The Arabian Nights Murder

Dr. Gideon Fell #7

by John Dickson Carr

"...And then he said to me, 'You killed him, and you'll hang for it, my fine impostor. I saw you in the coach'. And with that he came at me with both hands."

Thus the police sergeant concluded his account of how the tall, thin, oldish man in top hat, frock coat, and white whiskers attacked him. The sergeant had been walking his beat along the wall of the Wade Museum at the time. But who was this old man? What did he know about the body of the actor discovered stabbed in a museum coach? And did the coffin really contain the mummy of Haroun al Raschid's wife?

Three investigators try to solve this most bizarre of cases. But it is Dr. Gideon Fell - vast and genial, with his chins, his chuckle, and his unerring sense for the important clue - who defeats the mystery.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Detective, Thriller, Fiction, Classics, Mystery Thriller

190 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

AKA Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn.

John Dickson Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906. It Walks by Night, his first published detective novel, featuring the Frenchman Henri Bencolin, was published in 1930. Apart from Dr Fell, whose first appearance was in Hag's Nook in 1933, Carr's other series detectives (published under the nom de plume of Carter Dickson) were the barrister Sir Henry Merrivale, who debuted in The Plague Court Murders (1934).

Reviews

[Dolceluna ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prendete un museo londinese dedicato all'arte orientale. Prendete un cadavere rinvenuto in una carrozza d'epoca esposta al suo piano terra, ucciso da un pugnale persiano rubato proprio da una teca del museo stesso. Prendete un macabro e bizzarro scherzo che un gruppo di persone decide di giocare ad un personaggio all'interno del museo la notte stessa dell'omicidio. Prendete tre ispettori di polizia che, seduti attorno al tavolo di una biblioteca, raccontano a posteriori l'intera vicenda, dando ognuno la sua versione dei fatti, contornata dagli indizi raccolti, dagli interrogatori svolti e dai segreti scoperti. E infine prendete il criminologo Gideon Fell (noto agli appassionati di Carr), che, seduto allo stesso tavolo, dopo aver udito i tre "racconti nel racconto", svelerà, nelle ultime pagine e con la sua solita incredibile arguzia, l'intero mistero. Otterrete così Delitti da mille e una notte, un' altra geniale perla di giallo classico firmata da John Dickson Carr. Un giallo in cui le atmosfere gravide d'incubi tipiche dei romanzi dell'autore si mescolano a quelle orientaleggianti che si respirano nel tetro museo in cui il delitto viene compiuto. Ma soprattutto un giallo che gioca, più che sullo scatenarsi della suspense (come in "L'arte di uccidere" mi viene da pensare), sulle dinamiche stesse del giallo, gli indizi nascosti, le tracce scoperte, il gusto dell'indagine, le deposizioni inattese e gli interrogatori che sembrano non collimare mai, fino alle ultimissime pagine, quando, con un colpo di scena, Gideon Fell getterà luce sul mistero.
In conclusione, un giallo geniale e intelligentissimo col quale finirete per scervellarvi.
Quanto a me, sono contentissima, dopo l'infelice parentesi di "La casa", di aver ritrovato il Carr che conoscevo!

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars. You aren't likely to figure out this mystery. But it is not my favorite. It is too complicated and too crazy. You also don't connect with any of the characters because most of the book is told through the retelling of reports, even if it does seem in the first person in most cases.

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing you have to know about me is that if a mystery has a map and the plot hinges on the physical layout of a building, I will be ignoring it. Flip back to look at the map as the plot progresses? Try and visualize where everyone is during the events in question? I simply will not be doing it. The detective gets paid for that kind of thinking, and I am trying to enjoy myself. I'll just wait for the end so they can tell me who did it.

Which is to say that I found this one a little bit dull. The story is being told to Fell instead of his actually being in it, and I missed his personality. Instead the whole thing seems to turn into lot of long stories where various characters walk through the events of the night-of over and over and over again. I appreciate the experimentative style of having the same story told by different characters, but the POVs aren't really that distinctive so I'm not sure it adds that much.

