The Clue of the Twisted Candles
An excellent locked-room mystery by the master of British thrillers.
"You must remember I am a Greek, and the modern Greek is no philosopher. You must remember, too, that I am a petted child of fortune, and have had everything I wanted since I was a baby."
"You are a fortunate devil," said the other, turning back to his desk, and taking up his pen.
For a moment Kara did not speak, then he made as though he would say something, checked himself, and laughed.
"I wonder if I am," he said.
And now he spoke with a sudden energy.
"What is this trouble you are having with Vassalaro?"
John rose from his chair and walked over to the fire, stood gazing down into its depths, his legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind him, and Kara took his attitude to supply an answer to the question.
"I warned you against Vassalaro," he said, stooping by the other's side to light his cigar with a spill of paper. "My dear Lexman, my fellow countrymen are unpleasant people to deal with in certain moods."
"He was so obliging at first," said Lexma
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I love T.X. Meredith! I want to read more books featuring him, but I can't find any others. I enjoyed this, chiefly because of the clever and the urbane T.X. (he has all the good dialogue!).
This is the first book I have read by Edgar Wallace, and I was a little taken aback by the viciousness of his villain--definitely painted with a black brush, no shades of grey--which gave him a one-dimensional, subhuman quality. Are all of Wallace's evildoers painted completely black? I will have to try another one of his books to find out. Enjoy.
"Most people are murdered as a result of an introduction. The cases where people murder total strangers are singularly rare. That I think is due to the insularity of our national character."
That's one quotation from T.X. Meredith, the singular detective of this singular mystery. The story begins as if it were to be a procedural -- a writer friend of T.X.'s is induced to inadvertently kill another man in an evil plot -- but midway through turns into locked-room mystery.
The novel starts a bit slowly, but picks up the pace as it goes on. The villain is over the top and the women characters rather banal, but Meredith is fascinating -- even though, ultimately, someone else solves the crime.
A typical Edgar Wallace classic! Good characterization. It held my interest right to the end.
It is an exciting novel. The plot and the characterisation of the villain are very appealing, even to the contemporary readers. The character of TX is also well etched and memorable. A very good work, a lovely example of the early to mid 1900s british detective novels.
Good adventure novel wich containes a cunning villain, love, revenge and locked room murder. And good author too, E. Wallace is.
They say that in tha UK in the 1920s Edgar Wallace was the second biggest seller after the Bible.
And by the way, he wrote the scenario for King Kong movie (1933).
To my surprise I encountered on some blunders and mistakes in the novel. The most blatant one: The Browning automatic pistol (the weapon that killed Vassalaro ) called here as a revolver.
