When Gideon Fell invites Miles Hammond, a survivor of the War, to the first meeting of the legendary Murder Club, he could not refuse. But when he arrives, he finds the club completely in absentia, with the exception of another guest, Barbara Morrell, and the invited speaker, Professor Rigaud. The professor is persuaded to tell his story to his audience, and what a story!

It is the tale from some years previously, of an estate in France, of a father and son, of the bewitching Fay Seton, of a vampire curse on the area – a tale that concludes with the murder of the father. A father who was standing alone on the top of the tower – so the murder could only have been committed by someone who can fly.

Miles is intrigued by the story, but things rapidly become far more than just a tale from the past, when he discovers that the librarian that he has just hired to help with his late father’s collection is none other than Fay Seton herself…

I’ve just read a rubbish book – not this one, let’s be clear. Not going to want to spoil the conclusion of the review, but I need you to know that this book is amazing. I’ll tell you why in a bit.

I’m not going to review the rubbish book – not even going to tell you the title – because it clearly wasn’t for me and I did skip most of the middle third. But rather than the classic crime that it was compared to, it felt more like a classic Saturday morning cartoon show, albeit missing a Great Dane and a ghost mask – isolated location, suspects who don’t seem particularly bothered by a recent murder/haunting and sleuths who seem actively excited to solve a mystery rather than showing any ounce of sympathy for the victim.

Oh, and the locked room solution is a s*cr*t p*ss*g* and the alibi of the killer is broken at the death was “well, they weren’t with us all the time”.

So why am I telling you about it? Because that was the last thing before I read He Who Whispers, and my goodness, it shows just what a bloody good writer John Dickson Carr was.

This is an edge-of-the-seat classic crime novel, a genuine page-turner. There’s not a chapter where the plot doesn’t move forward. There’s no sitting around interviewing suspects, just a thrilling locked room – well, locked tower – mystery with characters that leap off the page and a dark, gothic setting. And I’ve haven’t even intimated anything about the second crime, the crime that the title refers to, which is one of the most magnificently chillingly evil murder methods in crime fiction.

Oh, and there are clues – so many clues – but I didn’t spot them when I first read the book. I spotted the murderer, but there is so much going on here.

OK, if I go on, I’m just going to gush and gush about this one. It was voted in a very reputable poll as the best book written by John Dickson Carr and it’s definitely up there – it’s a masterpiece.

Where to find more Carr:

The British Library has released some superb titles from the author recently – The Seat Of The Scornful, Till Death Do Us Part and The Black Spectacles, The White Priory Murders – and there are other great titles available, especially on ebook in the UK – The Hollow Man, The Man Who Could Not Shudder, The Case Of The Constant Suicides, She Died A Lady, The Red Widow Murders – oddly, The Crooked Hinge from the American Mystery Classics range seems to have vanished. Note, these are easily the best, but there are also a number of titles that should be on the British Library’s shopping list. If you want my recommendations, The Judas Window has to be top of the pile, along with The Nine Wrong Answers, The Punch and Judy Murders, The Reader Is Warned, And So To Murder, Murder In The Submarine Zone, He Wouldn’t Kill Patience and My Late Wives. But every reprint is welcome – Carr seems to have joined Lorac as a fixture in the reprint cycle, so let’s hope there are many more to come…