The Seat Of The Scornful by John Dickson Carr

Dr. Gideon Fell returns in another puzzling mystery, asking the profound question of whether murder can ever be justified.

Justice Ireton, a good friend of Dr. Fell, is known for delivering harsh and swift punishment to criminals. He would like his pretty daughter Constance to marry fellow lawyer Fred Barlow, but she is enamored of Anthony Morelli (a thug whose reputation includes blackmail and an ex-fiancé trying to shoot him). Morelli visits her father at his oceanfront cottage to ask for his blessing, and Ireton asks point-blank how much it would take for Morelli to disappear, and he readily agrees to £3000. The next day, as all the players gather at the cottage, Morelli is found shot dead in the living room, with Justice Ireton holding a smoking gun. He claims to have been in another room; Barlow claims to have been at his own nearby cottage; Constance was using a village phone booth. Inspector Graham and Dr. Fell reconstruct the events of the night. The body was found on a pile of sand, telephone physically broken, and the bullet never found. Can Justice Ireton be innocent? Dr. Gideon Fell is used to puzzles and, with his usual skill of splitting a hair sixteen ways and still having something left over, will ferret out the truth.

More of a whodunnit, this was superior to my previous review of The Black Spectacles. A tight timeline, a little romance, and many disparate clues. The cottage used to belong to a Canadian if that helps. Dr. Fell comes up with a complex solution - but does he even think it's correct?

This was published as Death Turns The Tables in the US and has been reprinted by British Library Crime Classics under its original title.

1942 / Tradeback / 258 pages