Nine and Death Makes Ten

John Dickson Carr excelled at creating "impossible" crimes and then explaining how they occurred. To enjoy Carr's mysteries, you must like puzzles that have intricate solutions, and not mind that a few aspects may be difficult to follow. These mysteries were written in the 1930s to 1950s, so there may be an occasional clue that doesn't hold up in today's CSI era. Though some will disagree, Carr's most entertaining mysteries are those that feature Sir Henry Merrivale (written under the name Carter Dickson). NINE--AND DEATH MAKES TEN is the 11th Henry Merrivale mystery, and a very good one. The location is unusual: a ship with a few passengers going from the U.S. to England at the beginning of World War II. The solution is clever, surprising, and logical, though you have to forgive one clue about fingerprints that probably doesn't work when judged by modern standards. (Believing it could happen that way makes the story much more fun.) And the last sentence has an emotional impact given when this story was written (1940).

As others have noted, the worst part about the book is the so-called "impossible crime" aspect. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there were many other ways in which the killer could have shifted suspicion onto the person he was "framing" rather than go in for this method of leaving fingerprints which seems completely bogus. Can people actually change their fingerprints at will? Maybe some old textbook says so, but the mind doesn't take it in, not completely, and that's the problem with the book. Otherwise the plotting is brilliant, although nowadays readers will wonder why Mrs Zia Bey, if she is in such an interesting condition, gets so drunk and makes such an obvious play for the reporter. The Nazi spy angle, a little dated, but as it turns out, it is not essential.

Sir Henry Merrivale and eight other passengers find themselves on a British liner carrying munitions through enemy waters...not a good situation to begin with. But when not one, but two violent murders occur on-board, it's clear that a peaceful, idyllic boat ride is the last thing to be found on this particular excursion. This time, the case involves not a locked room but a set of bloody fingerprints--fingerprints that can't be traced to anyone on board.Dickson's characterization is fuller than usual; you know, of course, that the two main characters, Max and Valerie, are bound to end up together, so it's all the more enjoyable to observe their initial contempt for each other. I love Dickson's prose style; he's a master of quick description and atmosphere, and the pace of the story is perfect--it moves briskly toward its startling wrap-up, with plenty of comic relief in between.Oddly enough, the one thing I didn't buy about NINE--AND DEATH MAKES TEN was the solution (usually the most satisfying part of a Carr/Dickson novel). The manner in which the fingerprints were "faked" may or may not be plausible, I don't know--but either way, it's a real let-down. Even if the device WOULD work, it's a far cry from the ingenuity of THE JUDAS WINDOW (the best of the Merrivales, and probably the best of Carr/Dickson, period). Still, the rest of the plot is deliciously complex and twisted, especially regarding the identity of the murderer--let's just say that few writers are as good as Dickson at devising new ways of pulling the rug out from under the reader. A very good mystery; doesn't even come close to his best work, but then again, not a lot of stuff does.

I have read quite a few books by John Dickson Carr -- herewriting under his pen name, Dickson Carr. I have seldom beendisappointed.This book was very gripping because it pulls at the reader with two sources of tension. First, a murderer is loose on a ship at sea. Second, a converted ocean liner is crossing the north Atlantic in waters infested with German U-boats -- during World War II.Let's start with this converted passenger liner. It has been pressed into service in 1940 to convey half a million lb. of munitions to Great Britain-- bombs, artillery shells, explosives. To save time, the liner will be crossing the north Atlantic route through waters with the most intense concentration of German U-boats. In the meanwhile . . . only nine passengers ship aboard the liner. All have reasons for taking such grave risks. A terribly sexy woman seems to spend part of her time hoarding secrets, the other part of her time trying to have love affairs. When she is murdered, the story really begins.On the spooky decks of this largely deserted liner, a deadly killer stalks. Is he a madman? Is he a Nazi spy? In the meanwhile, the liner hurtles through the pitch dark of the north Atlantic, ready at any time for a torpedo hit to turn her into a big "roman candle."The detective-- Sir Henry Merrivale -- emerges to restore calm to the terrified passengers, and to solve a really inventive and diabolical murder.Yes, the murderer is satisfyingly evil. Yes, the watch spots a torpedo track arcing through the sea at the big liner! Lastly, the book is well written. Carr's a master of the language. There's a waxing love affair between the narrator -- one of the passengers -- and a mysterious and sexy young woman. This budding passion tends to offer a little relief from the book's numbing tension. You come to like the characters, and begin to care if they make England or not.About all the tension that can be packed into a book was packed into this one. I knocked the whole book off in a couple of days. I couldn't stop!