John Dickson Carr – författare

”Ytterst få deckare överraskar mig numera, men mr Carrs gör det alltid.”Agatha Christie 

” En av mina favoriter … Håller en på halster hela vägen.” Lotta Olsson P4 Extra

Svart sabbat från 1937 ligger på många listor över världens bästa deckare. Den som läser ända till det sensationella, tvetydiga slutet förstår varför. Men även början är dramatisk: Förläggaren Edward Stevens sitter på tåget hem till sin fru och bläddrar i ett manus. Plötsligt stöter han på en bild där med bildtexten: ”Marie D’Aubray, halshuggen för mord 1861.” Det är ett foto på hans fru. 

Därmed släpps en kedja av bisarra händelser lös och som blir desto mörkare genom de nervkittlande övernaturligheterna och den skrämmande avsaknaden av en trygg detektiv som vi vet kommer lösa fallet. 

I Rolf Wieslers klassiska översättning och med ett efterord av Kristoffer Leandoer.

One October night in the middle of the twentieth century Detective Inspector John Cheviot got into a taxi, bound for New Scotland Yard. When he stepped out it was from a horse-drawn cab, the year was 1829, and a beautiful woman was beckoning him in front of Old Scotland Yard. There were things Cheviot remembered but couldn''t use - like how to analyse fingerprints; and things he didn''t know that he could have used - like how advanced his romance with Lady Flora really was. And there wasn''t even time to learn, because in the midst of helping Robert Peel establish the respectability and competence of his new police force, Cheviot suddenly finds himself and his lady accused of cruel murder.

The most famous of all locked-room mysteries - a classic in the crime genre.''The first deadly walking of the hollow man took place when the side streets of London were quiet with snow and the three coffins of the prophecy were filled at last...''The murderer of Dr Grimauld walked through a locked door, shot his victim and vanished. He killed his second victim in the middle of an empty street, with watchers at each end, yet nobody saw him, and he left no footprints in the snow.And so it is up to the irrepressible, larger-than-life Dr Gideon Fell to solve this most famous and taxing of locked-room mysteries.

In the shadowy hallway of clockmaker Johannes Carver''s house a policeman is found murdered, the arrow-tipped minute hand of an antique clock embedded in his neck.For Dr Gideon Fell this is the only case that has ever really frightened him, and before he can solve it he must find answers to some seemingly impossible questions: why was Calvin Boscombe standing near the corpse with a silencer on his gun? Who locked the attic door? And what has become of the sixteenth-century death-watch?

A thief is loose aboard HMS Queen Victoria, and four amateur detectives are hell-bent on tracking him down. Unprepared for the evidence that their sleuthing activities will uncover - a reel of compromising film, a blood-soaked stateroom bunk, a lethally sharp razor and an emerald elephant - they find themselves sinking deeper into misadventure and pandemonium. But when the boat arrives in Southampton harbour, another passenger, mystery writer Henry Morgan, calls in the famous Dr Gideon Fell - who identifies sixteen clues that lead him to the murderer.

Christopher Kent, worth a quarter of a million pounds yet without a penny in his pocket, stands hungrily in Piccadilly one snowy morning, looking up at the huge hotel, when a piece of card bearing a number floats down to him. He enters and is served with breakfast, giving the waiter the room number. Then an unlucky chance compels him to go up to room 707. Inside a woman lies murdered in a trunk.Kent needs to prove his innocence fast, and calls in Dr Gideon Fell to investigate - but there''s been another murder, and Dr Fell must figure out what connects them in order to find the guilty party.

Three guests at Martin Clarke''s weekend party swore they saw the pistol lifted from the wall, levelled and shot. Yet no hand held it. It couldn''t have happened ... but there was a dead body on the floor to prove that it had.For the victim, it was far too late for a doctor. To unmask the clever murderer, however, a house visit by Dr Gideon Fell is just what the doctor ordered. But the killer still somehow avoids taking his medicine - until Fell vows to prescribe his own remedy for bringing the murderer to justice.