Death from a Top Hat

The Great Merlini #1

by Clayton Rawson

Merlini investigates two locked-room murders, based on a change-of-time gimmick. Beautifully handled, a true classic. - The Mystery Lover's Companion, Art Bourgeau

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Classics, Magic, Golden Age Mystery

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Aka Stuart Towne.

Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a principal character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it.

Reviews

[Jazz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm partial to mysteries involving magic and magicians. The element of deception is inherent in a locked-room whodunnit and what fun. Who better to escape from a locked-room than a magician? And who better to nail the culprit than another magician? The impossible crimes in this 1930s classic concern a small group of magicians in which two of them are consecutively murdered, clearly by one of the others. The first 2/3 of the novel allows the Great Merlini to speculate as to how this "trick" was accomplished, and with great detail, but there is always some fly in the ointment that makes the solution impossible. Each of the magicians has what seems to be an unbreakable alibi for at least one of the murders. In the last third of the book—and the most exciting part—Merlini reveals not only how, but who. There are clues dropped along the way, but I missed them completely, due to Rawson's art of misdirection as a magician himself. I'm sad there were only four mysteries starring the Great Merlini, but I intend to read them all.

[Megan L (Iwanttoreadallthebooks) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this at all. I appreciate that Otto Penzler is trying to bring interest back to some of the classics of American mysteries, but for me, this was a clunker. I was excited by the premise, involving murder in a locked room and a magician solving the mystery. However, Death from a Top Hat was just boring and wordy. I try to avoid skimming through books but I was having so much trouble getting through this that I had to resort to skimming. I have enjoyed some of the other mysteries in Penzler's American Mystery Classics series but I think the word "classic" is quite a stretch for Death from a Top Hat.
To be honest, I think I was fairly generous with a 2 star rating.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the old locked room premise again, only this time, there is a plethora of magicians and escape artists around, who all say that the crime is impossible. Only Merlini isn't so sure.

Great stuff, but not as madcap as some in the series.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently read an article recommending the best of classic murder mysteries that were essentially intellectual puzzles. I found the one by Ellery Queen to be very disappointing. This one was far better--more stylishly written (1938) and having two actual drawings of locations, not just floor plans or maps. But it was too clever by several orders of magnitude. It started off with a fine locked-room puzzle. But the suspects and the victim included a magician, an escape artist, a psychic medium, and a ventriloquist. Uh oh. There is a clear and welcome summary of all the possible solutions to a locked room mystery as once explained by John Dickson Carr, the master of this sort of thing, appropriately acknowledged. But then the main suspect is found murdered in a SECOND locked room, murdered in exactly the same way as the first. The police detective in charge is understandably irritated by all this (and thankfully he is not stupid), but the real sleuth is yet another magician, the Great Merlini (yes). I will say in his defense that he is far less annoying than Ellery Queen, and some of his bon mots are actually pretty clever. There is much here about how magicians work, and how misdirection works. There's even a geometric puzzle involving a circle, a triangle, and a rectangle to illustrate classic misdirection. It successfully fooled me and made me feel like a chump when the obvious solution was revealed. But the solution to the murders themselves is so complicated that it takes over 20 pages to tie up all the loose ends, and even so it involves far too much luck and coincidence. Altogether a little like eating nothing but chocolate cake for a week.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose to read this as it was listed in a Mysteries blog post as one of the top locked-room mysteries that was hard to find. Otto Penzler reprinted this novel last year and wrote its introduction. This Golden Age mystery doesn't entirely play fair with the reader, but it is fun to read for voluminously informative explanations of magic tricks and dialogue. I'm grateful to Mr. Penzler for making this available to modern readers.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death from a Top Hat is a Golden Age puzzle mystery concerning what appears to be magicians killing magicians. I've seen this plot other times so it must be a not uncommon feeling among the magical fraternity. This is the first venture for conjuror-turned-detective, the Great Merlini. The book has two locked room puzzles with all the suspects having an alibi for one or the other incident. A fun story that also presents mediums, the occult, and dark arts galore. Lung-gom-pa comes in for a mention. Rawson includes not only a lengthy list of noted detectives of the time but also makes many sly references, sometimes oblique or subtle, just hints, of various Golden Age detectives. He has a character comment: "Try to invent a detective whose personal idiosyncrasies (the formula says they are necessary) are unique without being fantastic, a sleuth whose manner of deduction is original and fresh." More commentary on the genre follows. Very meta. Death from a Top Hat also goes on at length about various aspects of sorcery and prestidigitation. The story started off well but slowed a bit as it became more complex, ending with a somewhat complicated and only moderately credible solution. Locked room mysteries are hard. Rawson was also an illustrator as well as magician and writer so instead of room diagrams a la Christie we get actual three-dimensional appearing pictures of the crime scenes. This was the first time I've seen the word "halation" used. I read the American Mystery Classics edition from 2018, but I love the cover with the giant rabbit who looks kind of ticked off. This was adapted as a film, Miracles for Sale (1939) with Florence Rice and Robert Young, directed by Tod Browning. There are three other novels and a book of short stories featuring the Great Merlini, which may not be easy to track down. [3½★]

[Deb Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1938, this mystery harkens back to the Golden Age of crime fiction. The victim(s) and the suspects are all involved in the world of magic and conjuring. The New York City Police ask for the assistance of the now-retired Merlini who owns a popular magic shop.

