The Three Coffins

John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was an extraordinarily popular American mystery novelist, whose books featured intricate locked-room plots but not much more. Nowhere was this more apparent than in his 1935 novel, The Three Coffins. The story is set in London and involves the death of an antiquarian professor (Charles Grimaud), followed soon after by the death of a man who had recently threatened Grimaud. The police investigation is led by Inspector Gideon Fell, a recurring figure in Carr's novels. Despite a few unlikely events, the book's plot holds together nicely and is in many ways quite intelligent. However, Carr does little else with the story; the characters are not well-developed and virtually every scene exists solely to push the plot ahead. (The book was published in the UK as The Hollow Man.)