The Door to Doom and Other Detections

by John Dickson Carr

"For subtlety, ingenuity and atmosphere, he was one of the three or four best detective-story writers since Poe that the English language has known." In this tribute to John Dickson Carr, Edmund Crispin summarized the accomplishments of one of the greatest of all grand masters of the detective story.....

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories

346 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1981

About the author

AKA Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn.

John Dickson Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906. It Walks by Night, his first published detective novel, featuring the Frenchman Henri Bencolin, was published in 1930. Apart from Dr Fell, whose first appearance was in Hag's Nook in 1933, Carr's other series detectives (published under the nom de plume of Carter Dickson) were the barrister Sir Henry Merrivale, who debuted in The Plague Court Murders (1934).

Reviews

[John Culuris · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you never read anything else in this collection, it is still worth the price of admission as long as your edition contains the complete copy of the essay, “The Grandest Game in the World.” Originally written in 1946 as an introduction to an aborted anthology to be called The Ten Best Detective Novels, a severely abridged version saw print in 1963, where it had been gutted of the most fascinating part: Carr’s break down of the body of work of each author to have been represented. Fully restored, it studies in detail A. Conan Doyle, Gaston Leroux, A. E. W. Mason, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Anthony Berkeley, S. S. Van Dine, Phillip MacDonald, Rex Stout, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Carr offers a comprehensive examination of how each repeatedly fooled the reader while still playing fair and explores what made each of them great. That Carr can dissect and expound on the essence of the mystery novel while not spoiling any of the stories is a considerable testament. But fair warning: he had strong opinions on the application and execution of his craft. He is dismissive of certain styles of storytelling (although he would soften some of those stances later in life) and he pointedly snubs a couple of popular writers of the day for whom he had no respect. If you happen to be a fan of the disparaged practitioners, it is still fairly easy to ignore those particular criticisms--and it is best to do so. It leaves you more open to some fascinating lessons.

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS)]

Important! This is the 1991 edition which makes a difference.

[Gabriele Crescenzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A volte per amore verso certi autori si fa di tutto: infatti ho faticato, e non poco, per trovare questa raccolta vetusta e abbastanza rara, ad un modico prezzo. Ma l'attesa, durata anni, è stata pienamente ripagata. Si tratta infatti di una raccolta eccezionale di racconti, una delle migliori che abbia mai letto, in cui sono presenti storie gialle, radiodrammi, racconti dell'orrore e anche saggi del grande Carr. È un must per tutti gli appassionati del Maestro indiscusso della camera chiusa. Sono eccellenti i racconti "L'ombra del caprone" e "Assassinio al n 4", che soli valgono davvero l'intero libro, con delle camere chiuse geniali. Il mio voto è quindi di eccellenza

[dmayr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, essays and radio plays by John Dickson Carr. Although I've enjoyed the short stories, I wasn't particularly enamored by the plays and essays hence the three stars. In Stories of Crime and Detection, Bencolin solves a locked room mystery, reveals the murderer of a spy, proves the innocence of a man who was to be executed, and cracks the train murder with its ghost and dead man in the carriage and all. In Radio Plays, most of the plots were good but it didn't really do them justice being read just like that. I enjoyed the Stories of the Supernatural the most, although I found "Terror's Dark Tower" a little bit familiar and then realized the plot was the same with "The Wrong Problem", another short story by Carr in The Third Bullet.
The Sherlockian Parodies were funny but much too short, and the Essays, although interesting with its dissection of the style of writing of other mystery authors and its factual description of highwaymen, I didn't enjoy as much.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

"As drink the dead ..." --
*The shadow of the goat --
The fourth suspect --
Ends of justice --
*Murder in number four --
*Cabin B-12 (aka Honeymoon terror)--
The hangman won't wait --
The phantom archer --
*The bride vanishes --
Will you make a bet with death? --2
*The devil in the summerhouse --
The man who was dead --
*The door to doom --
Terror's dark tower (aka Vampire's tower)--
The adventures of the Conk-Singleton Papers --
The adventure of the paradol chamber --
Stand and deliver! --
*The grandest game in the world--

[Pietro De Palma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful mix of radio plays, short stories and essays.
My essay, my first in absolute, about the first short story production by Carr (with Bencolin), to link:

http://blog.librimondadori.it/blogs/i...

[Tin Long Seng RX]

"As Drink the Dead ...", The Door to Doom, Terror's Dark Tower