Seeing Is Believing

Sir Henry Merrivale #12

by Carter Dickson

When the Fanes treat their dinner guests to a hypnotist's parlor act that unexpectedly ends in murder, the cantankerous Sir Henry Merrivale returns to distinguish reality from suggested illusion

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, American

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Carter Dickson is a pen name of writer John Dickson Carr.

Reviews

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carr/Dickson is the master of the locked room and it must be hard to come up with new ways to make it work, but I have to admit, this is kind of cheating. However, it is fun to read and very humorous as HM relates incidents of his childhood for an autobiography.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not reading the Merrivale's in any particular order and this particular one always tended get shoved further down my TBR list.
Something about the plot with it's rubber daggers and hypnotism just didn't appeal to me,but i finally
gave in and thought i'd give it a shot.
And i have to say i was pleasantly surprised!
For me a Dickson Carr novel will fall or stand on the strength of its locked room/impossible crime scenario.
But even though the solution to the impossible crime is quite dissapointing in its denouement,the rest of the book makes up for it.
It has the usual elements we expect,star crossed lovers,strange incidents,which all move along at an enjoyable pace.
Carr's novels sometimes sag a little towards the middle,leading up to the big reveal,but this was a real page turner.
Recommended!

[Jan Sørensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another extremely funny and lovely H.M. book, set in cheltenham, where HM is about to write his memoirs to the horror of all he has ever met. Fottunately murder happens, and (once again) an impossible one. As always extremely wellwritten and easy to read. Yes I should give it 5 not 4 stars. I have read it 3-4 times and will probably read it several more times even if I already know the murderer and the plot. That is quality!

[Jameson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, SIB lacked atmosphere. I like my JDCs dripping in menace and suspense. This is more in line with his light-hearted romcom fare, which is fine, but I didn’t love the characters or the setup. Not too shabby but I doubt I’ll re-read this one. (For the record, I’m an ‘admitted’ fan of his early trick.)

[Calum Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

B+

[Bihter İyidir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kapalı oda polisiyelerini seviyorum ve üstüne üstlük kitabı 1945 türkçe baskısıyla okudum. Kitabın dönemine ve ruhuna öyle uygun ki dil, çok zekice bir polisiye kurgusu olmasa da okurken çok keyif aldım.
“Divanın yanında bulunan küçük gece lambası mat bir ziya neşrediyordu.”

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the two weaker books by this author I’ve read recently - this, and The Skeleton in the Clock - this is the one where I round up from 3.5 stars, instead of down. It’s tough to penalize a whodunit, maybe especially an “impossible crime” novel, that contains one underwhelming aspect to the reveal, but the getting there was so damn entertaining. This and The Skeleton in the Clock both, IMO, have a fairly unimpressive bolt - a crucial bolt at the heart of- amid the nuts and bolts of how the crime was worked. I would even say that The Skeleton in the Clock is less gimmicky or underwhelming than Seeing is Believing. So by that standard alone, you would think I might round up when it comes to Skeleton, and down when it comes to Seeing is Believing.

But Seeing is Believing is much more cohesive. The parts stick together very well; The Skeleton in the Clock, especially during reflection after completion, seems rather scattered and jumbled. Seeing is Believing is one whole thing, moving forward, staying creepy, building upon itself as earlier moves to later. And I’ll forgive a piece of meh in the reveal because I had such a good time getting there. It’s top-rated Carr/Dickson, until it isn’t, for a few paragraphs.

I am biased. I may be sick of sleepwalking, twins, amnesia, and wrongfully-identified corpses - but you can always lob anything to do with HYPNOTISM at me - in a whodunit, or spy novel, or Horror story - until the HypnoToad orders the cows to come home quacking like ducks. This novel starts with a brutal death during a hypnosis demonstration gone pear-shaped; the weapon was supposed to be a harmless toy, and no one hypnotized should be capable of doing an act, under hypnosis, that their nature would not allow them to do in real life. These assumptions prove not to be enough to keep some poor blighter from getting very dead. I love everything to do with hypnotism here - square one for the reader and Merrivale is trying to figure out “are we in hoax territory, here - or do we go forward with the notion that this was real hypnotism on display??”. The backstory, involving an earlier case of possible strangulation and a lot of mum’s the word on that sticky issue, has to be weighed and assessed - why is that lurking just behind the more recent lethal event…events?

Not his best, but I’m biased towards enthusiasm…and the author’s trademark brilliance is on display throughout, except for one tiny piece that makes sense but doesn’t compete well with some of the hidden mechanics of his best ideas.