One thing that is interesting here is I think we can see a genuine difference in what people think is the right thing to do. In the modern day I'd be pretty shocked to see a cop story conclude with the police deciding not to go after the killer. I know our victim here is kind of an asshole, but I think most people would still agree that the police would still have to enforce the law. I know there's really no evidence so they can't charge the guy anyway and he's not likely to kill anyone else, but still it's kind of surprising to me how chill all the characters are with letting the whole thing go (there seems to be some racism involved also since the victim is not white).

The solution is fun in an insane kind of way but the whole thing is just too long. If it was 150 pages shorter and had more of Fell, I think it'd be a lot better.

[Adam Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Dr Fell read-through continues, although in this case Dr Fell only makes brief appearances at the beginning and the end. The book begins with a very Carr-y setup, as a body is discovered after hours in a museum, in a black-hooded carriage, stabbed with an antique Persian dagger, wearing a fake beard and holding a cookbook. The investigation is then recounted Wilkie Collins style, by three different detectives - though only the middle voice, Sir Herbert Armstrong, is particularly distinctive. The mystery was ok, but the ending was not especially strong. More Dr Fell would have made this a better read.

[Subodh Garg · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

Another Masterpiece by the Father of Locked Room Mysteries. Though, I wouldn't categorise this as a Locked Room Murder. This novel was more of a puzzle, with multiple suspects, who each move in and out of the picture; with multiple accounts of the same events, each person adding more to the picture; and finally a healthy mixture of the ridiculous. Once again, I have to praise Mr. Carr is his choice of the information that he reveals to us, the readers at each point in the novel. Initially, we are met with a strange set of circumstances which have no decernable pattern. The readers cannot guess the overarching narrative. Slowly, with each chapter, he masterfully weaves the story into a coherent story. By the half-way point of the novel, the story is clear in our heads and then the proper mystery starts. And there are so many red herrings. The ending is quite brilliant. I never once started to doubt the real murderer. It's another testament to the skill of the author.

With the general praise out of the way, let's review this novel like we usually do:

The Detective and the Method of Detection : 5/5
The Criminal : 5/5
The Method of Crime : 5/5

There is nothing further that I can add about the great detective, Dr. Gideon Fell. Although, the novel thing about this story is that Dr. Fell is not involved in the mystery directly. It has been done before, I know, in this series as well. But, it was certainly novel in the way the story was divided into three narrators. Each narrator added his own flair to the characters. Each narrator saw different things in the faces of the characters, but each was constant in the base facts. I really liked this approach to the mystery. It's always nice if authors keep trying new things.

Now, about the murderer and the method of crime: this is not one of those planned acts of villainy where every move is thought out by the killer in advance, but a prodigious intellect using the opportunity before them to throw the wool before the eyes of justice. It's one of the most interesting crimes I've seen. It's truly a wonder, one that I think everyone should experience on their own, with unspoiled eyes.

Overall, a great novel and a superb addition to the annals of Detective Fiction.

Can't wait to read more!!!

[Jameson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again Carr experiments and once again the results are mixed. This time the story is told in retrospect by three different investigators. Each report builds on the other until finally Dr. Fell provides the epilogue. This story structure seems better suited to tv or film. One of my least favorite Agatha Christie books, and a very popular one, Five Little Pigs, aka Murder in Retrospect, employs this trick, and Anthony Berkeley’s The Poisoned Chocolate Case nails it, but I think the repetition can become a slog.

Part of my problem was a growing annoyance that the con the Bright Young Things were pulling in the Arabian museum wasn’t spelled out for most of the book. Carr should have done a prologue that gave you the gist of the con. A simple complaint but there was no reason to keep it a secret. Also, Bright Young Things and Arabian Nights—the former is okay in small doses and I’m not an arabophile by any means but both grew tiresome.

