Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #391606 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781601870216
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

Classic detection and the best courtroom drama ever
Jimmy Answell is summoned for an audience with Avory Hume. The two men are later discovered after witnesses break into Hume's study - a room with bolted steel shutters and a heavy door locked on the inside. Answell is found lying unconscious and Hume stabbed to death with an arrow. How can young Answell but be guilty? How could Sir Henry Merrivale (H.M.!) be foolhardy enough to undertake his defence at the Old Bailey? And what is the `Judas Window' to which H.M. keeps alluding?

This is John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson), the acknowledged master of the locked room mystery, in top form. The quality of the puzzle in The Judas Window is superior to that in The Three Coffins (popularly regarded as Carr's best book and the most famous locked room murder mystery). The case unfolds through the medium of a riveting courtroom drama that simply ought to have been filmed. The comic touches provided by H.M. as defence counsel are terrific. And the modus operandi of the crime is stunning in its simplicity and the conviction it carries. Less convincing however (and this is what makes the book stop just short of perfection) is the murderer's motive. But this flaw makes only a ripple in the overall masterly construction of the mystery.

Don't miss it!

Ingenious courtroom drama
I give it 4 stars as a specimen of the genre, 3 stars in a wider literary context, freely acknowledging that I haven't read much "classic" mystery and have less basis for comparison than some reviewers. I greatly enjoyed the curmudgeonly Sir Henry, and admired his methodical deductions. Without revealing any secrets, I found the Judas Window device pretty ingenious, though requiring a deeper knowledge of home construction than this layman possessed. Still, the plot succeeds very well in its central conundrum of "how" was it done. I found the "who" and "why" a bit less convincing, and felt there was plenty of room for alternative scenarios and suspects employing the same method. Nuff said - I'll try another Carr/Dickson soon and see how it grows on me.

The British mystery does not get any better than this...
This is, without a doubt, one of the finest mysteries ever written (and after devouring Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Colin Dexter, I should know!). THE JUDAS WINDOW is John Dickson Carr's masterpiece. From the very first page he plunges the reader into one of his most elaborate deceptions ever. In addition to a superbly constructed plot, THE JUDAS WINDOW delivers a wonderfully authentic courtroom drama at the Old Bailey, and plenty of delightful humor (courtesy of Merrivale, of course).

Every strand of the plot is in place; every clue is carefully laid right in front of the reader. But the central mystery is still completely baffling: how did the victim end up dead in a locked room? What exactly is a Judas window? To spoil the secret would be cruelly unfair, suffice it to say that the solution is so ingenious, and yet so simple, that you will hate yourself for not realizing it sooner. This book is excellent--not even THE THREE COFFINS can compare with this.