[Rama · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a bit of a far-fetched plot in terms of executability and the instrument used to enable the murder under hypnosis.

Sir Henry Merrivale takes time to pen his memoirs using a ghost writer, who gets linked to the plot by way of friendship, circumstances and a fledgling romance. A respectable-but-shady lawyer, a moocher uncle, a friend of the ghost writer, a wife having an affair with the friend of the ghost writer, a struck-off-the-rolls ex-medico doing hypnotism as a parlour room trick, the object of the ghost writer's romance and a couple of maids form the characters on whom suspicions can be focused.

But then the conjurer/trickster connections of some of 'em narrow down the list so much that John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson here sits comfortably in the land of the generic.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ha ha this man made a joke about a whole new ethnic stereotype!"

Later--

"Oh, damn, it was the lynchpin of the mystery."

This book was written in 1941 and it was DOING SO WELL right up until the end. Lord, as they say, love a duck.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. I think this is the third H.M. mystery I've read so far and I'd rank it as my number 2 of the three. Bonus points for the extremely comical just desserts which I won't elaborate on at all, you're welcome.

[Martina Sartor · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Io sono il vecchio maestro e non permetto che nessun criminale da strapazzo lo dimentichi."
Anche in questa storia Sir Henry Merrivale, il grande Vecchio, dà il meglio di sé. Trama ottimamente costruita e soluzione ben congegnata, non troppo artificiosa (cosa che a volte mi irrita nei gialli di Carr).

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid mid-range Merrivale. Murder under hypnosis, where we know who the killer is yet a room full of witnesses can swear there was no way the murder weapon could have been switched so as to allow the crime to happen.
A tricky puzzle that turns out to be simple enough in its execution and overall an enjoyable outing for HM and Masters.

[Keith Boynton · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a puzzle, not very satisfying – and not very fair-play – but you get a surfeit of likable characters, some good Merrivale humor (as he dictates his memoirs), and two love stories for the price of one.

[Carsten Nielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction and set-up is superb. Parts of the solution, in particular the motivation for the murder, is ingenious. The mechanics of how the murder weapon was replaced? Not up to JCRs usual standard.

[Gabriele Crescenzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Altro delitto impossibile per H.M. Molto scorrevole il romanzo e piacevole l'ironia del Vecchio. Ben congegnata la soluzione, molto semplice e ingegnosa.

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5 4 star for the humor, the awesome setup, and the nicely written suspense. 1 star for a part that I consider pretty blatant cheating on the part of the author and antisemitism.

[Juan Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un final esperado, pistas ocultas no disponibles para el lector convierten a este libro en uno de los más flojos de Carter Dickson en la cronología de los misterios de H.M.

[Tugbadursun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitabın çok bir edebi değeri yok ama çok akıcı. Merak duygusu ile hemen okuyorsunuz.

[SuedePuzzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easily worth 4 stars, but could have been a 5-star book if the author had played more fair with the solution and avoided a unncessary antisemitic joke.

[Alice Horoshev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the scene with the downpour and half brick. Great characters as always 👌

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Supposedly a weak Merivale but very gripping nonetheless . The solution may not be exactly spellbinding and I have my doubts whether it can work in real world ,but that should not stop one from enjoying a very gripping and tense mystery . There are those situations where your doubts will swing between different suspects as each chapter ends apart from the central mystery of how & why ...
Thoroughly enjoyable ...

[Shilpashree · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a listener and I found this book quite interesting.

[March · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast-moving, entertaining, but rather ludicrous Merrivale from Carr's best period: hypnotism is played straight, a character is named Richard Rich, and the motivations and actions of several characters (especially the victim's wife) are absurd. Still, the solution generally plays fair as to who and how, although the opening paragraphs use a crude trick of misdirection that, if not cheating, walks right up to the line, and as the late Grobius Shortling remarked on his Carr blog, the culprit was very lucky not to be caught in the act doing this "risible thing."

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always found the Carter Dickson novels inferior to the John Dickson Carr novels--with a few early exceptions. The atmosphere in this one is the usual excellent "impending calamity" thing Carr did so well. But the "comedy" antics of Henry Merivale are tedious and dated. The solution in this instance is a bit more than unlikely, and I had guessed the villain halfway through. Not a great entry in the series, but not a complete clunker either.

[Irfan Nurhadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plotnya bagus, wrap-up nya kurang tapi.

[icaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sir Henry Merrivale è sempre uno spasso. I gialli di Carr sono quelli che sono: una scontata sicurezza per qualche ora di placido e annoiato svago.

[audiolibro]

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Carr.