* see the fun Ellery Queen tv episode “The Adventure of the Pharaoh's Curse"

[Tiki · Rating 3 out of 5]

故事值得四星，价值观减分，只能三星了。

这本书我看的很迷，剧情什么的，推理小说的要素都很好。但是价值观完全与我不合……

最后结局大家守口如瓶，吃饭烧水，该干嘛干嘛，死人受害者没人在乎……我发现我讨厌菲尔博士……

对了，不知道为什么提到曼勒宁前往中国？这段很莫名其妙……

其中三名客人，我要笑喷了，太搞笑了，劳和乔治，鲍德温，张伯伦……再来个丘吉尔就更好了，哈哈哈哈，太幽默了

抛开别的，赫伯爵士包庇身为有钱人的朋友，难免有拉偏架的嫌疑，一九三几年的小说，都二战了，还搞什么贵族那一套……我恨不得把他们一家，还有十几个参与进来的人通通满门抄斩，怎么没一个好人呢……就没有一个不畏强权的警察，就算是神也杀给你看的吗……

中间看到韦德破坏证据的时候，我只想把他立刻绞死，民主自由法治，岂容几个跳梁小丑践踏，就算是英国女王也没用，耶稣也不好使。他再牛逼有希特勒牛吗？希特勒还不是自杀了，看得人一肚子火气，太憋屈了。警察反倒处处受制。韦德牛逼轰轰，带着曼勒宁去见警察长官，买通十几个证人，如果是个普通人可能吗？官官相护，恶心透顶，直接应该挂路灯上吊死。这时候有个义士把他杀死就好了，人间的公平正义才能得到伸张。

就应该让每个人都知道这件事！让大家唾骂他有个这样的女儿，还有个孩子呢！！

正常人，我自认为不算好人，也很难理解，这简直是坏的流油啊！

还有原文有这样一句话----我们根本不在乎能否将杀害潘德洛的凶手绳之以法！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！

这他妈的是人话吗？说这种话真的没问题？卡尔是讽刺警察，还是觉得这话是对的，他很认同？

前半段我还挺同情曼勒宁，后半段他竟然妨碍查案？简直要气死我，现实中案件解决不了，就是这帮家伙捣乱害的。

被害者反倒变得没人同情了，原文----要不是由于正义受到扭曲，否则杀害潘德洛的凶手现在早就——我不能说会被绞死，因为关于这个勒索他人又吃人软饭的男子之死，无论是警方或陪审团，皆无意加以严厉谴责，不过至少判刑落个罪名是免不了的。

什么叫不能说被绞死，无意严厉谴责，判刑落个罪名免不了……

不禁让人遗憾勒索不勒索放一边，吃软饭还被人看不上了，原来欧美也是这样看待的……

之前看卡尔的书，总觉得搞不懂为什么卡尔一个美国人，写的主角是英国人还有点看不上美国……

英国时至今日依然有贵族，君主立宪了，贵族也依然继续存在，不得不说英国改革得真是不够彻底……

[Fabio Pucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nel contesto della bibliografia dell'autore, uno dei lavori più ambiziosi: narrazione in tre atti con rispettivo narratore e (almeno nelle intenzioni) stile verbale, cornice museale che sembra omaggiare certi gialli inglesi pre-Christie dal sapore vittoriano, riletture continue dell'evento criminoso con progressiva aggiunta di nuovi dettagli, personaggi la cui reale identità si presta a essere ribaltata al colpo di scena successivo. Tali ambizioni finiscono però per soffocare il romanzo, che appare macchinoso, farraginoso, poco coinvolgente, praticamente nullo a livello psicologico, incapace di trasformare in mistero il bizzarro e in coinvolgimento l'accumulo di dettagli. Si apprezzano la professionalità della scrittura e la capacità di far tornare più o meno i conti di fronte a tale abbondanza di indizi e false piste, anche se la soluzione appare, a ben vedere, tutt'altro che sorprendente.

