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gjamesmoses 's review for:
The Lost Gallows
by John Dickson Carr
The third Bencolin novel, and John Dickson Carr's third novel, period. I'm a fan of Carr, and my two-star rating doesn't mean there's nothing in this book to like. There's some great atmosphere, and the start of the novel, featuring a car chase in which the driver of one of the cars is already dead, certainly grabs the attention.
But Carr is still finding his feet, and too much of this novel frustrated me for me to recommend it. Rather than simply unmask the killer, for example, Bencolin lays a trap that takes multiple chapters to carry out, is obviously pointless (his suggestion that the killer will not be convicted if not caught in the act cannot possibly be taken seriously, given everything that's already occurred by then), and is obviously kind of goofy; the narrator stumbling around in the dark because the Great Detective didn't bother to tell him the actual plan makes everyone look incompetent, more than anything else. Carr will never entirely buck his habit of including so much atmosphere in his books that it feels like it's getting in the way, but this is as bad as I've seen him. Other issues as well; I'm not sure if Carr ever mastered romance, but he'd certainly improve on the tedium of his attempts at it here. His character-work will also improve, and needs improvement; compared to Kenwood Blake, for example, Marle is kind of a dud, and both HM and Gideon Fell would be given far more effective police foils than the hapless Talbot of this novel.
I'm extremely grateful that British Crime Classics is making Carr's novels available again, but this isn't where I'd start with Carr, and unless you're a fan and curious about his origins, it's not one that I'd recommend, period.
But Carr is still finding his feet, and too much of this novel frustrated me for me to recommend it. Rather than simply unmask the killer, for example, Bencolin lays a trap that takes multiple chapters to carry out, is obviously pointless (his suggestion that the killer will not be convicted if not caught in the act cannot possibly be taken seriously, given everything that's already occurred by then), and is obviously kind of goofy; the narrator stumbling around in the dark because the Great Detective didn't bother to tell him the actual plan makes everyone look incompetent, more than anything else. Carr will never entirely buck his habit of including so much atmosphere in his books that it feels like it's getting in the way, but this is as bad as I've seen him. Other issues as well; I'm not sure if Carr ever mastered romance, but he'd certainly improve on the tedium of his attempts at it here. His character-work will also improve, and needs improvement; compared to Kenwood Blake, for example, Marle is kind of a dud, and both HM and Gideon Fell would be given far more effective police foils than the hapless Talbot of this novel.
I'm extremely grateful that British Crime Classics is making Carr's novels available again, but this isn't where I'd start with Carr, and unless you're a fan and curious about his origins, it's not one that I'd recommend, period.