The Crooked Hinge

John Dickson Carr's mysteries are fantastic. This one in particular. In Farnleigh Close in England lived Sir. John Fairleigh and his wife, Molly. But, wait a minute, was he the real Sir John Fairleigh? A man who claims to be the true Farnleigh comes to see Sir John, with his lawyer and wants to lay claim to the estate. Dr. Gideon Fell of Scotland Yard is called in to try to determine who is who. then many bizarre events unfold and to put it mildly left me scared to death. I read this at night and had to turn all the lights on. I know i oculd have waited til the next day in the light of day but this book was such a chiller I could not put it down.

John Dickson Carr's popular mystery, The Crooked Hinge (1938), is often found on lists of the greatest classics of detective fiction. Nonetheless, the solution is bizarre, Byzantine, and implausible to the extreme - and thus a rather typical Carr explanation to an impossible murder. The Crooked Hinge is the eighth novel featuring Carr's popular investigator, the corpulent lexicographer, Dr. Gideon Fell. The setting is the manor Farnleigh Close near Mallingford village in Kent. The year is 1937 or 1938. The baronet, Sir John Farnleigh, is accused of being an impostor, a masquerader, and a fraud. The challenger claims that he himself is the actual Sir John Farnleigh, and that the fraudulent Farnleigh had left him as a young boy for dead years ago on the Titanic. A contentious evening ends unexpectedly in death. Was it suicide or murder? And is the true Sir John Farnleigh now alive or dead? John Farleigh is found face down in a shallow pool with his throat slashed. Independent witnesses claim that no one was near him. No weapon was found. Complicating matters, a thumbograph, an early fingerprint record that would have identified the true Sir John Farleigh, was stolen during the confusion. As the investigation proceeds, supernatural elements intrude, that is, rumors of a local witches coven as well the appearance of a repulsive, hag-like, mechanical contraption - an eighteen century automaton - that had been locked away in an attic for many years. In keeping with the rules of a Golden Age mystery, Carr's solutions do not rely on supernatural events, but he does enjoy creating a suspenseful atmosphere that clearly hints at the supernatural. The Crooked Hinge was reissued in 1976 in hardback (ISBN 0891630260) by The Mystery Library, a publication of the University of California, San Diego Press. The introduction and end notes by Robert Briney are interesting, but what makes this edition valuable is its extensive checklist of the numerous novels and short stories by John Dickson Carr (as well as those published under his byline, Carter Dickson). I always have difficulty ranking John Dickson Carr's mysteries. I thoroughly enjoy the stories, but the solutions are often so convoluted as to be implausible. And yet, I always come back for more. The Crooked Hinge is among Carr's best, along with The Burning Court and The Three Coffins (also titled The Hollow Man).

It's honestly suspenseful, with little of the tedious interruptions that slow down the story in later books. It's scary, too, really frightening when Brian looks out the window and finds the automaton sitting balefully in the middle of Madeleine's garden. Best of all, the ending is a surprise, a shocker. Often when i read Carr I feel that he's been so busy putting together an impossible crime that he allows "any old suspect" to be the killer, but here THE CROOKED HINGE has an almost Agatha Christie feel, it is really the "least likely suspect" who commits the crime. Does Carr play fair with the reader? He may think so, but I don't. For example, how many times does Dr Fell assure Brian and the constabulary that "only one person" was responsible for all of the crimes? And then, the final chapter tells a very different story, doesn't it? (Fell says it was necessary to prevaricate in order to smoke out the more heinous of the killers. But that isn't playing fair, if you ask me.) One note that may amuse, during the flashback sequences, during the struggle of the two John Farnleighs during the sinking of the doomed TITANIC, I kept waiting for Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet to float through and say hi, or perhaps to rescue our heroes from their watery fate. The writing of THE CROOKED HINGE is so good that we forget that the whole premise of the book depends on an amazing, unbuyable coincidence, that one of the two John Farnleighs would consult the other on a professional errand without realizing who he was? No way, I don't think so! (I don't think I've spoiled anything by divulging that much.) Carr's mysteries are always subtle, a disturbance of the atmosphere.

This mystery stars John Dickson Carr's gargantuan, shovel-hatted detective, Dr. Gideon Fell and takes place in England between the world wars. All of the characters act suspiciously, including the true and false heir to the extensive Farnleigh estate (and the title that goes with it), their two lawyers, the butler, Lady Farnleigh, and assorted family friends. The reader has many reasons to suspect each character in turn after the murder (or was it suicide?) of one of the two competing heirs. The only person who might be able to tell whether the true John Farnleigh died or still lives is his tutor, Murray who happens to have taken a thumb-o-graph of young John before he was sent away to America to live with a distant relative. John wasn't the heir, but the black sheep of the family when he was packed off to Colorado via the spanking, new ocean liner, 'Titanic.' He was thought to have died when his ship sank on her maiden voyage, but after his older brother dies without issue, not one but two John Farnleighs show up within a year of each other to claim the family estate and title. The first one to appear marries John's childhood sweetheart and settles down to manage Farnleigh. Then up pops John Farnleigh #2, one of the competing heirs dies, and someone steals Murray's thumb-o-graph. The reader is beset with conflicting stories and clues, when Dr. Fell finally lumbers onto the scene with his shovel-hat, swirling cape, and crutch-headed cane. He figures out who killed whom right away, but the reader is left grasping at hints (some of them pretty darn subtle - I think Carr cheats a little on this mystery) until the final denouement, which involves that fateful night when the 'Titanic' went down. As always with this author, the eerie, suffocating atmosphere surrounding a mysterious death is tinged with an aura of the supernatural. "The Crooked Hinge" features devil worship and a horrible old eighteenth-century automaton called, 'The Golden Hag.' Her sinister appearances alone make this a novel worth savoring, and Carr also provides a meticulously plotted mystery (although I could do without a few of his great detective's tics and his refusal to blab out the name of the murderer as soon as he figures out whodunit. And what the dickens is a shovel-hat?)

This book has been described by the English writer, Martin Amis a not only a classic of the English detective novels, but a book of great merit in its own right. It is set in the Thirties, in an English country house, and brings together the impossible murder, the sinking of the Titanic, and an eighteenth century automaton. The atmosphere was described by the New York Times as "A masterpiece of eerie skill." It is Gideon Fell at the height of his deductive powers, against the nostalgic background of a golden Kent summer. Amis wrote, "The explanation is simple and entirely plausible, but you would just not think of it."