The Seat of the Scornful

Book excerpt: "[John Dickson Carr] is the supreme conjuror; the king of the art of misdirection...once you begin a book of his, you simply cannot put it down."—Agatha Christie First published in 1942, this reissue is one of Carr's most tense and enjoyable game of cat and mouse pitting detective Gideon Fell against the "chief" suspect. When police arrive at Justice Ireton's holiday bungalow to find a man killed by gunshot and the high court justice brandishing a pistol, the case seems as straightforward as it is scandalous. But, with physical evidence that doesn't add up, the justice's vehement denial of wrong doing, and recent events in his daughter's love life turns the deceptively simple case on its head. Stumped, the local force calls in the larger-than-life sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell, who just yesterday contended with Ireton over a brutally challenging game of chess. With Fell and the judge now facing off as detective and suspect, a new battle of wits begins in this fiendishly plotted masterclass of the mystery genre.