A strange little man calling himself Abu of Ispahan bursts into the office of London solicitor Hugh Prentice. "All my troubles have been caused by your gloves!", shrieks the excitable Abu. Moments later, he is stabbed with a dagger / paperknife from Hugh's desk.

Hugh flees the scene and enlists the help of famous barrister Patrick Butler. What follows is a lot of comedy and a great deal of action as Hugh and Butler elude the police through the foggy streets of London.

A locked-room mystery for which John Dickson Carr was famous, and a screwball comedy too. Along with The Blind Barber, one of my favourite JDCs. ( )

A non-series novel in the strict sense, but a singular tribute to G. K. Chesterton -- the red-haired Irish barrister Patrick Butler appears in GKC's Father Brown story "The Man in the Passage" defending the wrongly accused actor Isidore Bruno; now Carr uses Butler as the lead character in his own novel, doing his own detecting. Strictly speaking, it should not be the same man, as the GKC story was published in 1913 and this one in 1956, and Butler would have been much older, if alive at all. But it is a striking reappearance. ( )