An interesting detective novel. The plot was quite complex, and the end results were unable to be determined by the reader.

This is the second book by the author that I picked up and from trusted sources, that there are better ones out there. Despite that fact, I must say I liked the book.
Our detective is requested on a very strange case of a man shot and then set on fire. There is a lingering shadow of a man who died mysteriously from a train years earlier. They set out to the home of the most recently deceased and end up facing a party of possible suspects. There are more misdirections that I could keep track of. Each time I thought I was being clever in spotting a particular anomaly, it turned out that I was being played each time. There is a lot of melodrama, not least because there were to detectives vying for the crowning glory of being the one with the solution. In both the books I have read by the author, there has been a feverish mood with people in mild hysterics almost all the time.
one of the characters was introduced using this very profound line:
‘a Matterhorn in white lace, glaring down over the icy slopes of herself.’ It is probably the first time I felt the description of someone being fat was seen in a more reverent manner.
I was utterly taken in by who the culprit was because I was not focused on that thread of narration. After this, I look forward to reading more by the author.

So, I have to admit that I approached Castle Skull by John Dickson Carr with a bit of trepidation. I have read a couple of the Dr. Gideon Fell mysteries, and I wasn’t too thrilled with them – I found Dr. Fell annoying and pompous, I also thought both of the mysteries seemed to fizzle out in the end. I know that Mr. Carr is considered the master of the locked room mystery, I guess I just haven’t hit the right books yet.

So I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this book. Yes, it many ways it was overblown, overwrought, over everything – but that’s part of what made this semi-gothic, semi-mystical book so much fun. All of the elements are here and are overdone to a great degree: intellectual private detective (along with his sidekick) vs. arrogant police inspector (German, dueling scars) with a shared history of past tangles, haunted (?) castle that resembles a skull (I couldn’t help pictured Castle Greyskull from the old He-Man cartoons my brothers used to watch), mysterious lights, a mysterious murder in the past on a train, a magician who used to own the castle, secret passages and tunnels, hidden rooms, a fortune from African diamond mines made under shady circumstances, all of the suspects staying in one house, a cold-hearted industrialist with his younger wife and her (maybe?) lover, a spinster sister, a drunk lady secretly engaged, a hungry journalist who knows more than he’s saying, a missing wife… what’s not to love?

And I also enjoyed the main detective, Frenchman Henri Bencolin, a nice departure from Dr. Fell. The mystery wasn’t overly complex, but who cares? The fun was in the journey.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

Henri Bencolin, juge d'instruction of the Seine, travels to Schloss Schadel—Castle Skull—a castle on the Rhine River, and home to the world-famous magician Maleger, until his death.

‘You have heard, of course, of the magician Maleger?”

“…Maleger was not one of your genial, smiling conjurors…”

Maleger died many years earlier under mysterious circumstances. He boarded a train, unaccompanied. He was never seen to leave, yet when the train reaches its destination he has disappeared. Days later his body is pulled from the Rhine.

But it is another death which draws Bencolin and his friend Jeff Marle, for at his death Maleger bequeathed the Castle Skull jointly to his friends, financier Jérôme D’Aunay and the Shakespearean actor Myron Alison. Alison has been murdered in the castle. Shot three times, then drenched in kerosene and set alight, only to rise and stagger in flames along the battlements of the castle before he fell dead.

This is the first of the Bencolin series that I’ve read, and while I’ve heard much about them, I’ve consciously avoided reading any reviews until after I’d finished reading it. I was therefore unsure of what to expect other than spooky atmosphere and possibly, strange impossible murders.

What I found was a story that is full with everything I expect from Carr—with a cherry on top. Every aspect is embellished with melodrama and the macabre. Details are vivid, at times to the point of garishness. The mood is gothic and brooding. Emotions are chaotic, running the gamut from lethargic unconcern to frenzied agitation. And everything is made to feel ominous and menacing.

“There is an old, dangerous twilight charm about the warrior Rhine when it leaves its lush wideness at Bingen. Thence it seems to grow darker. The green deepens almost to black, grey rock replaces vineyards on the hills which close it in. Narrow and winding now, a frothy olive-green, it rushes through a world of ghosts.”

Simply put, Carr piles it on with relish. Yet there was something quite fun about it all. The exuberance of it of it all made me feel that Carr was enjoying every word that he wrote, and I enthusiastically went along for the ride.

