hannahstohelit 's review for:

He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr

4.25

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REREAD: 

I want to give this one credit for having one of my favorite resolutions to a locked room mystery, which is always a classic whenever I see it. I will take away a bit of credit because for the life of me I can't figure out the point of

having Fay Seton be a sex maniac or whatever, especially if it's acknowledged that Harry lied in his slander of her on purpose

; it doesn't really add anything to the story and just comes across weird. The first time I read this I hated the ending- this time around I liked it a lot.  I do think it has a few too many of some of the tropes that he uses a bit too often, but they were fun so whatever.

There is one issue I have with the overall plot though-

how did Stephen/Harry not realize that the woman he was attacking was Marion rather than Fay? I mean, in the first place his plot seems to have been way too elaborate- why not just pretend to have Fay kill herself from the trauma or because she's creepy or whatever? That would also make it much more realistic that he'd get the wrong person bc he'd have much less physical contact with them. But instead the scheme Fell describes is one that would take a lot of hands on activity and surely at SOME point Stephen/Harry would be able to tell the difference between these two women who he'd surely physically interacted with enough to tell apart. The absolute only reason I can think of for the elaborate and improbable scheme is to prevent Marion from being actually killed, though as she never really returns I can't really see the point

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