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They say that Lord Mantling's mansion is haunted--at least, one room of it is. Known as the Red Widow's Chamber, the now-sealed quarters once housed the wife of a guillotine operator in the French Revolution and, since her passing, have been host to a century of unsolved horrors including the death of a man in 1802, the death of a child in 1895, and a number of mysterious mortalities in the years in between. Now, in 1935, eight men and women join at the manor for a sinister experiment to determine the truth once and for all: they each draw a card, and whoever pulls the Ace of Spades must spend a night in the terrifying room. But the challenge turns fatal when the man selected for the task is found poisoned the next morning when the chamber is unlocked.… (more)
User reviews
Fun fun fun! There's something to be said about the pleasure of reading these old, vintage mystery novels, with their often elaborately-plotted crimes and solutions that even if you tried, you couldn't guess. Especially in this one, where there are a number of suspects, plenty of clues, and an equal number of red herrings left for the reader to sift through. The Red Widow Murders also offers its readers a great backstory which in and of itself is a bit chilling.
Unlike some of his other works, The Red Widow Murders isn't weighted down by a lot of archaisms, and it moves at a very nice pace. The characters are well drawn, the atmosphere is perfect, the story is a good one, and the mystery will leave you hanging until the very end. This one I can definitely recommend, especially to fans of golden-age mystery novels and of John Dickson Carr in particular. It's not a cozy novel by any stretch, and modern readers of mystery may find it a bit slow considering the fast pace of novels nowadays. However, if you are a dyed-in-the-wool fan of vintage crime, like me, it really is worth every minute you put into it.