"Castle Skull" is a mystery that was originally published in 1931 and is set along the Rhine River. The author apparently intended to create an atmospheric, Gothic horror feel to the story through descriptions of the dark weather and odd furnishings. Modern readers probably won't find it very creepy. There were two competing detectives trying to solve the mystery. They asked questions and snooped about without being terribly clear about what they had discovered because they're trying to hide it from others. I strongly suspected whodunit (and some of the reason why) due to the known clues. Of course, there's the dramatic reveal at the end about what had happened and who the murderer was.

In the included short story, we're quickly told the setup and then the solution. Bencolin had a very different personality than the competent, clever, assured detective that he's portrayed as in the main story. In both stories, Bencolin is the only one who correctly identifies whodunit and yet that person is not brought to justice. Someone else dies in their place. There were no sex scenes. There was a fair amount of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting mystery.

Poisoned Pen Press are issuing another British Library Crime Classic: Castle Skull by the American writer John Dickson Carr, first published in 1931. The book also contains a short story by Carr: The Fourth Suspect. Both pieces feature M Bencolin, a juge d’instruction based in Paris.

Briefly, Jerome D’Aunay and Myron Alison have jointly inherited a castle, Castle Skull on the Rhine, from a famous magician, Maleger. Maleger died mysteriously – he disappeared from a train carriage which had no other passengers in the compartment and with a guard watching the door for the whole journey. His body was pulled out of the Rhine several days later, badly decomposed and unrecognisable. Eight days ago, Alison was seen in flames on the battlements of Castle Skull. He had been shot, then doused in kerosene and set ablaze.

D’Aunay asks Bencolin and his sidekick, Jeff Marle, who effectively performs the role of Dr Watson to Bencolin’s Sherlock Holmes, to investigate Alison’s murder. The official police are represented by Herr Baron Sigmund von Arnheim. The two detectives compete to see who can solve the mystery. The competition gives us a flavour of what the plot of a Conan Doyle novel about Holmes and his “hated rival upon the Surry shore, Mr Barker” might have been like. However, Carr’s literary style struck me as gothic and OTT as he tries to convey the menace of the castle whose façade really does resemble a skull with eyes, nose and jaw.

It would helped me if Carr had explained in the first chapter that Malegar had died seventeen years earlier rather than quite recently. We actually discover this a third of the way through the book and it gives a different perspective to the characters’ actions. That said, it’s still a cracking book. Although I initially tried to tune out the purple prose, I realised that Carr’s style really does create the desired atmosphere. I am not convinced that Carr plays fairly with us as Bencolin admits to doing something “off-stage” which destroys a clue we never saw, but that’s a very minor gripe.

The bonus short story from 1927 features Bencolin sans Jeff Marle. Bencolin’s French mannerisms are exaggerated and the twist at the end was wholly expected, I’m afraid. I’m delighted to have read it – it’s one of only four short stories to feature Bencolin - but I'm glad I read the novel first to properly appreciate Carr's skill.

A man comes to French inspector Bencolin with a most unusual proposition. He wants to hire Bencolin to solve a murder of a famous actor at Skull Castle on the Rhine in Germany. But, he refuses to pay Bencolin because he is sure he’ll want to be involved regardless. Intrigued, Bencolin agrees as does his writer friend. The two meet the house full of suspects at a mansion across the river from where the murder took place. Two evenings before as people were retiring for the night, some of the guests saw their host running around aflame in front of Skull Castle, the former residence of his frenemie, a famous magician who died in very mysterious circumstances as well several years earlier. But Bencolin is not the only inspector who has been called to investigate this crime. German inspector Baron von Arnheim has also been called since the murder happened on German soil. Bencolin and von Arhnheim were on opposite sides of the spy game during the Great War. They will match wits again in trying to see who can more quickly and correctly uncover who killed the actor.
After the main story, there is a short story included called “The Fourth Suspect” in which Bencolin is hired to find out who killed a known spy and stole the spy’s documents that identified who he worked for.

