The Corpse in the Waxworks: A Paris Mystery

by John Dickson Carr, Martin Edwards (Introduction)

Overview

"The purpose, the illusion, the spirit of a waxworks. It is an atmosphere of death. It is soundless and motionless… Do you see?"

Last night Mademoiselle Duchêne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musée Augustin waxworks, alive. Today she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his figures, claims that he saw one of them following the victim into the dark—a lead that Henri Bencolin, head of the Paris police and expert of 'impossible' crimes, cannot possibly resist.

Surrounded by the eerie noises of the night, Bencolin prepares to enter the ill-fated waxworks, his associate Jeff Marle and the victim's fiancé in tow. Waiting within, beneath the glass-eyed gaze of a leering waxen satyr, is a gruesome discovery and the first clues of a twisted and ingenious mystery.

First published in 1932 at the height of crime fiction's Golden Age, this macabre and atmospheric dive into the murky underground of Parisian society presents an intelligent puzzle delivered at a stunning pace. This new edition also includes the rare Inspector Bencolin short story "The Murder in Number Four" by John Dickson Carr, and an Introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger-Award winning author Martin Edwards.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781464215438
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Series:	British Library Crime Classics
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	367,099
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 - February 27, 1977) was a hugely popular and prolific author of crime fiction, regarded as one of the finest writers of ‘Golden Age’ mysteries. He was one of only two Americans ever admitted to the Detection Club, a prestigious honor amongst writers.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/13/2021

In this superior British Library Crime Classics reissue from Carr (1906–1977), first published in 1932, Paris examining magistrate Henri Bencolin investigates the murder of Odette Duchêne, a former cabinet minister’s daughter, whose bruised and stabbed body was found floating in the Seine. Odette was last seen entering the Musée Augustin, which displays waxworks. Her murder may be part of a pattern linked to the sparsely attended museum, as another young woman seen there disappeared six months earlier. That theory’s strengthened after Bencolin and his sidekick, Jeff Marle, visit the Musée Augustin, where what Marle took to be an effigy in the arms of a wax satyr is actually the stabbed corpse of Claudine Martel, Odette’s best friend, also a retired cabinet minister’s daughter. Carr matches the creepy Grand Guignol atmosphere with an utterly fair solution that reinforces the importance of reading every word. Though the Bencolin tales lack the humor of Carr’s Gideon Fell and Henry Merrivale impossible crime novels, golden age fans who haven’t encountered them are in for a treat. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Poisoned Pen's reprint of Carr's deliciously florid and melodramatic murder mystery will delight Golden Age mystery fans.[The] reprint includes two excellent bonuses: an insightful introduction by Martin Edwards (The Golden Age of Murder) and the rare 1928 Inspector Bencolin short story "The Murder in Number Four"—a humorous locked-room murder mystery set on a moving train. A Golden Age mystery treat!" — Shelf Awareness

"[A] superior British Library Crime Classics reissue...golden age fans are in for a treat." — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"The title says it all: juge d’instruction Henri Bencolin outdoes himself in this 1932 yarn, perhaps the most atmospheric of all Carr’s floridly atmospheric mysteries...If this slice of Grand Guignol doesn’t give you the yips, you’re probably yip-proof. Your loss." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-07-28
The title says it all: juge d’instruction Henri Bencolin outdoes himself in this 1932 yarn, perhaps the most atmospheric of all Carr’s floridly atmospheric mysteries.

Bencolin and his American sidekick, Jeff Marle, have come to the Musée Augustin following the trail of Odette Duchêne, whose father, a Cabinet minister, shot himself 10 years ago. Odette’s fiance, Capt. Robert Chaumont, saw her go into the waxworks, but she was never seen again until her body was fished from the Seine. Searching for clues to her death, Bencolin and Marle find something even more shocking: the corpse of Odette’s friend Claudine Martel nestled in the arms of the Satyr of the Seine, one of the Musée Augustin’s signature attractions. A telltale scrap of paper leads the sleuths to Etienne Galant, the owner of the neighboring Club of Coloured Masks, who retired from teaching English literature at Christ Church College, Oxford, to blackmail high-society contemporaries like Odette’s father whose depravity made them irresistible targets. Any neighborhood that features both a waxworks and a house of debauchery guarantees the creeps, and the denouement features one of the weirdest, wildest confrontations ever between the detective and the murderer. An earlier, lesser bonus story from Carr’s college days, “The Murder in Number Four,” sets Bencolin the task of figuring out who strangled a notorious diamond smuggler without being seen entering or leaving his compartment aboard the Blue Arrow train from Dieppe to Paris.

If this slice of Grand Guignol doesn’t give you the yips, you’re probably yip-proof. Your loss.

Kirkus Reviews