The Red Right Hand

by Joel Townsley Rogers

Dr. Harry Riddle's first problem was the whereabouts of the grotesque hitchhiker who had vanished after killing Innis St. Erme. The second was what he did with St. Erme's missing right hand. Riddle's investigation reaches into the very core of madness, but it takes one further, horrific turn when he himself becomes implicated in the serial killer's trail of murders. Soon to be a major motion picture.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Classics, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, American

191 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Joel Townsley Rogers, (1896-1984), is best remembered today for his mystery novels such as “The Red Right Hand” and “Once in A Red Moon.” But beginning in the early 1920s, he was a prolific writer of short stories, contributing regularly to the booming all-fiction pulp magazine field, appearing in such titles as Adventure, Short Stories, and Everybody’s. When tales of the Great War became the rage, and aviation excitement grabbed reader interest, Rogers directed his fiction to the air war markets with numerous stories written for Wings, Air Stories, Air War, War Stories, War Novels and Flying Stories among others. By the 1930s, he was selling to the better paying pulp markets of Argosy and All-American Fiction and quickly transitioned into the detective field with sales to Detective Fiction Weekly, Detective Tales, Detective Book Magazines, and New Detective. After World War II, Rogers continued selling fiction to such slick market magazines as The Saturday Evening Post and turning out new mystery shorts for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His final novel, The Stopped Clock, appeared in 1958.

Reviews

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

like a 4.5 rounded up
full post here: http://www.crimesegments.com/2020/07/...

It's very likely that not everyone will take such pleasure in reading this book as I obviously have, but I'm always genuinely thrilled when I find something not only as out of the box as this novel is, but also as puzzling as this one.

Originally published in 1945, The Red Right Hand begins with our narrator puzzling over a number of "baffling aspects" of the story that we are about to read, starting with how it was that he completely missed a car that had to have been

"so close that its door latches must have almost scraped me, and the pebbles shot out by its streaking tires have flicked against my ankles, and the killer's grinning face behind the wheel been within an arm's length of my own as he shot by?"

Was there, asks Dr. Henry N. Riddle,

"something impossible about that rushing car, about its red-eyed sawed-off little driver and its dead passenger that caused me to miss it complete?"

But the "most important" thing "in all the dark mystery of tonight," is the question that opens this book as he ponders

"how that ugly little auburn-haired red-eyed man, with his torn ear and his sharp dog-pointed teeth, with his twisted corkscrew legs and his truncated height, and all the other extraordinary details about him, could have got away and vanished so completely from the face of the countryside after killing Inis St. Erme."

That is not a spoiler; the back-cover blurb already lets you know that St. Erme is dead at the beginning of the first paragraph. But you'd never guess anything from that blurb because this book takes you places you could never in a million years predict. However, to say any more about the plot of The Red Right Hand would be absolutely criminal.

I love the originality displayed here in terms of plot and especially style. I also love the weirdness. This is not just another average mystery from the 40s, to be sure; it moves away from the norm from the get-go. I've seen this book described a few times by readers as "surreal," and that's not an exaggeration-- at one point a dancer weighs in, offering advice on how to solve the many riddles nested within this case:

"You need to wear a leopard skin, a chiffon nightgown, and a feather duster on your tail, and dance the beautiful dance of the corkscrew and the bottle."

Red herrings abound, so much so that I was completely baffled; there is quite a bit of repetition as well as a number of bizarre coincidences that run throughout this novel, two elements I normally detest and yet, somehow it all seems necessary here and more importantly, it all works. As one of the policemen says toward the end of this book, "... it was a pretty good play, as criminal plays go."

I couldn't agree more.

very highly highly recommended

[Dfordoom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joel Townsley Rogers was a prolific writer of short stories in various genres, but he wrote only four novels, the best-known being his 1945 mystery The Red Right Hand.

This novel is notable not so much for its plot as for the innovative (and for 1945 quite daring) method of narration. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness.

Dr Henry Riddle is the first-person narrator. He was not exactly a witness to a murder, but he was a witness to some of the events surrounding an unusual murder.

Elinor Darrie and her fiance Inis St Erme were heading for Vermont to get married. They picked up a hitchhiker, a man the investigators of the crime will come to know as Corkscrew for his unusual gait when walking. The hitchhiker apparently killed St Erme and tries to kill Elinor. He then sped off in St Erme’s car (or rather the car St Erme had borrowed from a man named Dexter in New York). The car then ran over another man, a half-Indian named John Flail. After that it ran down Mrs Wiggins’ dog.

These separate events can be pieced together to show the killer’s movements after the murder of St Erme. The odd thing is that Dr Riddle, whose car had broken down at the turn-off to the Swamp Road, should have seen the murder car, but he didn’t.

The entire book follows the thought processes of Dr Riddle as he tries to put the pieces of the puzzle together. It is an endeavour that will take him to the verge of madness.

There are several pieces of the puzzle that just won’t fit. Most worrying is his failure to see the murder car. There is simply no way he could have not seen it. But he didn’t see it. And why is St Erme’s right hand missing when the body is found? How could Dr Riddle have seen John Flail in a place where he could not have been at the time? Why was the psychiatrist and criminologist MacComerou murdered? MacComerou had come too close to the truth, but what truth? And the other murders? Riddle just can’t find any rational way to fit those pieces together.

There are obvious explanations for some of these events, but obvious explanations are not always reliable.

This is a stylistic tour-de-force. It’s a very bold and almost experimental crime novel. It’s very much in the real of psychological crime novels, of the type that writers like Jim Thompson would later pursue with much success. For 1945 it’s definitely ahead of its time, a pointer to the directions in which crime fiction would go in the 1950s.

