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It Walks by Night

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It Walks by Night

By: John Dickson Carr
Narrated by: John Telfer
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About this listen

In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Detective Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer, imprisoned for his attempt to kill his wife, has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. His whereabouts remain a mystery, though with his former wife poised to marry another, Bencolin predicts his return. Sure enough, the detective's worst suspicions are realised when the beheaded body of the new suitor is discovered in a locked room of the salon, with no apparent exit. Bencolin sets off into the Parisian night to unravel the dumbfounding mystery and track down the sadistic killer.

©1930 The Estate of Clarice M. Carr (P)2020 Soundings Detective Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction Marriage
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It starts a little slow as it introduces you to the cast and the location. People behave as real people would and the crime is committed in a perfectly rational way. It's possible to solve it yourself when it reaches the sealed chapters.
I managed to get a partial solution but I'd missed a few vital clues.

I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the series and giving my brain a good work out.

The final section gives you the solution on a platter but it's much more fun to try to solve it yourself.
I can see why Dickson Carr is such an acclaimed writer of locked room mysteries.

Highly recommended.

An absolute delight

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I’m not generally a fan of audiobooks, but I AM a fan of JDC, and there are still many of his books that are hard to find. This reading is excellently done, without ever having the tendency to slip into overacting that plagues some audio dramas and radio plays. I enjoyed the inclusion of the introduction too, giving everything a great deal more context.

The bonus inclusion of the original short story is an unexpected delight, and not something I have found in print before.

I’m not as great an admirer of Bencolin as I am Dr Fell or HM, but very much enjoyed this and will be listening to all the others very soon. I do have a fondness for French detectives, and enjoyed JDC’s wonderful descriptive phrasing, and the European settings also.

The first novel, along with the first short story as a bonus!

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I found this really hard to listen to as my brain kept wandering off. Not sure why it couldn't hold my attention really as the idea is good, but didn't grab me at all and all the characters seemed to be very unpleasant.

Dull

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