The Emperor's Snuff-Box

Rating:
Summary: Foul play
Review: A respectable elderly gentlemen was murdered in his study, the young woman in the house across the street became a convenient suspect due to various coincidences. While the police and the judge determined to put her neck into the noose, a famous psychologist/criminologist cleared her and exposed the real murderer.

While nowhere in the novel Carr intended to make readers seriously doubt the woman's innocence, curiously the always-so-marvellous detective seemed perfectly willing to lower himself to the league of always-so-dumb police by not questioning the idea that a woman would go to a house across the street to commit a murder in her PAJAMA AND DRESSING GOWN, instead, our great detective, savior of our beautiful heroine, believed her story and acted on her side only because of his intuition (which, sadly, is not even conventionally related to the male sex).

Yet the worst thing is the foul play. Carr deliberately put the words into the detective's mouth that it was a domestic muder committed under a fit of rage, and that the woman was delibrately framed in the most infamous scheme (mind you, already a contradiction), while finally none of these turned out to be true.

Rating:
Summary: More atmospheric than most Carrs
Review: Better atmosphere than many of his books, but not quite the top drawer puzzle as in many of his other books.

Rating:
Summary: A book for those who hate JDC... and those who like him
Review: This is an unusual Carr one meet in "The Emperor's Snuff-Box". No locked room or any other kind of impossible crime here. No Gideon Fell or Henry Merrivale. "Snuff-Box" is a stand-alone, one of those experimental books that Carr attempted now and then. And one of his very masterpieces.
I doubt that there are some people who don't like JDC. But if such people exist, they have to read this book at once: it will have their eyes open. Carr creates fully-drawn characters you won't forget, such as Eve Neill, Ned Atwood, Toby Lawes or Dermot Kinross. He also provides a touching love story, and some really moving scenes, yet humor is never absent. Look at the ending, one of Carr's best ones. Atmosphere is as well done as usual. And the plot... Ah, that plot! Misdirection of the finest sort, that's all I can say. Carr is the all-time greatest mystery writer, and here's another proof. Read it!

Rating:
Summary: A book for those who hate JDC... and those who like him
Review: This is an unusual Carr one meet in "The Emperor's Snuff-Box". No locked room or any other kind of impossible crime here. No Gideon Fell or Henry Merrivale. "Snuff-Box" is a stand-alone, one of those experimental books that Carr attempted now and then. And one of his very masterpieces.
I doubt that there are some people who don't like JDC. But if such people exist, they have to read this book at once: it will have their eyes open. Carr creates fully-drawn characters you won't forget, such as Eve Neill, Ned Atwood, Toby Lawes or Dermot Kinross. He also provides a touching love story, and some really moving scenes, yet humor is never absent. Look at the ending, one of Carr's best ones. Atmosphere is as well done as usual. And the plot... Ah, that plot! Misdirection of the finest sort, that's all I can say. Carr is the all-time greatest mystery writer, and here's another proof. Read it!