Rogers does an excellent job in dissecting the thought processes of the narrator. The narrative jumps back and forward in time, just as anyone’s thoughts would do if they were trying to puzzle out such a mystery. The narrator keeps going back to earlier events, trying to find the weaknesses in the various theories he comes up with, trying to discover what it is that he has missed, what it is that perhaps he has misinterpreted. He knows that he has all the facts necessary to solve the crime, but the facts seem to be contradictory and ambiguous. Can he solve the crime without driving himself over the edge of insanity?

An unusual mystery, and one that deserves to be much better known. Highly recommended.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Henry N. Riddle, Jr., New York brain surgeon on the way home from a failed surgery, is forced to approach this chilling story again and again, attacking it from every angle in hopes of making sense from the improbable nightmare he’s become a part of. Young millionaire Inis St. Erme and his fiancee Elinor Darrie started off in a borrowed car to Vermont to elope, and on the way picked up a shady-looking hitchhiker known only as Doc, or “Corkscrew” because of his odd gait and twisted corduroy trousers. Later, the young couple decided to hold a sun-set picnic on a dead-end road in rural Connecticut, overlooking Dead Bridegroom’s Pond. That much is known. Also well-known is the aftermath of Corkscrew’s rampage, where he made off with the car, struck down the half-Indian John Flail, ran over the Wiggins’ St. Bernard, killed St. Erme and made off with his dismembered right hand. What Riddle can’t figure out is why. What caused this gory rampage? Why hack off St. Erme’s hand, and where did it go? And, most of all, how did he escape from a dead-end country road, when Riddle himself had the only exit blocked all evening while working on his stalled-out car?

Thus begins an ethereal thrill-ride that will make modern thrillers blanch, an elliptical take on the psychological thriller that also plays by the Golden Age mystery rules of fair play. Reading The Red Right Hand is like waking from the dreamlike haze of a concussion, only to find yourself in a chaotic nightmare where up is down and down is death and everything is working to unsettle the reader. The prose casts a beautiful spell, intoxicating the reader in lush atmospheric and a vocabulary that flaunts every inch of Rogers’ origin as a poet. The writing is a pseudo-stream-of-consciousness style that owes as much to Henry James and William Faulkner as it does to Bierce’s “Incidence at Owl Creek Bridge” and Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” And there are no chapters, so the book flows on like a torrential river; you may realize this too late, when you’re already swept into its hold and have no choice but to ride it out to the end.

The Red Right Hand is a hypnotic and illusory stew of key elements: constant repetition of motifs and themes, the power of Roger’s impressive vocabulary, a gripping opening sequence and gruesome murder, a pace both breathless and unstoppable. It is unrelenting, one of those books that you really ought not to put down until you’ve picked its bones clean and sucked out the marrow. It is a unique and brilliant experience, a thrill-ride of murder and mayhem and mystery second to none. There’s really nothing else like it out there—or if there is, please tell me about it. In the superb introduction, Martin Edwards mentions that Rogers was “appalled” that this would be the novel he is remembered by. But there are far worse books to be remembered for, and few of them are as vivid or—well, perfect, as this one. An intoxicating, ethereal thriller told in an oblique stream-of-consciousness style. One of the most unique and haunting Golden Age crime novels. Not to be missed.

Full review, and other noir/mystery reviews, on my blog.

[Carla Remy]

From 1945
I only read a quarter. There were good scenes and excellent, interesting and funny writing. This novel is described as surreal. Does that explain why I couldn't get into it? Maybe in the future I'll try it again and love it.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Red Right Hand takes its readers on a long, strange journey, very aptly described as a stream of consciousness story. A highly original mystery, it is recommended that you read it in one sitting. As there are no chapters, and the narrative is told in a non-linear fashion, I can concur that this was an ideal way to consume this book. We follow Dr. Henry Riddle Jr., perhaps one of the first unreliable narrators in detective fiction, as he tries to organize his disheveled thoughts around the kidnapping and possible murder of Inis St. Erme. Red herrings abound, but the reader is given all of the clues necessary to solve the crime(s), (at least in retrospect in my case.)
Rogers is a writer who is largely forgotten to modern audiences, but he was a highly prolific writer, particularly of short stories published in pulp magazines in the 40s and 50s. The Red Right Hand is considered his masterpiece, and without having read any of his other works, I can at least confirm that this very well could be, its that good. I would give the book 5 stars for sheer enjoyment of the read, but feel like I must deduct one star for the reliance of far too many coincidences to be wholly believable. But I would still highly recommend this book.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old favorite which I re-read periodically. It’s the only book anybody remembers by the long-forgotten Joel Townsley Rogers, who was a prolific writer of short stories for the pulps from the twenties through the forties.
It tells the tale of a single hallucinatory summer evening in rural Connecticut, where a young surgeon named Henry Riddle has his car break down on a remote road just before sundown, hikes to the first house he finds, and is drawn into a harrowing crime involving a sinister dwarfish tramp who has taken a smoke-gray Cadillac on a murderous joyride after killing its owner, a wealthy New Yorker who was eloping with a pretty secretary. The police arrive and other bodies turn up as the night deepens; Riddle begins to doubt his own sanity as it becomes apparent that he failed to see what all the witnesses agree he must have seen. The genius of the book is that it creates a powerful impression of madness and dread (Why is the corpse missing its right hand?), only to provide a perfectly logical explanation in the end. Read it on a hot summer night with your back to an open window for maximum effect. A creepy pulp classic.

