The Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries

Latest release: March 25, 2014
Series
5
Books

About this ebook series

A madcap tale of murder on an ocean liner that offers “good mystery and lots of fun in the bargain” (The New York Times).
 
The majestic ocean liner Queen Victoria is halfway through another uneventful transatlantic crossing when bad weather drives most of the passengers to their cabins. Only six have the iron stomachs necessary to take a seat at the captain’s table. Of those six, one will die—and the rest will make utter fools of themselves.
 
The theft of a reel of top-secret government film sets off a chase involving stolen jewels, massive marionettes, and a corpse that won’t stay put. Murder has been committed, but the passengers can’t be sure who’s dead—and are too busy boozing, fighting, and robbing one another to be bothered. They do embark on an inadvisable attempt at amateur detective work—but every clue they turn up drives them deeper into madness. It will take the timely intervention of Dr. Gideon Fell to cut through the insanity and unmask a killer.
 
John Dickson Carr wrote some of the most brilliant mystery novels of the golden age of detective fiction, and this book shows him at his funniest. As Anthony Boucher warned, “Never was a reader more bedeviled with distractions from detection. Who observes clues while he’s wiping his laughter-streaming eyes?”

The Blind Barber is the 4th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The Blind Barber
Book 4 · Mar 2014 ·
5.0
A madcap tale of murder on an ocean liner that offers “good mystery and lots of fun in the bargain” (The New York Times).
 
The majestic ocean liner Queen Victoria is halfway through another uneventful transatlantic crossing when bad weather drives most of the passengers to their cabins. Only six have the iron stomachs necessary to take a seat at the captain’s table. Of those six, one will die—and the rest will make utter fools of themselves.
 
The theft of a reel of top-secret government film sets off a chase involving stolen jewels, massive marionettes, and a corpse that won’t stay put. Murder has been committed, but the passengers can’t be sure who’s dead—and are too busy boozing, fighting, and robbing one another to be bothered. They do embark on an inadvisable attempt at amateur detective work—but every clue they turn up drives them deeper into madness. It will take the timely intervention of Dr. Gideon Fell to cut through the insanity and unmask a killer.
 
John Dickson Carr wrote some of the most brilliant mystery novels of the golden age of detective fiction, and this book shows him at his funniest. As Anthony Boucher warned, “Never was a reader more bedeviled with distractions from detection. Who observes clues while he’s wiping his laughter-streaming eyes?”

The Blind Barber is the 4th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Death-Watch
Book 5 · Mar 2014 ·
2.7
In this Golden Age British-style mystery, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master John Dickson Carr presents Dr. Gideon Fell’s most chilling case, in which a clock-obsessed killer terrorizes London

A clockmaker is puzzled by the theft of the hands of a monumental new timepiece he is preparing for a member of the nobility. That night, one of the stolen hands is found buried between a policeman’s shoulder blades, stopping his clock for all time.

The crime is just peculiar enough to catch the attention of Dr. Gideon Fell, the portly detective whose formidable intellect is the terror of every criminal in London. Working closely with Scotland Yard, he finds that the case turns on the question of why the clock hands were stolen. And learning the answer will put Dr. Fell squarely in the path of a madman with nothing but time on his hands.

Death-Watch is the 5th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
To Wake the Dead
Book 9 · Mar 2014 ·
0.0
Hailed by Agatha Christie as “the king of the art of misdirection,” John Dickson Carr presents a thrilling murder mystery that has the redoubtable Dr. Gideon Fell tracing clues from London to Sussex to South Africa

Mystery novelist Christopher Kent accepts a friend’s outlandish bet and sets out to travel from Johannesburg to London with nothing but the cash in his wallet and the clothes on his back. He arrives with twenty-four hours to spare, his wallet and his stomach both empty. While cadging a breakfast at a luxurious hotel, he is implicated in the brutal murder of a hotel guest. Fleeing the scene of the crime, Kent takes refuge with Dr. Gideon Fell, the portly genius who specializes in murders too baffling for Scotland Yard. For Kent, getting to London was the easy part. The trick will be avoiding the hangman.

To Wake the Dead is the 9th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The Man Who Could Not Shudder
Book 12 · Mar 2014 ·
4.7
Famed crime solver Dr. Gideon Fell attends a housewarming party in the English countryside, but a ghost spoils the fun in Golden Age mystery master John Dickson Carr’s stylish, baffling mystery novel

The house is called Longwood, and its history is wet with blood. It is closed up for good in 1920, when a massive chandelier falls, crushing an eighty-year-old butler. Oddly enough, the old chandelier was sturdy, and there was no way it could have fallen unless the butler leapt and swung on it. Was he mad? Suicidal? Or was he being pursued by something from beyond the grave?

Seventeen years later, Longwood is purchased by Martin Clarke, a rakish young man with a taste for the supernatural. He invites his friends for a paranormal housewarming, but it is not long before the festivities turn gruesome. Chairs fly, guns fire on their own, and a mysterious fire threatens to engulf the whole mansion in flames. Clarke and his guests came for a ghost hunt—but could it be that the ghost is hunting them?
The Man Who Could Not Shudder is the 12th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Man Who Could Not Shudder is the 12th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
In Spite of Thunder
Book 20 · Mar 2014 ·
0.0
The master of the Golden Age British-style detective novel presents his redoubtable sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell in a baffling murder mystery set in the Swiss Alps

Young Audrey Page has been warned against joining the aging film star Eve Eden and her temperamental friends at a Swiss chalet. Trustingly, she goes anyway and finds herself encircled by terror when a murderer strikes. With its eerie similarities to a crime that dates back to World War II, the murder attracts the attention of Dr. Gideon Fell, a brilliant sleuth with an eye for solving impossible murder cases. He will find that in this corner of the Alps, the air is thin, the scenery is beautiful, and the snow runs red with blood.

In Spite of Thunder is the 20th book in the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.