It is interesting to read how a French novelist from the golden age of mystery wove a detective story. The international cast was also interesting as it consists of French, Belgian, German, British, and American characters. They occasionally discuss which language they want to have a conversation in, which I’m sure would boggle some American readers’ minds. Having visited Europe and being an expat myself, I don’t find that anywhere near as surprising now than I would have many years ago before international travel. This is the only Bencolin story I’ve read, and I’m interested enough to read some more if I can find them in English. Most particularly because of the way these two stories play out. Both have somewhat unusual endings for a detective novel and I wonder how they compare to other stories in the series. (view spoiler) Both mysteries had clever twists. There were a couple red herrings in Skull Castle that had me fooled for a little while, and I did not see the full ending coming. I also liked the investigative contest and how Bencolin and von Arnheim obviously had something of a begrudging respect for each other while each thinking themselves a hair better. The competition helped keep the story a bit lighter than it otherwise would have been. If you love classic feeling mysteries but also want something just a little bit different, give this one a try.

Notes on content: Well over 20 mild swear words, and 1 or 2 moderate British swears. No sex scenes. It is mentioned that some characters are having an affair or that somewhat is telling a rather scandalous story, but it is just mentioned and not spelled out in any kind of detail whatsoever. Obviously there are 2 murders mentioned (3 if you count the short story). Very little gory detail. Some psychological/physical abuse is strongly hinted at but not spelled out. True to the time period, numerous characters smoke and consume alcohol.

I received an ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This looks to be a wonderful new edition of the book and I'll be looking in to the publication more, but unfortunately the story itself isn't a good fit for me at the moment. I'd like to come back to it again in the future.

The British Library Crime Classics series doesn't just embrace British writers. Castle Skull is positively international: the work of the American crime novelist John Dickson Carr, set in Germany, with the Parisian detective Bencolin as its protagonist. It's one of Carr's earlier works, published in 1931, and he seems to have thrown everything at it in an excess of exuberance. A mystery, but also a macabre piece of Grand Guignol, this story takes us deep into the dark gorges of the Rhineland, and to the eponymous Castle Skull, former home of the magician Maleger. This extravagant folly was left jointly in his will to his friends Jerome d'Aunay, the Belgian financier, and Myron Alison, the British actor. But now d'Aunay has come to Paris in search of Bencolin's brilliant mind, for there has been a horrific death, and the castle has seen blood spilled upon its walls: 'Alison has been murdered. His blazing body was seen running about the battlements of Castle Skull.' It's definitely one of the more 'what the...?!' opening gambits in detective fiction. A blazing body; a castle shaped like a skull; a whole treasure trove of dark secrets... Bencolin can't resist and, along with his friend (and the book's narrator) Jeff Marle, he heads for the Rhineland to discover the full sinister history of Castle Skull.

On some levels, this is a standard murder mystery. We have the murder, the household full of suspects waiting to be questioned, and the predictable cat-and-mouse game between witnesses and detective, to unearth the truth. But Carr's novel is quite different from any other Golden Age mystery that I've read so far, because it relishes every possible occasion for the melodramatic. Even his hero Bencolin has positively satanic looks, which suit the theatrical weirdness of this particular adventure. Carr describes:

The black hair, parted in the middle and twirled up like horns. The long inscrutable eyes, with hooked brows drawn down. The high cheekbones, the aquiline nose. The slow smile, stirring between small moustache and black pointed beard.

At the Alison villa, tucked into a wooded hillside across the Rhine from the looming (and unoccupied) Castle Skull, Bencolin and Marle meet the possible suspects. This is, essentially, a country-house-weekend murder, with a typically diverse selection of guests: the lively party-girl Sally Reine, with her square-cut black bob and flapper manners; the bumbling young Englishman Sir Marshall Dunstan; Jerome d'Aunay himself, and his English wife Isobel; and the virtuoso violinist Levasseur. Even minor characters are gifted with elaborate descriptions, though Carr's similies are sometimes unexpected, as in this case of Hoffman the butler: 'with his pale eyebrows under a bulging forehead, his round blue eyes, snub nose, and drooping mouth, he looked rather like a middle-aged kewpie doll'. At the head of the household is Alison's middle-aged sister Agatha, known by all as the Duchess, who rules her guests with bluff, roaring good humour and the regular application of glasses of stout ('a veritable wild-woman, who smokes cigars, swears, and plays poker all night... a massive woman, a Matterhorn in white lace'). There's one more character to take into account: Brian Gallivan, a journalist and collector of ghost-stories, who knows more about the magician Maleger than first appears.