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel is told from the point of view of Dr. Henry Riddle, a young surgeon who is attempting to make sense of a bizarre series of events. The events concern Elinor and Inis, a young couple who were travelling through Vermont planning to elope together. They pick up a hitchhiker whom no language is spared to describe how hideous looking he is..

a strange, twisted little man with a torn ear and sharp dog-like teeth.

His legs make him walk with a ‘corkscrew style’.

They decide to stop at the Dead Bridesgroom’s Pond for a snack and a rest, but there is a violent end as the hitchhiker seemingly kills Inis and attempts to murder his fiancée before speeding away in a car containing the corpse.
Elinor escapes and alerts Henry Riddle, who is travelling in this part of rural Vermont to visit a seriously ill man. Though Riddle has not seen the car pass. It’s just one perplexing part of a mystery that only deepens.

On publication in 1945 the San Francisco Chronicle review started with

This logical nightmare is completely undefinable and incapable of synopsis.

To me, as I am sure it did to many, make this unmissable. In fact, unorthodoxy is the key word here.
Rogers represents Riddle’s fractured chain of thought by jumping to and fro in the order of events, it is an unfocused style that works perfectly in enhancing the degree of confusion faced not only by Riddle, but also the reader. If the novel has a theme, it is that things are not always how they appear at first.

In addition, there is a perception of isolation from the rural setting which moves an already good plot, to another level - there is a killer out there on the highway somewhere, and should you encounter him, there is little chance of any help arriving anytime soon.

The tension builds along with a relentless sense of dread. And the ending delivers.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This acclaimed crime novel was less satisfying to me than it apparently is to a lot of people. The search for a murder victim and a twisted dwarf of a murderer depends far too much on coincidence and characters guessing right for me, and the author's almost faux poetic style irritated me. The story is complicated by jumps back and forth in time (not necessarily a bad thing, but one that could leave a reader confused), and the first person narrator (a brain surgeon supposedly coincidentally involved in the case) tells the story in a rather arch and deliberately obscure manner. I'm sure this was author Rogers's intent, but it, along with the weird character names, made it a bit of a slog for me. All eventually makes sense, including the names, in a manically contrived but relatively satisfying wrap-up, but it's one of those stories where one wonders at all the mechanics and is left with the question, why doesn't anyone do anything the easy way? It's a great favorite novel of several people I respect, so other readers may love it as well. I found it entertaining but overwrought.

[Randy Money · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might be the best 1940's mystery I've read not written by Raymond Chandler. Dr. Riddle, driving back to N. Y. City from a failed surgery upstate, ends up on a side-road where his borrowed car stalls at the fork from the road onto an overgrown path. Later he finds at the time he was stalled and trying to restart the car, a madman is supposed to have driven at excessive speed past him with a man in his passenger seat who looks to be dead. And yet Dr. Riddle never saw the car or either man.

The doctor becomes part of the investigation and the narrator of this book as he tries to put the pieces together, to assure himself he hasn't had a fugue or is not insane and also to figure out who the madman is who has killed at least three people while the doctor has been there. And to do so before the killer finds him and the young woman whose fiance is the presumed dead man in the car. And, when a corpse is found, why is he missing his right hand?

The narrator's tone is one of a shaken man feeling desperate, and at times the story is nearly stream-of-consciousness, but never so much so it becomes difficult to follow. As expected, the culture was different then, so some attitudes may rankle current readers. But if you can get past that, this is a tense read with a somewhat convoluted, but surprisingly plausible conclusion.

[Elevetha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not everyone's cup of tea as far as writing, narrative, and vibe goes, but I was SO taken in by the mystery, hardly anything else mattered. I had to know what happened; I stayed up much too late finishing it last night.

Red herrings and wacky occurrences abound, almost to the point of absurdity, but it makes for such a fun ride! Our narrator is highly unreliable, especially as he's relaying information as he's been given it or as he surmises. My biggest complaint was the skipping around of the timeline, which added to the confusion of what took place when, though it makes sense for it to be that way within the story. (Also I must talk about the leopard purple dress comment. What was going on there? I re-read that scene several times and still had no idea). I did think that Riddle came upon the answer to the mystery rather suddenly, but I suppose that's how it happens. Darkness, shadows, and suddenly, light.

It deserves a re-read soon, now that I can follow the trail of clues, which I am fairly confident are fair play, in retrospect. A wholly unique mystery and not one I'll be forgetting soon.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A waking nightmare…

Our narrator, Dr. Henry N. Riddle, Jr., is sitting at the desk in Adam MacComerou’s study, trying to order his thoughts and make sense of the events of the last few hours. Behind him, sleeping on a sofa, is a young woman, Elinor Darrie, while outside the police and volunteer helpers are searching the countryside around for a murderer. Riddle needs to know what has happened not just for his peace of mind, but because so many odd coincidences and occurrences are pushing him into pole position as chief suspect. And a third reason – Riddle believes that he is next on the murderer’s list, or perhaps Elinor Darrie is. Riddle’s task is to work out who murdered Inis St Erme, Elinor’s fiancé – the reader’s task is to work out how much of what Riddle tells us we can believe…

This is a strange and rather wonderful book, quite unique, with genres and styles blending and clashing to make something that reads like a fever dream, or perhaps like noir mixed with something that is almost stream of consciousness, and yet isn’t quite. Or perhaps it is like one of Poe’s madmen telling his tale of self-justification from the asylum. Or perhaps it simply reads like what Riddle would say it is – the swirling thoughts of an exhausted man, shocked by the things he has seen and terrified of the things that may yet happen.

