He Wouldn't Kill Patience, by Carter Dickson
Light Carr locked-room
(Review posted 6 Jul 2005 01:47:09)

I'm glad to see that my reaction to the last couple of John Dickson Carr books hasn't put me off of him entirely. This one (a Sir Henry Merrivale story, written as Carter Dickson) is a relatively light locked-room mystery with a nice little romance in a subplot, and somewhat interesting decorations (set in the as far as I can tell fictional but plausible Royal Albert Zoological Gardens just at the start of the Blitz). The locked-room explanation isn't the world's most compelling, but it's not violently annoying either. Again there's a thoroughly unpleasant person who gets a comeuppance, but this time it's the murderer rather than the victim, so that's okay.

Perhaps my main complaint about it is that two of the characters are supposedly expert stage magicians (from ancient families of stage magicians), but all either of them ever does along those lines (except for telling stories) is pick a lock or two with a lockpick; wasted opportunity, I call it.