The Silvered Cage: A Scientific Murder Mystery

by John Russell Fearn

For an illusionist to make a woman vanish from a cage is merely a parlor trick, because the person must go somewhere; but in this instance the woman really DOES disappear, in full view of an audience, and cannot be found afterwards. This seeming impossibility is the commencement of a completely baffling puzzle, which even Scotland Yard finds hard to crack. And then the magician himself is found murdered in his flat, lending credence to the notion that the woman has also been killed. Scotland Yard enlists the aid of the indomitable Dr. Carruthers, a genius who specializes in solving scientific puzzles. But can Carruthers unravel the diabolical plot--or will THE SILVERED CAGE, a solid metal structure allowing neither entry nor exit, continue to contain its mystery? A scientific detective thriller with several exciting plot twists!

92 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2005

About the author

A prolific author in various genres under his own name, John Francis Russell Fearn also used these pseudonyms: Astron del Martia, Brian Shaw, Conrad G. Holt, Dennis Clive, Frank Jones, Geoffrey Armstrong, Griff, Hugo Blayn, John Russell, K. Thomas Mark Denholm, Paul Lorraine, Polton Cross, Spike Gordon, Thornton Ayre, Vargo Statten, Volsted Gridban, Dom Passante, John Cotton, Ephriam Winiki, Lawrence F. Rose, Earl Titan, Ephraim Winiki.

John Russell Fearn was an extremely prolific and popular British writer, who began in the American pulps, then almost single-handedly drove the post-World War II boom in British publishing with a flood of science fiction, detective stories, westerns, and adventure fiction. He was so popular that one of his pseudonyms became the editor of Vargo Staten’s Science Fiction Magazine in the 1950’s! His work is noted for its vigor and wild imagination. He has always had a substantial cult following and has been popular in translation around the world.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From FadedPage:

For an illusionist to make a woman vanish from a cage is merely stock-in-trade, because the woman must go somewhere. But when the woman concerned really does disappear, in full view of an audience, it is the commencement of a baffling puzzle for Scotland Yard. Bogged down in the mists of stage magic, they enlist the aid of the indomitable Dr Carruthers, a specialist in scientific jig-saws, and it is he who finally solves what happened to the woman and explains away the brilliant ingenuity of the vanishing act.

Another "new" author to be explored...