The sense of dread that Riddle feels is doubled for the reader, since we can’t be sure that he is truthful – is it he who is the real threat to the sleeping woman? Is it he, who seems to share so many similarities to witness descriptions of the man seen with St Erme before his death, who killed the man and cut off his right hand? Did he then go on a killing spree, picking victims at seeming random, terrorising the neighbourhood before disappearing into the night? But if it weren’t he, then who? Who is the man that Riddle believes is coming to kill him? Is he killing for a reason or is he simply insane? The descriptions of him are ugly and distorted, as of someone not fully human, Hyde to Riddle’s Jekyll, but how reliable are descriptions from people reeling from the shock of horror after horror?

I hope I’ve given some slight impression of the overwhelming vagueness and dread of the book. There is nothing linear about this – no easy formula to grasp at. The story whirls back and forth in time, though only over a period of a few hours, as Riddle thinks back over what he seen and heard and tries to make some sense of it all. We know from the beginning that St Erme is dead, and we are given the names of others who have died in the murderer’s spree, but at first we don’t know who these characters are. It is only as Riddle’s thoughts swirl around that we gradually piece together who is who and where and when they died, and it is only as we reach the end that we finally learn why they died and who killed them.

I don’t want to go into the plot much at all, since it’s the not knowing that gives the book its incredible level of suspense and unease. The setting adds hugely to this atmosphere. Riddle’s story is that while driving back to New York after paying a professional visit out in the sticks, he took what looked on the map like a shortcut and ended up on the Swamp Road, running through an almost deserted stretch of land with only a few homesteadings dotted here and there, including MacComerou’s. It is along this road that the murderer was seen by several witnesses, driving like a madman with his victim behind him in the car. And yet Riddle is convinced – no, he knows – that they did not pass him as he worked on his stalled car at the junction they must have passed. And it is into this lonely and forbidding landscape, peopled now by only the terrified, that the murderer has vanished. Unless he’s sitting in MacComerou’s study, with the girl sleeping behind him on the sofa...

I feel this is one that would work best as an all-night non-stop read, though unfortunately that’s not how I read it. The sense of tension is palpable and builds relentlessly as Riddle’s swirling thoughts add layer upon layer, gradually creating a complete picture, albeit one that looks as if it were painted during some kind of hallucinatory trip. My fear throughout was that it might not make sense in the end – that it may be left hanging with the reader never knowing the truth, wondering if it were all the product of a deranged mind. But without revealing how or why, I found the ending entirely satisfactory even for my rather pedantic non-surreal-loving mind. There is method in the author’s madness. A strange and dark delight of a book – highly recommended.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[tortoise dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Red Right Hand is a trip, a fever dream of a racing stream of consciousness in a mix of panicked confusion, a mysterious riddle wrapped in a thriller roller coaster ride inside a mind game of a whodunnit. The reader will more than once ask "What the heck is going on?" as Rogers messes with expectations through a series of coincidences, puzzles, and déjà vu, playing games with appearances and hiding reality behind a gauzy veil. As one character states: "This is definitely a surrealistic murder. It is the murder of a genius. It has symbolism." The reader is simultaneously within and without the story. It reminds of Cornell Woolrich only on meth and images from Frank Miller's Sin City kept popping up. The novel has no chapters with only occasional paragraph breaks, and bounces around in time as a sort of foreshadowing of what may or may not happen. Then abruptly the solution to the endless puzzle manifests, but still has wheels within wheels and multileveled layers of tricks -- little is as it seems. Some points may have been guessable like a Christie puzzle, others not so much. The Red Right Hand is the most bizarre mystery novel I've ever read (and from 1945!). [4★]

[David Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pace of the book is fast, maybe too fast, since it all flies by so quickly it is hard to keep track of what is happening. And that problem is exacerbated by jumbled chronology and odd phrasing that might indicating the narrator is unreliable. So in general it gives a chaotic vibe.

His writing style is unique (and hard to pin down), I think, and it does add tension by using style to keep us from seeing what is happening, sort of like camouflaging the plot to keep the tension high. Or maybe it was literary version of “sleight of hand”, in that he is loudly pointing so some bit of detail in one place, in order we don’t see something more obvious.

BUT, it was effective and the explanation really did surprise me. However, I did not dig back through the text of confirm all the big reveals could have happened that it played out. My only nit pick is there are some pretty big coincidences that happen along the way that are pretty far fetched.

When reading it I wished there was a map with timestamps of the action, but IF there had been a map and timeline of the action, then the big reveal might not have been quite as surprising. So I guess it all worked on in the end.

[Chris Browning · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was profoundly disappointing. For about 150 pages of this book, Rogers deftly creates a series of doppelgängers and coincidences around the narrator that gives the whole thing a totally heated and extraordinarily strange atmosphere. And then towards the end you realise that the narrator’s most paranoid explanation of how the whole thing was done is, rather than being the ultimate evidence of his mental decline, actually how it was done. John Franklin Bardin does very similar things in his books but manages to make it work as both a crime novel and as psychological portrait of people losing their minds. This leads you to believe it’s going to be like that but instead resolves in what is either a very fudged “solution” or an equally fudged attempt to underline the mental state of the deranged narrator

Either way it fails horribly after a magnificent beginning. Incredibly frustrating

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most unique stories I've read. It has a swaying dreamlike quality to it; and if you don't catch that, there's a surrealist painter in it to nail down that point. It is written in first person by Dr. Riddle (the name which makes you wonder if this is a joke.) We start somewhere near the end, and then swing back to the middle and then to the beginning and then to middle where we follow in a path toward the end with detours throughout the various points.

