Abandoned by Booklikes

Even though I was having eye problems last night, I stupidly stayed up to finish this book. It was so good. So many twists and turns and a perfect locked room murder mystery. It reminded me a bit of "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" as well as "The Murder at the Vicarage" that you have something that is supposedly impossible, becoming possible. The ending was top notch with all revealed after two (I think there were two) red herrings. Loved this book.

Professor Charles Grimaud is confronted by a mysterious man come across him and soem of his friends who claims that men can arise from the grave and walk through walls. Not going to lie here, was a bit confused where Carr was taking us. But all is explained later on to my and potential readers satisfaction.

The man, illusionist Pierre Fley claims that he himself has arisen from a grave and threatens Grimaud by saying that his brother wants him dead. We then follow a few days later and found that Grimaud has been shot and left to die in a room that a man entered and did not leave. When Dr. Gideon Fell and Superintendent Hadley come onto the scene, the question is how did the professor get shot and the would be murderer get away with no one seeing them? Also there are no footprints in the snow so how did the person get away? Did they fly? Believe me I spent most of this book trying out different solutions and was wrong with all of them. Good luck to you if you manage to figure this out.

I don't want to spoil anymore of the plot cause so much happens that at times you are going to go wait a minute? What? And have to go back and re-read. 

I loved the writing though at times the story gets a bit bogged down with Fell trying to tell Hadley what he has wrong or telling Hadley that he himself was wrong. I maybe went what a few times. The flow gets better after we get to Grimaud being shot. Not going to lie, the first part confused the life out of me so had to start the story twice in order to get a better sense of people that were being named. 

Carr includes diagrams of the room prior to the solution being provided and another diagram after the solution is provided which I totally got a kick out of. 

The ending surprised the heck out of me though. I was expecting another paragraph or something, but nothing doing.