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john_culuris 's review for:
He Who Whispers
by John Dickson Carr
It always surprised me that John Dickson Carr--at least initially; he reevaluated his position later in life--was critical of the hardboiled detective novel. Of the traditional mystery writers, he comes the closest to the hardboiled school. Not in terms of what he considered hardboiled’s most obvious traits: the chases and sluggings [his words] and cleavage. No, what he shared with them--and did not share with most of his contemporaries--was movement. He eschewed that one staid location where the suspects would be paraded through the detective’s presence until the proper solution was divined. For that to work you needed a genius like Agatha Christie, who made the unique location an integral part of both the story and the mystery, as with [b:Murder on the Orient Express|853510|Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1486131451l/853510._SY75_.jpg|2285570] or [b:And Then There Were None|16299|And Then There Were None|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391120695l/16299._SY75_.jpg|3038872]. And Carr did write some of his own in this tradition, like [b:The Arabian Nights Murder|921073|The Arabian Nights Murder (Dr. Gideon Fell, #7)|John Dickson Carr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1260659853l/921073._SY75_.jpg|3160654] for example. But movement in terms of location, or even activity, was not the issue with Carr. It was movement within the narrative. After setting up the mystery, he would peel away layers over here while adding complications over there. Interest had to be maintained, and he accomplished this through the characters and their situations as much as through the mystery. The motives of guilty and innocent alike were important to him. Most of the characters wanted to help the investigation but some had to hinder it, and not always out of malevolent intent. His ultimate goal was for the story to be as involving as the mystery. He Who Whispers is the first Carr novel I’ve read where the story actually takes precedence over the mystery.
The first indicator of this may be that the only murder in the novel happens six years before the start of the story. Miles Hammond, hit with the twin blows of an eighteen-month wartime illness and news of the death of his uncle, returns to England with the end of World War II, still weak but heartened by an invitation to a meeting of the Murder Club, a small group of well-known Londoners who enjoy stories of cryptic murders and unexplained horrors. It is there that Miles learns from a visiting professor--the guest speaker--the story of an English family living in rural France and the impossible murder of its patriarch. At the center of the turmoil leading up to his mysterious death is a specifically-imported English secretary, a woman who is promptly labeled at best wanton and at worst something considerably more evil. Coincidentally it is the same woman Miles is scheduled to interview the next day to catalogue his uncle’s enormous, unwieldy library; a coincidence made more palatable by the time period in which the novel takes place. The same circumstances that allowed Miles to come home, the end of the war, also allowed for her repatriation from France, thus making her the only qualified person for the employment agency to offer him. Miles hires her in spite of her history (or maybe because of it) and along with his sister--they are co-inheritors--they travel to their rural estate, where the past intrudes on the present with frightening results.
Once the story shifts to this secluded location, as with the best of Carr, the reader is hooked. As with any Carr, though, two areas of frustration also follow. The first is that when the detective, in this case Dr. Gideon Fell, is about to explain some piece of the puzzle, an interruption will occur and he will not get back to that revelation until the end of the book. In He Who Whispers it is of little importance, as the matters in question pale beside more pressing difficulties that need attending. The second frustration comes with the interior monologue of the viewpoint character. Carr was a master at setting a scene, particularly if it was gothic in nature--sometimes to the point of creating an almost supernatural mood--though he could also handle poolside in broad daylight with equal ease. He ran into trouble when the narrative moved from exterior description to that of sharing a character’s experiences. I understand the structural reason Carr wrote these thoughts in such detail that they often overwhelmed the drama. This character’s purpose in the mystery was to misinterpret the clues and mislead the reader. If he were to lapse into such detail only then, it would be seen though immediately. The alternative, the choice Carr felt he had to make, was to subject the reader to an overabundance of shock, regret, anguish and self-doubt; so much so that we often find ourselves screaming, “Shut up already.” Eventually we realize that we can shut him up by just dropping down to the next line of dialogue. If what you read makes no sense, go back to where you were and trudge your way through.
With He Who Whispers you are hooked anyway and minor frustrations are a small price to pay. Even figuring out who was behind it all--only the second time I've been able to do so in over fifty Carr novels read--is not a detriment. Also, I can’t take much pride in that because I had no idea how the impossible murder in the past had taken place and it was that solution that led to the final solution.
