A Dell mapback ( )

This detective story is crammed with interest - a sealed room murder, a family feud, professional magicians (pre-empting Jonathon Creek), love, deadly snakes, a background of the early days of the London Blitz and the irrepressible Sir Henry Merrivale (HM). Not necessarily great art but great fun. ( )

Another apparently impossible murder, this time in a small zoo in London's Bayswater district. How could the zoo's curator have been murdered by gas in a room sealed from the inside with brown paper and paste? Two stage magicians (who start by causing chaos in the zoo's reptile house, and end by falling in love) lead the cast of those involved, with Sir Henry Merrivale as the principal, in an effort to prove that it was not suicide. (The significance of the title is that Patience is the name of a small snake, which dies alongside the curator - his daughter argues that he would never have caused one of his animals to suffer like this.) A strong entry in the H. M. series. ( )

Not necessarily one of Carr's best novels but it does have one of my very favourite moments in all his novels. After reading Jim Steinmeyer's wonderful "Hiding the Elephant" I suddenly realised why Carr is so fascinated by magic (all the references to Cannell's "The Secrets of Houdini" in "The Hollow Man" for example). Basically Carr is a magician and like all magicians likes to not only flaunt the solution of his puzzle at his readers but do it with breathtaking audacity. Hence the protagonists here are magicians and hence one particular sequence which for my money solely exists to pretty much give away the ending. But due to brilliant misdirection (as I said, Carr is at heart a magician) you'll simply never spot it. Incredible. My admiration for the man just goes up and up the more books I read by him ("Crimson Blind" aside, of course). ( )