It Walks By Night

{{italic title}}{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}{{Infobox book

| name = It Walks By Night

| author = John Dickson Carr

| image = ItWalksByNight.jpg

| caption = First US edition
(publ. Harper Brothers)

| genre = Detective novel

| series = Henri Bencolin

| published = 1930

| publisher = Harper & Brothers

| media_type = Print

| pages =

| isbn =

}}

It Walks By Night, first published in 1930, is the first detective novel by John Dickson Carr.{{Cite news |last=O'Donoghue |first=Heather |date=6 December 2019 |title=Curious incidents: Classic crime fiction as social history |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A632136984/ITOF?u=wikipedia&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8f6a1820 |access-date=2024-06-08 |work=Times Literary Supplement |via=Gale General OneFile}} It introduced Carr's series detective Henri Bencolin.{{Cite book |last=Joshi |first=S. T. |author-link=S. T. Joshi |url=https://archive.org/details/johndicksoncarrc0000josh/page/9/mode/2up |title=John Dickson Carr: A Critical Study |publisher=Bowling Green State University Popular Press |year=1990 |isbn=0-87972-477-3 |pages=9}} This novel is a mystery of the type known as a locked-room mystery. It has been compared to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe.{{Cite book |last=Sutherland |first=John |title=Lives of the Novelists : A History of Fiction in 294 Lives |date=2012 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=9780300179477 |pages=476–477 |chapter=}}

Synopsis

A closely guarded room in a Paris gambling house, a mangled body on the floor, a severed head staring from the centre of the carpet; someone had entered that room, killed and escaped all within ten minutes.

Ten minutes after the Duc de Saligny entered the card room, the police burst in – and found he had been murdered. Both doors to the card room had been watched yet the murderer had gone in and out without being seen by anyone.

Reception

In a 2019 review in the Times Literary Supplement, Heather O'Donoghue writes that while the setting is "unexpectedly hard-hitting", "the novel itself is not easy reading" and that character development suffers, in part due to the tradition that "the culprit should be the least likely suspect".

References

Category:1930 American novels

Category:Novels by John Dickson Carr

Category:American detective novels

Category:Locked-room mysteries

Category:Harper & Brothers books