A woman and man are heading off to get married (on the spur of the moment.) They borrow a car and head off to get married as NYC has a wait period after a license- to another state. From what you piece together- they pick up a "tramp" and are driving to Vermont and then - it gets murky. It "appears" that the tramp has harmed or killed the groom, tried to harm the bride (but she escaped) and then the tramp drives off on a wild rage!

Then you follow all the points with Riddle as he mulls over them and observes them etc... the sticking point is that all the people in the area saw the tramp and were generally hurt by him as he drove.. all but Dr. Riddle- who was on the same road but then had a car malfunction. There are many layers of overlapping connections between him and the people. He even reviews his day from the start and how he arrived to intersect this point.

Does this sound confusing, yes. However you do catch on to a pattern that is forming. This is a real who done it; and even a how done puzzle. Perfect to read if you need a bit of horror in your mystery. Happy reading.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it when a book makes me want to invent a whole new category for it. The category in this case is “headlong!” By which I mean that the story is immensely fast-paced, unnervingly suspenseful, quickly-changing, dizzyingly hallucinatory, and mind-bendingly plotted. Take the speediest hard-boiled detective story, combine it with the most insanely-detailed locked-room mystery, and you have this. Do yourself a solid and read it in one sitting. Wow!

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic noir thriller.

[Mathias Chouvier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un couple en route pour sa lune de miel, un assassin sanguinaire, une main droite manquante, une succession de cadavres et un chirurgien apprenti détective. Voilà la recette de cet excellent roman policier, méconnu mais fort agréable à lire. Chapeau à ceux qui ont réussi à deviner la fin, car le roman sait habilement nous perdre en hypothèses erronées. Le dénouement est maîtrisé, plutôt plausible, mais surtout très bien ficelé.

[Bev · Rating 2 out of 5]

It appears that this is one of those novels that you either really like or you don't. And I am in the latter camp. This is one of the most frustrating books I've ever read. I'm not a fan of non-linear storylines--especially when the whole point of such a method seems to be to mix the reader up even more than the basic plot will do. There is a surreal dreamlike quality to the narrative that doesn't help the reader to keep things straight even if the story had been told in a straightforward manner. Our narrator, an evidently unreliable narrator, is a doctor whose running commentary gives the impression that he has dipped once too often into his medical supplies. He tells us both that he knows what the killer tramp looks like and yet that he never say him:

I know the look of him as well as I know my own. Perhaps better. I know his height, his weight, his age, the color of his eyes and hair, the number of his teeth. I know the clothes he wore, to the last item....I have never laid eyes on him.

He deliberately says things like this--giving the reader just cause to believe that the doctor is really the killer, mentally deficient, deliberately lying, or doped up. Why wouldn't we? He not only says things like this, but tells us he was camped out with his broken down car right at the place where the killer supposedly turned in a great big car and he (the doctor) never saw him. He wonders if he went into some kind of trance (conveniently) right when it all happened. One has to think that either he and the killer are one and the same OR that, for reasons unknown, he's lying about not seeing the car OR, as I've said, he's on some sort of drugged out trip.

The doctor's whole purpose as a character seems to be to distract, mislead, or downright tell lies (you have to figure out which). I seriously wonder how he ever got to be a doctor and...if his abilities have deteriorated since being licensed...how he maintains his practice. He seems more deficient than Dr. Watson in his worst Nigel Bruce mode until the very end when light suddenly dawns.

And a more personal grumble: Being a participant in the Medical Examiner Reading Challenge, one of my tasks when reading a murder mystery is to keep track of who's been killed and how. With all the body-swapping, it was incredibly difficult to keep track of the real victims and how they were really killed. ★★ and 1/2 (and that may be generous). [so, I've rounded down]

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.

[Santosh Iyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a bizarre, eerie and brilliant novel. Unique. A must reading for mystery fans.
Though the first 30 or 40 pages are a bit slow, it becomes a page turner after that and definitely unputdownable.
The story is told in first person, the narrator being Dr. Henry Riddle, a brain surgeon.
Inis St. Erme and his fiancée Elinor Darrie are heading for Vermont in a car to get married. They pick up a tramp on the way. The tramp apparently kills or wounds St. Erme and tries to kill Elinor but she hides and escapes. The tramp then speeds off in the car on a country road carrying the dead or dying body of St. Erme. It runs over and kills first a dog and then a man.
The car is later found abandoned at the end of a side road. After a search, the dead body is found not very far away in a swamp, with the right hand cut off and missing! There is no sign of the murderer.
After the surprise and stunning revelation towards the end of the book, the reader is likely to go back and reread portions to see how it worked out. On rereading, the reader will note that all the clues are there and it is definitely a fair play mystery.
It is a complex mystery. A factor adding to the complexity is that it is not told linearly in time but jumps back and forth in time. Hence it should be read carefully. It may be necessary to reread it to comprehend it fully and realize its brilliance
It may be regarded as a locked room/impossible crime mystery.There are basically two impossibilities here.
Several witnesses see the speeding car on the main country road with the maniac looking tramp at the wheel and the dead or dying body of St. Erme besides him. The car then comes to a junction with a side road and apparently turns to this side road, since it is later found abandoned at the end of the side road. However, the narrator Henry Riddle is at the junction at that time, stranded with his stalled car. He does not see the car carrying the tramp and St. Erme! This is the main impossibility.
Another impossibility is that while Riddle is stranded at the junction, he sees a man walking away from him on the side road. But later it is found that he is the same person who is run over and killed on the main road by the speeding car!
The book is highly recommended and I have no hesitation in rating it 5 stars.

[Sam VanLoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

5.0 stars.

