't done so before. This book, with its two dueling, egomaniac and chilling detectives is unique. Brilliantly read by John Telfer.

Extraordinary.

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