**

[Trina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think there was a time when mysteries like these were the fashion. That is, puzzles. The more bizarre the more challenging to solve. The Arabian Night Murder is from the 1930s. The set up is elaborate and farcical. A private museum in London specializing in Oriental artifacts was to hold a midnight event that got cancelled. Instead, a dead body is found in a black carriage with an Arab knife sticking out of his chest taken from one of the locked display cases inside the museum at midnight. The events are described from three points of view—a detective inspector, a police commissioner, and a superintendent— but it’s a Dr. Fell who seems to pull the whole thing together. I confess I skipped to the end to see who done it. Not one of John Dickerson Carr’s best. I like his clever ‘closed box mysteries’, where you have to figure out how someone could possibly have killed another person since no one could have come in or out.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uno dei più bei gialli di JDC: un maledetto rompicapo la cui soluzione viene affidata al magnifico dottor Gideon Fell e solo lui riuscirà a mettere a posto ogni cosa: inferiore solo di una spanna rispetto a "Le tre bare" è un enigma impossibile da sbrogliare senza l'aiuto del maestro di queste situazioni ai limiti dell'impossibile

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overlong, and drastically lacking in Dr.Fell. Also, Herbert Armstrong is an annoying imitation of Sir Henry Merrivale. Also, the racism. Also, the extremely long and “humorous” section with Dr. Illingworth. Also, the whole attitude toward the cover-up.
Clever detection and solution, but there are better Carrs out there.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing. The structure is a neat construct, but the deus-ex-machina that is Gideon Fell just didn't come through. Psychologically his solution is excellent, but left a number of physical clues at loose ends.

[Raime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read all the negative reviews for this one was apprehensive about reading it myself. But it was fine, more adventure than mystery, deductions were end-loaded, but still, am glad to have experienced it.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good whodunnit. I think a few of the "clues" as to the identity of the murderer were obscure. Another Dr. Fell solved case.

[MARLENE RANTZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bravo, John Dickson Carr! A man is found dead after closing time in a museum, and all the suspects have an alibi, so who was the murderer? Read this excellent mystery, and be surprised!

[Laura Rye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confusing beginning....very slow in the middle, but finishes with a flourish in the usual Gideon Fell style.

[Simonetta Scotto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molto ben costruito da questo innegabile maestro del poliziesco, forse un pochino troppo arzigogolato e talvolta non facile, in qualche passaggio, da seguire

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid 4 until the penultimate chapter, which was so dull and complicated that I completely lost interest.

[Jim Jimmerson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Filler - The Book

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Figured out part of it, at least, but confounded at the end. Not much Dr Fell in this one but plenty of puzzle.

[Tim Evanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author John Dickson Carr is considered "King of the Locked-Room Mystery". Most of his work dates to the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and his novels generally fall into the "fantastic and surreal" kind of crime: Murder in a castle shaped like a skull; murder in a wax museum; murder by an invisible man.

Unlike previous novels in this series, Dr. Gideon Fell barely appears. Ninety-five percent of this mystery is told by three policemen: The detective first on the scene, an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard who knows one of the suspects, and a detective superintendent who practically solves the crime. Fell provides a crucial insight in the final five or six pages that brings to light the true murderer.

The murder occurs at a small museum dedicated to Middle Eastern art and culture. A constable on the beat is assaulted by a surreal figure, who then disappears. A toffy-nosed git shows up at 11 PM to try to gain entry, and can't. And inside, a group of five friends discovers a dead body in a funeral carriage.

One of the neat tricks about police procedurals is how the police are made to seem like intelligent, experience people and yet they fail to investigate the one individual who committed the crime (leaving it to Dr. Fell to reveal this person at the end, usually). Or the police fail to recognize a classic motive for murder (leaving it to Dr. Fell to reveal this motive at the end, usually). Or the police fail to investigate a means for murder (leaving it to Dr. Fell to reveal this means at the end, usually). Mediocre authors make the police out to be biased morons, while superb authors like Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr cleverly conceal the ineptitude of the police.

The problem with this novel is that Dr. Fell's incrediby brief appearance at the end makes it patently obvious that the police completely and utterly failed to investigate a significant aspect of the crime. An alert reader will clearly spot this early on, and put it at the back of their mind -- assuming that the police will address the issue eventually. But in this case, the police don't. When Fell finally pulls the rabbit out of his hat, there's a bit of a sour taste left in one's mouth. It doesn't feel right. There seems to be no reason for the police to fail to pick up on the vital clue, especially when at least one of the policemen involved is incredibly smart, alert, and suspicious.