It’s an odd thing being a fan of John Dickson Carr. Regarding the mystery by itself, I prefer his work as Carter Dickson. The solutions are not as complicated. But the true classic of the genre--[b:The Three Coffins|498490|The Three Coffins (Dr. Gideon Fell, #6)|John Dickson Carr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1260649785l/498490._SY75_.jpg|435889], the aforementioned Arabian Nights, [b:The Crooked Hinge|930193|The Crooked Hinge (Dr. Gideon Fell, #8)|John Dickson Carr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1290832481l/930193._SY75_.jpg|2532718]--are all under his own name. He Who Whispers is not quite on that level. But it comes real close.
The first indicator of this may be that the only murder in the novel happens six years before the start of the story. Miles Hammond, hit with the twin blows of an eighteen-month wartime illness and news of the death of his uncle, returns to England with the end of World War II, still weak but heartened by an invitation to a meeting of the Murder Club, a small group of well-known Londoners who enjoy stories of cryptic murders and unexplained horrors. It is there that Miles learns from a visiting professor--the guest speaker--the story of an English family living in rural France and the impossible murder of its patriarch. At the center of the turmoil leading up to his mysterious death is a specifically-imported English secretary, a woman who is promptly labeled at best wanton and at worst something considerably more evil. Coincidentally it is the same woman Miles is scheduled to interview the next day to catalogue his uncle’s enormous, unwieldy library; a coincidence made more palatable by the time period in which the novel takes place. The same circumstances that allowed Miles to come home, the end of the war, also allowed for her repatriation from France, thus making her the only qualified person for the employment agency to offer him. Miles hires her in spite of her history (or maybe because of it) and along with his sister--they are co-inheritors--they travel to their rural estate, where the past intrudes on the present with frightening results.
Once the story shifts to this secluded location, as with the best of Carr, the reader is hooked. As with any Carr, though, two areas of frustration also follow. The first is that when the detective, in this case Dr. Gideon Fell, is about to explain some piece of the puzzle, an interruption will occur and he will not get back to that revelation until the end of the book. In He Who Whispers it is of little importance, as the matters in question pale beside more pressing difficulties that need attending. The second frustration comes with the interior monologue of the viewpoint character. Carr was a master at setting a scene, particularly if it was gothic in nature--sometimes to the point of creating an almost supernatural mood--though he could also handle poolside in broad daylight with equal ease. He ran into trouble when the narrative moved from exterior description to that of sharing a character’s experiences. I understand the structural reason Carr wrote these thoughts in such detail that they often overwhelmed the drama. This character’s purpose in the mystery was to misinterpret the clues and mislead the reader. If he were to lapse into such detail only then, it would be seen though immediately. The alternative, the choice Carr felt he had to make, was to subject the reader to an overabundance of shock, regret, anguish and self-doubt; so much so that we often find ourselves screaming, “Shut up already.” Eventually we realize that we can shut him up by just dropping down to the next line of dialogue. If what you read makes no sense, go back to where you were and trudge your way through.
With He Who Whispers you are hooked anyway and minor frustrations are a small price to pay. Even figuring out who was behind it all--only the second time I've been able to do so in over fifty Carr novels read--is not a detriment. Also, I can’t take much pride in that because
Spoiler
this is where the mystery took a back seat to the story. For the story to retain its impact it had to keep the number of characters to an important minimum. Once the culprit in the past was identified, there could only be one person responsible for the troubles in the present. Beside which,It’s an odd thing being a fan of John Dickson Carr. Regarding the mystery by itself, I prefer his work as Carter Dickson. The solutions are not as complicated. But the true classic of the genre--[b:The Three Coffins|498490|The Three Coffins (Dr. Gideon Fell, #6)|John Dickson Carr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1260649785l/498490._SY75_.jpg|435889], the aforementioned Arabian Nights, [b:The Crooked Hinge|930193|The Crooked Hinge (Dr. Gideon Fell, #8)|John Dickson Carr|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1290832481l/930193._SY75_.jpg|2532718]--are all under his own name. He Who Whispers is not quite on that level. But it comes real close.