Books in Brief: Deadly Hall

Deadly Hall, by John Dickson Carr (Harper, $6.95). Deadly Hall is the old maestro’s latest, as well as his third criminological expedition to a bygone New Orleans. Carr has devised some business about a manor house transported from England to New Orleans, complete with “killer staircase.” Once again, we encounter those familiar Carr trademarks—the “impossible” murder, the sense of gothic menace, lightened by liberal splashes of local color and a high sense of comedy. One may add, though, that the longer Carr writes, the more one appreciates him. And not just as plotter and stylist, but also as the nearest thing to a moralist currently practicing the noble art of literary detection. Which scarcely is to set him down in the Puritan camp. Carr hates all Puritans and blue-noses. What he is, instead, is an unapologetic Tory—an old-fashioned champion of gentility, taste, standards and romance.

WM

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W. Murchison Jr.

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Deadly Hall, by John Dickson Carr (Harper, $6.95). Deadly Hall is the old maestro’s latest, as well as his third criminological expedition to a bygone New Orleans. Carr has devised some business about a manor house transported from England to New Orleans, complete with “killer staircase.” Once again, we encounter those familiar Carr trademarks—the “impossible” murder, the sense of gothic menace, lightened by liberal splashes of local color and a high sense of comedy. One may add, though, that the longer Carr writes, the more one appreciates him. And not just as plotter and stylist, but also as the nearest thing to a moralist currently practicing the noble art of literary detection. Which scarcely is to set him down in the Puritan camp. Carr hates all Puritans and blue-noses. What he is, instead, is an unapologetic Tory—an old-fashioned champion of gentility, taste, standards and romance.