There's another problem with this novel which bugs me, and that is that there is precious little actual investigation. The bookends with Dr. Fell take up only a few pages; the remainder of the novel is broken into three major sections, each told by one of the policemen involved.

Most of what is discovered by the police is revealed by two suspects in extremely lengthy, and voluntary, confessions. This seems to be awfully lazy writing. Carr's trick is that whodunit becomes less (not more) clear the more the police know. I can appreciate that as a plot device and writer's conceit. What makes me less than thrilled by it is just how annoyed I felt at having suspects pour out major revelations seemingly without promptly. Carr's "neat trick" ends up alientating instead.

Stylistically, Carr is a concise writer. Few of his characters really stand out in his novels because Carr is far more interested in plot and narrative than in characterization. There's no Nero Wolfe, Lord Peter Wimsey, or Sam Spade with a distinctive voice. One of the great things about Raymond Chandler, for example, is how distinctive characters like Moose Malloy, Jessie Florian, Jules Amthor, Lewin Lockridge Grayle, and Laird Brunette appear in a novel like Farewell, My Lovely, even when they appear for only a few paragraphs or pages. That's not nearly as true in this novel. When it is, the effect is more annoying than convincing. It's difficult to read, and the temptation is to start skipping words and paragraphs (at your peril) in order to just get past all the folderall attempt at creating quirky characters with highly distinctive speech patterns.

Those criticisms aside, the novel's pace is swift and most of the prose easy to read. Carr is particularly effective at creating excellent atmosphere in the first third of the novel (I don't suggest reading this part at night). The conclusion may seem a bit rushed, but after some fairly frustrating delays in the first two-thirds I think most readers will forgive that.

[Gregory Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man is found stabbed to death in a museum, his body stuffed into a carriage. Why dunnit?

John Dickson Carr was the master of impossible crime novels. There's no impossibility here, exactly, but it's obviously very theatrical in a way a lot of his novels are; there are clear similarities in initial structure to The Corpse In the Waxworks, where a dead woman is found in the clutches of a wax fawn, although this has a different tone and goes in a totally different direction.

John Dickson Carr, in only his third Gideon Fell novel (The Blind Barber) completely sidelined his detective--rather than be an active participant, he listens to a character describe the events of the novel and gives his verdict at the end. The Arabian Nights Murder follows the same general pattern, but takes it even further. The Blind Barber had protagonists--the narrator and his friends whose adventures are being described. The Arabian Nights Murder adds a further layer of abstraction by having the narrative be given not be any of the involved suspects, but by three policemen who were involved in the case--DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR JOHN CARRUTHERS, ASSISTANT-COMMISSIONER SIR HERBERT ARMSTRONG, and Fell's police sidekick, SUPERINTENDENT DAVID HADLEY.

From my point of view, this creates problems. First, you'll notice they're all detectives. With the novel told entirely from the point of view of the law, the inner lives of the suspects get short shrift; since none of them care about the suspects on a human level, it's hard for the reader to.

Furthermore, although I find each of the narrators individually pleasant enough to spend time with, this format leaves the novel feeling pretty fractured and abstract; our Great Detective is listening but not saying anything, our suspects are alibis and motives with personalities roughly sketched over them, and we don't even have a consistent narrator to hang our hat on. It's especially frustrating because it feels like it's missing the point--having multiple narrators can be a very powerful tool because it provides the reader with multiple windows into the world--a police interrogation told by the policeman, the suspect, and a friend of the suspect will be three very different narratives, even if they agree on the main points. Here, each officer has their own theory, but since they're all playing similar roles in the story, that multiplicity of windows is largely lost.

And there's an additional frustration that, frankly, I didn't think a lot of the twist at the end. The solution that Hadley came up with was really satisfying--all of the novel seemed to be building up to it. But Hadley is not the Great Detective, Fell is, so we needed a different solution at the end, one I found both unsatisfying and somewhat detached from what had come before it. It certainly works, in a literal way--it doesn't contradict the evidence--but Carr got a little too clever with this one.

