The Plague Court Murders: A Sir Henry Merrivale Mystery

...aka Sir Henry Merrivale, aka "The Maestro," aka "Mycroft," aka "The Old Man," among other nicknames. This book is the first featuring one of Carter Dickson/ John Dickson Carr's two major detectives (the other being Gideon Fell.) H.M. is cranky, lazy, rude, and brilliant. Often he is extremely funny as well, though more so in the later books in the series. He is like a more aggressive Nero Wolfe, or a fatter and more gregarious Sherlock Holmes--and his brilliance at unraveling the complex mysteries that Carr/Dickson was so great at creating might surpass both of those. This book sets up a very typical, and typically chilling and fascinating, Carr/ Dickson murder puzzle: a crooked creator of seances is found gruesomely murdered in a locked room, and all signs point to a ghost that is reputed to haunt the location in question. Then another associate of the murdered man dies under bizarre circumstances, and another goes missing...and much to his annoyance H.M. is the only one who stands a chance at untangling the sordid affair. Carr/Dickson books generally combine a sinister semi-supernatural atmosphere, a complex puzzle, bawdy humor, and some romantic element, though never in quite the same way. The Plague Court Murders is unique in Dickson's output in what we ultimately learn is the central romantic relationship in the book, and the surprising yet appropriate resolution of that storyline...but to say more and risk giving away one of this fine book's many, many surprises would be criminal.