And, for a dead man, Maleger casts a long shadow over this household. Gifted with a demonic and malevolent imagination, he spent his life creating terrifying theatrical illusions: a fascination which carried through to his restoration of Castle Skull: 'He spent a year transforming that weird ruin into a place of the nightmare... every trick of his ingenuity was expended on devices to make the average man fear for his wits.' The castle grew into its name, with a great dome between two towers evoking the curve of a skull; vast oval windows added for eyes; and an arched gallery suggesting a row of cadaverous teeth. It was the stuff of nightmares and Maleger himself, its baleful architect, was no better: Carr describes his 'terrible and sinister force... his uncanny penetrating look of dark eyes, and his great skull with its plumes of reddish hair'. Carr is strangely fascinated by characters who have large skulls: the motif comes up several times, as if he can't quite shake off the shadow of the towering anthropomorphic fortress on its precipitous crag. And there's something unsettling about Maleger even in death, because the manner of that death was so unconventional - vanishing from a locked, otherwise empty train carriage during the course of a journey, only to be fished out of the Rhine several days later. Even now, years later, when another death is at the front of everyone's mind, people are still haunted by Maleger. Was it suicide? Murder? Did the great showman fake his own demise?

As you can see, Bencolin has plenty to disentangle. Unlike most detectives, however, he doesn't have time to pore over his various ideas, because he isn't the only investigator working on the case. The local police, frustrated at the arrival of a Parisian on their patch, have called for reinforcements. These take the form of Herr Baron Sigmund von Arnheim, Chief Inspector of the Berlin police and Bencolin's nemesis, whose arrival lifts the game to a new level and introduces an element of personal rivalry. I hope there's some background on their enmity in the first Bencolin novel, It Walks By Night, because Carr, via Marle, hints at all manner of wonderful stories: 'I had heard tales of the time, years before, when he and Bencolin had played the tangled game of "I spy" across half Europe, and moved pieces on a deadly board behind the guns'. Now the First World War is over, these two masters of espionage have been reduced to pitting their wits against one another in detective cases. Like all worthy enemies, they treat one another with the exquisite manners of true gentlemen. Bencolin explains, nonchalantly:

"I have felt a positive affection for him ever since we exchanged revolver-shots during a little informal gunplay in Constantinople. I regret, of course, the instance in which cyanide was dropped in my brandy during dinner with one of his secret agents; but I feel sure the good baron had ordered nothing more than knockout drops. This error I pointed out to him, in a polite note, and he promised to censure his careless operative most severely."

There is drama everywhere here: in the murder, in the setting, in the reactions of the suspects, and even in the competition between two rival detectives. Some people might, reasonably, feel that Carr is over-egging the pudding, cranking the melodrama up to eleven simply to whip the reader's nerves into a frenzy. Yet there's something rather fun about abandoning oneself to the ride, because Carr is palpably enjoying himself so much. Even inconsequential moments, such as the initial journey to Coblenz, are heavy with portent and pathetic fallacy ('the dull clouds were shot with low streaks of red. They lit the dark, jagged line of trees, they trembled in weird dapplings on the mysterious water'); and, when Marle arrives at the Alison villa, his forebodings leap into overdrive with 'that sense of an approaching evil, which was not only formless, but topsy-turvy and mad!' It all has a rather breathless quality: again, that Grand Guignol flair mixed with a kind of Boy's Own adventure, all unfolding in a setting that revels in its eerily dark legends. One of the loveliest passages of writing comes when Carr conjures up the wild beauty of the river at the very beginning, luring us into the heightened flavour of his world:

'There is an old, dangerous twilight charm about the warrior Rhine when it leaves its lush wideness at Bingen. Thence it seems to grow darker. The green deepens almost to black, grey rock replaces vineyards on the hills which close it in. Narrow and winding now, a frothy olive-green, it rushes through a world of ghosts.'

I won't go into any detail about the solution to the murder, but it is predictably complicated and sensational. This is pure, unapologetic pulp fiction, so hammy that you could stuff it between two slices of bread and make a jolly good sandwich. But this sort of thing is perfect for a day when you want the book to do all the work for you, and you just want to sit back and be entertained. A fair summary might be 'tasty but not very nourishing', in an assessment invented some years ago by Heloise. Those who are used to the more refined mysteries of Agatha Christie might find this a little over-done for their tastes, but if you're willing to take a brief walk on the wild side, and to throw yourself into the spirit of the novel, it makes for a delicious excursion into the macabre.