[Nancy Butts · Rating 3 out of 5]

#7 in the Gideon Fell series, and by now, several consistent patterns are evident in the way Carr wrote the books. Although Fell is the ostensible “hero” of the books, in several of them he hardly appears. It is true of this book as well, where Fell appears only in the prologue and epilogue—and I think that’s a pity. I’ve been wondering why Carr isn’t more popular today than other Golden Age writers such as Christie and Allingham and Sayers, and I think the way Carr pushed his hero-detective into the background may be one of the reasons. Fell himself is one of the attractions of the books, so his invisibility in the plots is a disappointment.

This book, like all the Fell books so far, is narrated by a third party: someone other than Fell himself. And unlike the Sherlock Holmes stories, there is no Watson; it isn’t even the same narrator/sidekick each time, but someone different. In this particular book, the story is told by three different police officials—an Ulster-born detective, an English commissioner, and our familiar Scottish inspector Hadley. This structure is supposed to echo that of A Thousand and One Nights, a book which plays a small part in the story.

So Fell is barely an active agent in the plot, and the book is narrated by other characters, not by him. There is a certain madcap humor to the book, which reminded me of Book #4, The Blind Barber.

ALERT: what follows is a kind of a vague spoiler. Also, once again Fell lets the real murderer go, due to Fell’s reservations about what constitutes true justice. This philosophical theme of law vs justice is something I like about the series, but so far at least, Carr hasn’t allowed Fell to muse in depth about this so we can more fully understand his reasons for believing that he, not the courts, is better suited to dispense true justice. Is it just aversion to the death penalty, or something beyond that? I’d like to know, and I’m hoping that perhaps in later books we will learn more about this.

There is one final narrative device that Carr uses again in this book. Almost always, he uses a chapter or two at what you think is the climax to make an exhaustive and compelling case against a culprit—only to knock the whole thing down in a relatively brief epilogue where Fell proves that someone else is really the murderer. That’s an odd way of going about it.

[Robert Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very first rate murder mystery from the golden age. Interestingly told and more twists than possibly imagined.

[MaryJo Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is no quick, fluffy, whodunit read, unless you have a very quick and clever mind.
I thoroughly enjoyed my first John Dickson Carr mystery. His books are of the mid-twentieth century British crime variety, with that glimpse of days long gone by.
As the saying goes, "They don't make 'em like that anymore".
The reader is taken through a complicated maze of characters and events as related by 3 very intelligent individuals who have all investigated the murder. The reader has all the information they do, with the opportunity to come to the correct conclusion.

[Stefanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Nero Wolfe-type mystery novel with a dash of The Mummy or Indiana Jones for flair, this book starts with a crazy series of recounted events that become more clear as each man reporting on the mystery delivers his information, some in more amusing voices than others. I found the end unsatisfying, though; the final twist happens very quickly after hundreds of pages of buildup. The journey was intriguing, though.

[Life · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dear G.,
There has got to be a corpse—a real corpse. The means of death doesn’t matter, but there has got to be a corpse. I’ll manage the murder—that ivory-handled khan jar will do the trick, or strangling if it seems preferred...

The structure of the book is interesting, but the book drags on for far too long. If anything, this is the inverse of The Blind Barber, being a weak mystery with decent comedy.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a while to get into,but the more I read the more engrossing it became.It is quite a complex mystery,with the crime being recounted by 3 different protagonists.This leads to repetition,but also enlightens as you hear the evidence from different viewpoints.Not one of the best from Carr,but an enjoyable read.

[Jon McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this mystery very amusing. It would have made a really great radio serial, but for the map the audience would need of the museum. Great characters, good plotting. The ending is a bit of a let-down, as it doesn't really have the best pay-off, but there are plenty of twists along the way.

[Victoria Mixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful narrative voices, beautiful authorial control over the storytelling, and one humdinger of a hook. It's an Elliot Queenish tangle of names and props, but you've got to love a mystery where some uptight British guy has to wear harem pants.