The Abandoned Room

The Abandoned Room
A Mystery Story

By

4.0434782608696
(23 Reviews)
The Abandoned Room by Charles Wadsworth Camp

Published:

1917

Pages:

268

ISBN:

B0014L8IL2

Downloads:

67,938

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The Abandoned Room
A Mystery Story

By

4.0434782608696
(23 Reviews)
The mystery of a secret room, scene of many murders, is unraveled by Carlos Paredes, the Panamanian Sherlock Holmes.

Book Excerpt

pany them upstairs while he questioned her. In the absence of the coroner he wouldn't let the doctor touch the body.

"I must repair this lock," he said, "the first thing, so nothing can be disturbed."

Doctor Groom, a grim and dark man, had grown silent on entering the room. For a long time he stared at the body in the candle light, making as much of an examination as he could, evidently, without physical contact.

"Why did he ever come here to sleep?" he asked in his rumbling bass voice. "Nasty room! Unhealthy room! Ten to one you're a formality, policeman. Coroner's a formality."

He sneered a little.

"I daresay he died what the hard-headed world will call a natural death. Wonder what the coroner'll say."

The detective didn't answer. He shot rapid, uneasy glances about the room in which a single candle burned. After a time he said with an accent of complete conviction:

"That man was murdered."

Perhaps the doctor's significant words, added to her earlier d

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While this is a cleverly written immersive mystery (don't stop when it gets esoteric, there will be a rational explanation), I think it's a bit too much constructed to scare, and, naturally, you won't guess the solution because important info is withheld until the end, which I think is a too cheap method for mystery writing.
A good book! Very well-written and holds you while you read through. You are eager to know who was the one. Turns pretty spooky at a time ...and a very unexpected end. Find out yourself! :)
I do not know anything about this author or any other books he may have written. I wish I did, because this is ALMOST a very good book. I wonder if the author ever realized his full potential.

Bobby Blackburn can remeber the first part of the evening when his grandfather was murdered. The problem is, he cannot remember what happened the rest of the night, or how he ended up in the neighborhood of his grandfather's house the next morning.

This is a good locked room mystery , for the most part. The cast includes Bobby, his extremely unpleasant grandfather, his beautiful cousin, a lawyer who gives bad advice, a superstitious doctor who gives the mystery its properly eerie overtones, a somewhat shady Panamanian friend of Bobby's, and a mysteriuous woman in black, along with with two cocksure but not very competent detectives and the District Attorney.

The are some things which detract from the story. That the protagonist is egregiously stupid is part of it, since he never thinks to ask who would benefit if he is successfully framed for the murder. A second problem is that the author suddenly changes the relationships between all of the characters three-quarters of the way through the book. A third is that, in the final pages the author suddenly adds a new supernatural aspect to the story, which is just too much. The final complaint might be that the solution to the locked room problem is somewhat of a let-down, but I have found that this is almost always true in this type of mystery, even those written by masters of the form.

Despite my complaints, I think this is enjoyable light reading. I hope that anyone who knows of more works by this author will let me know.

Glen Dawson - A Satirical Wake-up Call
FEATURED AUTHOR - After graduating from Duke University, Glen Dawson owned and operated a flexible packaging manufacturing plant for 23 years. Then, he sold the factory and went back to school to get his Master's degree in biostatistics from Boston University. When he moved to North Carolina, he opened an after-school learning academy for advanced math students in grades 2 through 12. After growing the academy from 30 to 430 students, he sold it to Art of Problem Solving. Since retiring from Art of Problem… Read more