The Man Who Could Not Shudder, by John Dickson Carr

From my giant birthday box o' books from scioscribe; thank you very much! (No, this is not the butt blade book.)

Carr was a Golden Age mystery writer particularly known for locked-room mysteries. I’d never read anything by him before, though I’d always vaguely intended to. And now that I have, I understand who the Golden Age critics were talking about when they parodied absurdly complex, artificial, and implausible mysteries peopled by characters who appear to have been written by an alien who read a book about human behavior.

The premise is delightful: a mysterious wealthy dude, Clarke, buys a haunted house and invites seven people, each chosen to represent some facet of human psychology when faced with the inexplicable, for a weekend visit. The first third of the book, in which the haunted house does creepy things, is atmospheric and compelling. And then the mystery aspect begins…

To start with, the whole idea of people reacting to the inexplicable in individual ways, doesn’t get followed through at all. The characters are puppets who move around doing things and saying things that make no sense on any level except that they make the plot happen. This goes far beyond common Golden Age character issues, like being stereotypical or sketched-in or subordinate to the plot.

And then there’s the mystery and its solution, which is convoluted, implausible, and bizarre.

( Fucking magnets, how do they work? )

Carr’s atmosphere in the early part is great, and his writing style there is very appealing. But I’m just as happy this style of mystery has fallen out of fashion.

Man Who Could Not Shudder

A handful of book links

mme_hardy contemplates women written by men looking at themselves in the mirror. (Ambiguity intentional; the male writer also seemed to be observing himself rather than his characters or real women while writing.)

telophase seeks a definition of grimdark...

...which reminded me of The Newbery Award Generator.

Caddie's Cactus

In the beginning, an abandoned young child travels to the time of WWII after accidentally killing her entire family in a car crash. Things seem to be looking up when she befriends the rabbits in a warren slated for gassing. But when her new friend is eaten by wolves, she learns a valuable lesson about terrorism and that there is no such thing as vegetable lambs.