While browsing excellent crime fiction guide "Crime fiction: A Reader's Guide" by Barry Forshaw I noticed the name John Dickson Carr mentioned in the same breath as Agatha Christie and other authors of the golden age of detective fiction - to be honest, I don't really know much about anybody else except Christie from that period (I have read one single novel by Ngaio Marsh) so this name got stuck in my brain + he was unusual as being perhaps the only American celebrated amongst his British colleagues - enough for me to become really curious and to give his most famous novel a try.
"The Hollow Man" (titled The Three Coffins" in US) is today his best known work and often mentioned as example of who Dickson Carr was as an author. It is also an example of so called "locked-room mystery" where detectives are facing a seemingly unsolvable crime and what at the first glance appears impossible case (no traces, no fingerprints, etc). I guess both Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie used this form, though Dickson Carr is the one mentioned as a prime example today. At first, I was intrigued - there is a murder in a house full of witnesses (but no one really saw what happened) and the policemen helped by sharp investigator Dr Gideon Fell are trying to connect the dots. The writing was solid, mysteries piled on top of mysteries and Dr.Gideon is entertaining as someone who often pulls conclusions out of the thin air.
However, at certain point I became a bit exhausted by Dr.Gideon - yes, he is sharp and yes he glances in the corners and suddenly realises how pieces of the puzzle fit in much bigger picture, but the plot is so ridiculously confusing that at certain point all these "red herrings" feel almost like a parody. Almost like Dickson Carr wanted to use every single locked room cliché there is. Tunnels! Chimneys! Masks! Ropes! In fact, at one point Dr.Gideon suddenly gives a lecture about locked room novels and usual possible solutions to mysteries. (Almost like turning to a reader and talking directly to us instead of his policemen friends) He notes that audience often gets upset when finding out how exactly they were cheated and I find this very interesting because it shows that Dickson Carr was very much aware of his public and what they expect. On one hand, they wanted to be entertained but they will get disappointed once they realise how it was done. And yes, correct, eventually I found myself thinking that the road to the mystery was actually more entertaining than the solution itself, which felt rushed up and clumsy.
Another thing that bothered me was that (with exception of the victim and Dr.Gideon) I could simply not remember who is who. At first I found this embarrassing and blamed my own lack of attention, but later found out that many readers agree that characters and the names were simply there as props and there were absolutely no development that could help us remember or understand who is who and why are behaving the way they are. You know, servant comes in and out of the room, the end. Various characters are floating around without any real distinction between them and I had to even look up the list of characters online to check who is talking.
"'I will now lecture,' said Dr Fell, inexorably, 'on the general mechanics and development of the situation which is known in detective fiction as the "hermetically sealed chamber. All those opposing can skip this chapter. To begin with, gentlemen! Having been improving my mind with sensational fiction for the last forty years, I can say -'
'But, if you're going to analyse impossible situations,' interrupted Pettis, 'why discuss detective fiction?
'Because,' said the doctor, frankly, 'we're in a detective story, and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not. Let's not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let's candidly glory in the noblest pursuits possible to characters in a book."
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