This is a tricky book to rate and review. The Red Right Hand is a book that is best experienced with not much known about it — just the blurb on the back of the book. It’s also fairly short, only 230 pages long, most readers can complete this in a single sitting in 3 hours or so. At least, that is what I did.

And HOLY HELL was it a fun book! The Red Right Hand is a mystery - duh - but once you pass about a third into the story it’ll start to feel like a thriller. This book, told in stream of consciousness, is very brooding, and very dark. Despite the writer jumping around a lot, I could follow along fairly well.

I’d recommend this to about anyone who reads mystery fiction. It has tinges of thriller and horror, and should be read in a dark room with one lamp for maximum effect. I found the solution to be very satisfying and tense too.

Other than that, I have not many words on this book. It blew me away and gave me a fresh taste of a mystery. Give it a read if you haven’t, it delivers!

[shanghao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written with the skill of a virtuoso I would think, especially since this came out in the 1940s.

Some of the prose is reminiscent of Truman Capote’s, whose style I love. The unfolding of the mystery through the unique style of narration showed that many times, assumptions aren’t what they seem at all.

Real as our feelings are, they might not reflect reality. Also amazed that it all ties up nicely at the end, despite the seemingly haphazard structure of the story.

Good writers are something else and I’m thankful I get to read their works.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great mystery! Mixed with suspense and horror vibes. I didn't guess the solution fully, but the clues were all there. I stayed up until 4 am to finish it.

[Gabriele Crescenzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

RILETTURA

Esistono nella vita di tutti i giorni connubi perfetti, insieme di elementi che si sposano alla perfezione, quasi fossero stati creati per essere complementari tra di loro.
Se dovessimo traslare tale assioma in ambito letterario, non può che venire in mente l'eccellente unione che scaturisce dall'incontro tra il genere poliziesco e quello gotico.
Nulla può attirare l'attenzione del lettore giallofilo più di una bella indagine intrisa di elementi macabri, orridi e cruenti.
Le atmosfere cupe e particolarmente tetre, si sa, offrono un ideale sfondo a vicende criminose.
Peraltro non stupisce se il mystery stesso sia nato ufficialmente dalla letteratura nera: Edgar Allan Poe, considerato quasi unanimemente il capostipite del giallo, non fa altro che immettere nel celeberrimo racconto "I delitti della Rue Morgue" l'indagine su un efferato caso all'interno di un contorno particolarmente "macabre", essendo egli anche un maestro in quest'altro campo.
È naturale che molti autori di romanzi polizieschi si siano poi cimentati nel creare trame che possano nel contempo stupire il lettore attraverso l'enigma giallo e renderlo inquieto con elementi disturbanti all'interno della narrazione.
Perfetto costruttore di intrecci a metà tra il deduttivo e il grandguignolesco fu Carr, i cui romanzi riescono tuttora a impressionare il lettore con scene iconiche e sinistre tanto che esse rimangono nella sua mente per anni (parlo per esperienza personale, avendo provato momenti di vero e proprio brivido con i suoi scritti).
Pochi altri sono riusciti a fondere questi due elementi che, pur abbinandosi perfettamente, richiedono una sapiente mano che possa ben disporli in un'opera pregevole.