Incidentally, I can't help but wonder whether Castle Skull was the inspiration for Castle Greyskull of He-Man fame. When I was searching for cover images for Castle Skull (see below), I found some art of Castle Greyskull as well, and was struck by how closely it sticks to the description of our Rhineland fortress: the two towers on either side, for example, though of course the skull element has been made more explicit, as befits a fantasy stronghold. Does anyone know how the Greyskull design was conceived? It'd be rather funny if a pulpy 1930s detective novel inspired a pulpy 1980s fantasy series.

A final 'logistical' comment. This is the second novel featuring Henri Bencolin, after It Walks by Night (1930), which is also published in the British Library Crime Classics series). The third novel, The Lost Gallows (1931), will be published by them in November 2020. At present the fourth novel, The Waxworks Murder (1932), isn't available for Kindle and is out of print, but there is a Kindle version of the fifth and last novel, The Four False Weapons (1937). There are also four Bencolin short stories: 'The Fourth Suspect', which is printed at the end of Castle Skull in this volume, and three others: 'The Shadow of the Goat', 'The End of Justice' and 'The Murder in Number Four'.

This review will be published on my blog on 10 April at the following address:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/04/10/castle-skull-john-dickson-carr

This is the third of Dickson Carr’s four novels that showcase Henri Bencolin Juge d’instruction, Paris. Published in 1931 in the USA it was rejected by his English publisher at the time as too macabre and was finally published in 1971. This is one of the next series of British Library Crime Classics, published here under an American imprint. Bencolin is a wealthy man and apparently “bought” his judgeship. But his wealth means he can also undertake private investigations. He is supported by his own “Watson” – American writer Jeff Marle - who accompanies him on these projects and acts as the narrator of the stories. Bencolin might be regarded as the finest detective in Europe. That title might be challenged by another, Herr Baron Sigmund Von Arnheim, who will appear in his professional capacity in the German police to investigate a murder. The two rivals will compete to try and ascertain what exactly happened.
Bencolin has been asked to go to Castle Skull in the Coblenz area by rich Belgian businessman M. d’Aunay to investigate the death of a friend of his Myron Alison a wealthy actor. His body has been found dead – in lurid circumstances – at Castle Skull. The Castle, inherited by d’Aunay and Alison lies across the River Rhine from Alison’s main home. The death took place one evening when a number of guests were at the house. All will be waiting there as potential witnesses or murderers. They include Alison’s sister “The Duchess”, M & Mme d’Aunay, Levasseur (a musician), an Englishman Baron Dunstan, his secret fiancée Sally Reine and three household servants.
Castle Skull had previously belonged to Mr Maleger. In his later years he became a professional magician with a great bent for the theatrics (often considered extreme). But he had died in suspicious circumstances 17 years earlier, a death that had eventually been attributed to suicide. The Castle, though usually unoccupied since, was a spectacular building. In the medieval period it was supposed to have been the home of a sorcerer burnt at the stake. Maleger had had it restored to great gothic finery, but now it was apparently unused except for a “simple” live-in caretaker. Nevertheless it had attracted a reputation as a strange and ghostly place of legends. Although some of them were written by Brian Gallivan a journalist and Maleger’s publicist before his death.
This tale is therefore the macabre or extreme extension of the more usual “house party” death that conforms to many detective mysteries. It requires all potential witnesses to be examined and buried secrets revealed the investigator (in this case two) unravelling more and more clues, or red herrings to be ignored, so the murderer can be identified. Von Arnheim has his views and requirements of his job – Bencolin may be satisfied with less “application of the legal process”.
Dickson Carr wrote this as a younger writer, but it is still very assured. He builds his characters and places slowly and securely, most are believable within the genre. Recognising that this story refers back to Gothic horror stories and the extreme location and actions it can be expected to be beyond the normal (I hope). The place itself forms a distinct character within the tale and trips reactions maybe not expected from polite home county venues. So a slightly deeper suspension of disbelief is required as you read the tale. But the murderer – or is there more than one? – is not revealed until the very end. So this makes for a good fun historic crime read.
This volume includes another Bencolin short story “The Fourth Suspect” – where he is required to investigate the death of a spy in Par is and retrieve the “evidence”. Perhaps not quite so satisfying, weaker and not as well developed as the longer tale, overall a poorer attempt at the “locked room” murder. But incidentally proving the greater worth of the main story in spite of its greater unlikelihood.

I wish, more authors today wrote mysteries like Carr and other writers did in the 1st half of the 20th century. This is a solid book with real mystery and logical explanation, not the thriller masquerading as a mystery novel. Great classical fun. Yes, the characters are rather thin - this is pure entertainment book, not high art.