Book Review//Till Death Do Us Part by John Dickson Carr

Dick Markham is in love with Lesley Grant. She is a newcomer to the village of Six Ashes and no one knows very much about her. Dick Markham thinks he knows more than enough. He thinks she is wonderful and he loves her dearly. But then, tragedy strikes.

‘I have been wondering how to break it to you,’ said Sir Harvery, showing for the first time a gleam of humanity. He looked up. ‘Do you know who this so-called “Lesley Grant” really is?’

‘Who she really is?’

‘I suppose,’ said Sir Harvery, ‘I had better tell you.’ Drawing a deep breath, he got up from his chair behind the table. And it was at this point that Dick heard the crack of the rifle-shot.

After that, the world dissolved in nightmare.

Though the noise was not loud, Dick’s thoughts were so entwined already with rifles and shooting-ranges that he had almost a pre-vision of it.

He saw the small bullet-hole jump up black in the side wall of the tent, now growing greyish where the wet crawled down. He saw Sir Harvey flung forward as by the blow of a fist – striking just beside and under the left shoulder-blade. He saw in one momentary flash, the inscrutability of the pathologist’s face, cracked open by a look of sheer terror.

Table and man pitched forward almost into Dick’s arms. But there was not even time to stretch out a hand before the whole clutter landed round him. Sir Harvey’s own hand was twitching convulsively; he dragged the table-cover with him; and the crystal ball dropped with a thud on flat-trodden grass. Then, as Dick saw the ghost of a blood-stain take form and deepen on the side of the white linen suit, he heard a clear voice raised outside.

‘Major Price, I couldn’t help it!’

It was Lesley’s voice.

Slowly, the evidence mounts against Lesley. Dick is told a long, involved story about three previous murders she was involved in. Against his will, he starts to wonder if the stories are true. Has he just become engaged to a murderer? Then, just as things seem as if they can’t get any worse, there is another murder. It is a seemingly impossible murder involving poison and a locked room. Is Lesley Grant responsible? Is Dick Markham doomed to live with a broken heart? Dr. Gideon Fell arrives to piece all the details together and arrive at a very satisfactory conclusion.

Till Death Do Us Part is a fast-moving mystery full of enough twists and turns to satisfy any reader. John Dickson Carr was a prolific writer of crime fiction, especially locked-room mysteries, and one of his Dr Fell novels, The Hollow Man was voted the best locked-room mystery of all time in 1981. Carr was an American but his books were frequently set in England and he was one of only two Americans to be admitted to the Detection Club.

My thanks to the British Library for the review copy of this book.