Tra questi senza dubbio si colloca Joel Townsley Rogers. Nato in Missouri nel 1896, studiò ad Harvard e iniziò a scrivere per giornali universitari. Prestò servizio nell'aeronautica durante la Prima Guerra Mondiale e cominciò a pubblicare le sue prime opere. Morì a Washington D.C. nel 1984.
L'autore, come dicevo, si è cimentato nel giallo ed è riuscito a creare il perfetto melange di giallo e gotico nel suo capolavoro "La rossa mano destra".
L'opera, pubblicata nel 1945, farebbe tremare d'invidia molti scrittori di thriller moderni.
Perché? Per ovvi motivi, ma prima è necessaria una premessa: tentare di riassumere gli eventi racchiusi in tale romanzo sarebbe inutile e porterebbe a sminuire quello che è già così un perfetto meccanismo narrativo e stilistico.
Per cui non proverò neanche a fornire un abbozzo delle vicende perché snaturerei il romanzo stesso.
Partendo da tale presupposto, si può sostenere che la grandezza di questo libro sta soprattutto nella sua fattura, nello stile dell'autore e nel suo aspetto formale: la vicenda, imperniata su una storia cruenta, macabra, illogica e intrisa di un'endemica inquietudine per la consapevolezza di un pericolo incombente, viene narrata anch'essa in maniera tormentata. Intreccio e fabula non possono essere più divergenti. Il romanzo suscita nel lettore già dalla sua struttura, oltre che dal suo contenuto, un senso di malessere profondo: il narratore fa cominciare il suo racconto nel momento clou, a pochi istanti dalla fine di tutto. Il lettore si trova già disorientato, non capisce di cosa stia parlando e quel poco che comprende è macabro e decisamente folle. Poi la narrazione fa un balzo in avanti, nel mezzo della trama; qualcosa viene chiarito, cominciano a delinearsi i contorni di quella che sembra una favola nera così come le figure dei personaggi. Successivamente, in una girandola di eventi icastici, visivamente incisivi, quasi fossero stati rappresentati con tecnica fotografica, si aggiungono digressioni che ci riportano indietro, all'origine della catena di infausti avvenimenti. Ed infine il tutto viene riportato nella dimensione presente, in quelle pagine iniziali inquiete, dove il protagonista sta cercando una via di fuga da una situazione che potrebbe costargli la vita.
Se dunque all'inizio sono la confusione di eventi, il non sapere dove si debbano collocare cronologicamente, le allusioni assurde e le scene grondanti di sangue e di perversione a sconvolgere la quiete interiore del lettore, il ritrovarsi a poche pagine dalla fine consapevoli di tutto ciò che è accaduto non rende affatto più tranquilli. Anzi, l'autore gioca sapientemente con le sensazioni di chi legge: prima lo scombussola attraverso una frantumazione narrativa e poi lo fa piombare nell'incubo di una fine imminente e macabra. Pur conoscendo tutte le incognite del dramma, il lettore si ritrova ancora immedesimato nel pericolo del protagonista, braccato in una casa senza protezione, nel pieno silenzio della notte. Un silenzio che non fa che acuire i battiti incessanti del suo cuore in tumulto.
È una tecnica compositiva estremamente azzeccata per questo tipo di opera, poiché dà quella sensazione di panico, di rottura delle certezze, dà l'idea di essere in un limbo di realtà e illusione quali non avrebbe potuto conferire una narrazione lineare.
Altro aspetto che rende estremamente conturbante l'opera è l'aura di dubbio e incertezza che essa trasuda: questo è un giallo deduttivo o un thriller? È un noir o un racconto gotico?
Il lettore è sbalestrato persino sul genere poiché lo scrittore instilla continuamente perplessità nel lettore, giocando sul lato ambiguo di molte cose. Non si sa chi è con certezza il narratore, così come non si sa chi è l'assassino; non si sa se la macchina con dentro il pazzo omicida sia passata per la Swamp Road o no; non si sa se sia tutto frutto di un delirio collettivo o il piano diabolico di una mente malata. Tutto si impernia sul lato psicologico, sulla paura dell'uomo di non capire, di non sapere. E si arriva persino a dubitare dei propri sensi e di ciò che si è realmente visto e ciò che invece si è solamente immaginato. È un romanzo onirico, dove tutto ha i contorni sfocati.
L'unica certezza è la paura. Una paura che è costante nella trama, che percorre tutto il libro sino alla fine.
Interessante notare il simbolismo dei luoghi che, lungi dall'esser meri sfondi, compartecipano nel conferire un senso di turbamento alle vicende: luogo principale dei fatti è una via sperduta, dove abitano poche anime. La solitudine dei posti fa da cassa di risonanza al terrore."Stony Falls" è la strada dove la macchina con dentro l'assassino è svanita come per magia e porta nel nome un significato ben preciso: la caduta psicologica e fisica che si avverte in tutta l'opera e la roccia, che avrà una certa importanza ai fini della soluzione, così come rappresenta l'assoluta spietatezza e freddezza del killer.
La campagna circostante, non luogo bucolico e idillico, diventa dimora di sinistri presagi. Civette che "ululano" nell'oscurità notturna, serpenti con occhi di fuoco, misteriosi suoni inumani arricchiscono fonicamente un'atmosfera già pregna di sventura. La stessa strada, dimessa, piena di ciottoli, pare indicare il duro cammino per arrivare al bandolo della questione.
Ma non solo, anche i nomi sono parlanti: "Dead Bridegroom's Pond", luogo del primo delitto, il cognome del narratore, "Riddle", ad indicare la tortuosità della vicenda, e quello del sergente Stone, altro riferimento alla roccia.
Insomma, un'opera dalle molte interpretazioni e dai molteplici richiami.
In questo labirinto di terrore, nefandezze e sangue, il lettore si aggira incerto fino al finale in cui tutto troverà la sua giusta collocazione. Ci si accorgerà di quanto ci si è lasciati sviare dall'atmosfera e ci si è resi ciechi di fronte ai molteplici indizi disseminati.
Un'opera grandiosa, che richiede una lettura attenta per poter cogliere tutti i suoi aspetti, tutti i dettagli sparsi che compongono una macabra e stupefacente verità.
Un romanzo che riesce a turbare con il fascino ambiguo del male.

PS: rileggendola più attentamente ho compreso meglio la soluzione, che richiede un certo sforzo da parte del lettore nel raffigurarsi mentalmente la disposizione dei luoghi, non essendoci una cartina esplicativa. Essendo un'opera affascinante, ho innalzato la votazione dalle 4 stelle precedenti a 5.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book sounded so intriguing in a review, I just had to try it. It's a reprint of a mystery that came out in 1945 as part of the publisher's reprint series of "American Mystery Classics." As a mystery, it's good, but it has the added fun of an Alfred Hitchcock or Twilight Zone atmosphere that kept me wondering if Dr. Riddle, the narrator, is actually the murderer. There are strange parallels. It has some hallmarks of 75 years ago--when gasoline was rationed, $2500 an enormous fortune, rural phone lines involved the whole neighborhood with party lines, and just a little condescension toward the heroine, who actually has little role other than to drive the sleek gray automobile. Definitely creepy in a fun way, and kept me guessing.

[Lauren R. Santoro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book while browsing at half price and I’m glad I did! It’s a ride. It reminded me of the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, mainly because it’s told in the first person narration by a doctor - Dr. Henry Riddle - who is at the center of the story. It’s a stream of consciousness book, there are no chapters and it’s made to read in a single sitting as it describes the events of a single night. It’s a bit hard to get into and keep straight at first, but at around page 40 it really hits its stride. I didn’t guess the resolution, not at all. It keeps you guessing all the time and is also a little creepy. I highly recommend this book!!

[Kirsti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nightmarish, extremely violent murder mystery first published in 1945. The front matter compares the novel's style to that of Faulkner and Kerouac, but it actually reminded me of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. That's a lighthearted romantic novel with a teenage girl as the protagonist, but it has the same pell-mell quality, where the narrator is trying to write down everything as quickly as possible. The Red Right Hand has no chapter breaks, so you can sink into the chaos and danger before you're fully aware of what's happening.

[Martina Sartor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno dei Bassotti di cui ho più sentito parlare finora, certo uno fra i più acclamati. Il timore è di crearsi troppe aspettative. Del resto l'idea di iniziare a leggere un libro senza alcuna idea preconcetta è pura utopia. Già il fatto di leggere decine di gialli all'anno è un condizionamento, in qualche modo. Sì, perché, se il libro è presentato come "una girandola di indizi, false piste, enigmi e colpi di scena", è fisiologico pensare che ogni particolare, ogni nome, ogni personaggio nasconda un indizio fondamentale.
Infatti il giovane dottore che narra la storia si presenta subito come Henry N. Riddle Jr. E quale miglior indizio nascosto, per un giallo come si deve, di un cognome come Riddle, in inglese "indovinello, enigma"… Vien fatto subito di pensare che il buon dottore nasconda qualcosa e non sia realmente quello che vuol far credere. Davvero non ha visto passare la Cadillac guidata dall'assassino, quell'ometto dagli occhi e capelli rossi, che aveva accanto il giovane St. Erme appena ucciso? Davvero è così importante scoprire perché la mano destra del cadavere è scomparsa, perché è stata tagliata via? La storia che il dottor Riddle racconta è abbastanza intricata e segue le vicende di una coppia di giovani innamorati che partono da New York per andare a sposarsi nel Vermont e che strada facendo incontrano uno strano autostoppista che alla prima occasione uccide il giovane fidanzato. Subito dopo l'omicidio, l'assassino sparisce, sparisce la Cadillac e sparisce pure il cadavere, per un certo tempo. Rimane solo la giovane fidanzata, spaventatissima, che non sa spiegarsi quanto accaduto. E poi lui, il dottore che, contrariamente a tutte le testimonianze raccolte dal tenente Rosenblatt, non ha visto passare per la Swamp Road la famigerata macchina. Durante la ricostruzione degli avvenimenti fatta dal dottore con l'aiuto di Rosenblatt e dei testimoni, molti sono i dubbi che sorgono e gli indizi che si accumulano, anche contro il dottore stesso, nella mente del lettore. Ma l'unico punto fermo rimane quello: Riddle non ha visto la Cadillac.
Solo alla fine, dopo un racconto talvolta intricato, che costringe il lettore a fare la massima attenzione ai dettagli, capiremo l'importanza fondamentale di quell'unico punto fermo. Dal momento in cui Riddle afferma "Ora ho annotato tutti i fatti. Ecco quanto.", inizia anche per il lettore la sfida a scoprire dove sta la verità, chi ha mentito, quali sono i falsi indizi e quali quelli veri. Sorpresa dopo sorpresa la vera storia si dipana di fronte ai nostri occhi. Fino all'ultima pagina temiamo di non aver capito nulla, di avere un ennesimo colpo di scena e ci chiediamo se davvero sia quella la verità. Ci sembra troppo campata in aria, ma poi torniamo alle prime pagine, rileggiamo i primi indizi. E, accidenti, davvero era tutto lì di fronte ai nostri occhi, anche in quel nome enigmatico, Riddle.

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Red Right Hand is a convoluted whodunnit penned by Joel Townsley Rogers, best known as a prolific short story writer. Rogers’ aim seems to have been to a tell a tale that is as full as possible with feints, sleights, red herrings, twists and turns, and contradictory evidence, as Dr Henry Riddle recounts the story of an eloping young couple who pick up a hitchhiker on a lonely road, the resulting murder, and the investigation that leads to other deaths. The set-up is kind of an open-air locked room mystery, with the killer seemingly managing to escape along a blocked road. The story is narrated almost as a stream of consciousness by Riddle, but it’s not always clear how reliable his narration is, and his account sometimes rambles on through some amazingly long sentences, with dozens of sub-clauses. Whilst the plot is complex and clever -- the denouement is a wonderfully piece of storytelling -- it relies on a whole series of coincidences, a couple of which are more than a little fantastical (as the story is told they seem odd but work to place doubt into the reader’s mind; when looking back after the resolution they make no sense). The result is a story where the reader is aware that the tale will only work if they become duplicit in the charade, suspending any kind of realism and continue knowing that they cannot believe anything until the final few pages. The Red Right Hand is an undoubtedly clever book, but the coincidences and knowing cleverness just didn’t quite work for me despite all the plaudits that have been heaped on it over the years. Nonetheless, worth a read for the sheer gusto of the plot.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rod Serling Meets Hitchcock

A corpse with a missing hand, sightings of a twisted gnome driving a sleek convertible, the lone hitchhiker on a deserted highway comes straight from a nightmare's central casting. "The Red Right Hand", written in 1945, fresh and jolting in the 21st century, must have absolutely rocked the literary world of its day with this strangely creepy tale of young love gone impossibly wrong. Dr. Harry Riddle finds himself implicated in the murder of Innis St. Erme, a young New York businessman who had set off to New England to elope with his bride-to-be when a roadside picnic takes a terrible turn. Author Joel Townsley Rogers spins this bizarre and eerie tale tightly around a non-linear plot, leading the reader down a hallucinogenic trail of murder and mind games that is sure to confuse and delight - like you're kicking back on a lazy Saturday afternoon a pick up an early "Twilight Zone" episode mid-flight. But by the time its over, you're on the edge of your seat, yet still completely unprepared for the final twists and turns that would leave Hitchcock stuttering. Classic stuff - the best - don't miss this one.