This is a locked room whodunit -- and if you think you've read some convoluted plots involving such crimes in the past, wait until you've delved into this one. An enjoyable read that goes on perhaps a bit too long but that doesn't detract from the overall reading experience.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like mysteries and magic, then this book is for you. The suspects, killer, victims and amateur detective that assists the police are all involved in the world of magic. This fact is highly relevant as the murder also occurs in a locked room scenario, with no obvious way to figure out how the crime was committed. I enjoyed the Great Merlini (aforementioned amateur detective), who was a more approachable version of the gentleman detective, and the police, who despite being confounded, were no dummies. My one complaint would be that the book relied very heavily on procedure and mechanics, with the motive only being revealed in the last chapter. But given that the author was himself a magician, the tricks that were part of the plot felt realistic and you wanted to learn more.

[Gigi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magicians, ingeniously locked room puzzles to solve... I love these Golden Age locked room mysteries. This is my first Clayton Rawson, that I picked up because I read that if I loved John Dickson Carr that I'd love this book, and I did. It's hard to find Rawson's books, as they're out of print, but happily I just found a set on eBay :)

[EuroHackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original Magic Men mystery, LOL. Exactly what it says on the tin: The Great Merlini is called in by the police when a hermit occultist is found dead and surrounded by magicians and conjurers of every stripe. In order to understand the levels of misdirection going on, they need someone well practiced in the art, and Merlini fits the bill. Ross Harte, our narrator, knows of Merlini from his newspaperman days, and is along for the ride because he lives across the hall from the man who was discovered dead.

This was a fun, but very densely layered, mystery. Nearly everyone involved is a magician at some level - even the medical examiner fancies his abilities with sleight-of-hard card tricks! Mercifully, our narrator is just as baffled by the layers of complexity as we non-magician readers are, so the explanations, though dribbled out, are complete by the end. I really enjoyed this and would love to see the other three books in the series re-released.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is both a sort of encyclopedia of locked room mysteries and a great example of one at the same time. Add some magicians and it is a good read.

Twists and turns abound, just as a new possible solution is offered it is proved not possible in this case. Quips and esoteric quotes are generously provided by Merlini keeping in the tradition of Philo Vance and Ellery Queen (who are mentioned in the book), but actually not so obnoxious. Sometimes the dialogue and explanations go on for too long--the solution is quite long--but overall an entertaining story. Even if you guess who the culprit is, I sincerely doubt any reader can figure out all the twists and turns.

[Cindy Ladensack · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I love that these Golden Age books are being republished and rediscovered.... With this one, I was torn between really adoring the author’s writing and phrasing, and really getting rather irritated with the characters. Maybe magic and magicians just aren’t my thing.... The solution was clever but I’m still kinda wondering why the denouement had to happen the way it did (no spoilers, but it didn’t make sense to me).

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consider this a lucky find in a used store. Also the fact that I found the first book in the series. The story is told through Harte, a reporter/journalist. He starts by writing an article bemoaning the mystery genre having gone through all its variations and stating so many of the great authors of the time. When he hears a commotion in the hallway - three people are trying to get in to see a man across the hall after they enter- the man is found dead in very peculiar circumstances.

The twist in this case is that the victim and suspects are all magicians of one sort or another. And so the Great Merlini is brought in to help solve the case. Whether you can guess who did it or not, and the author states that if you can find out who can do it you know who did it, the best part is the unwinding of how so many tricks are done.

The author also dabbled in magic, so the focus on magic is certainly apt. Merlini treats Harte as his Watson and the two form a bond to help one another to discover the who and also to help with getting the killer to unmask himself! Would recommend to those who like the golden age mystery, it is another angle that may appeal to you! (Found two other books of this author in the library so will be reading and reviewing those as well.)

[Alfred Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is too clever for its own good. It gets so wrapped up in its locked room mysteries that it fails to offer much characterization or explanation of motives.

More of a how’d they do it than whodunnit and not particularly satisfying.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

At one point, a character says "then there must be a 7th way out [of the locked room]," and that's a totally reasonable statement in context. Locked rooms don't usually have 6+ solutions, this book rules.

[Otto Penzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rawson's first book in one of the great “Golden Age” mystery series is mystifying and intriguing , introducing the Great Merlini, a detective and magician protagonist. Death from a Top Hat is the story of a murdered magician -- a case that can only be solved by a fellow magician.
Clayton Rawson’s work is truly original. A magician himself, Rawson’s work is colored with illusory detail that draws attention to very dark corners of the imagination. One of the four founding members of the Mystery Writers of America, Rawson has been a literary icon for over eighty years whose fiction is a must-read for fans of pure detection, especially for those who enjoy locked-room mysteries.

[Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

So that’s why this book is so celebrated! Respect.

Death from a Top Hat’s similar to JDC’s The Hollow Man in that it explains the locked room whodunit while at the same time perfectly epitomizing it. An alien civilization could run away with the genre if they had access to either of these books alone. Dawson’s first Merlini mystery novel is reminiscent of the first Ellery Queen—just page after page of unrelenting logic—but the writing feels fresher. Personally, the magic/magician stuff is a little hard to follow at times, but the ending is simultaneously fairly-clued and satisfactorily stupefying. Good read.

[Pietro De Palma · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion the best Locked Room ever.
However, it is a mystery smashes brains, without the extraordinary atmosphere that could create Carr. So I think that at the end "The Hollow Man" by Carr and this novel could be considered at par.
The novel contains the second Locked Room Lecture (enunciated by the "Great Merlini") in the history of the genre, after the one in "The Hollow Man" by Carr, ruled instead by Dr. Fell

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caution: This book contains on average 2.3 clues per page. Maybe I exaggerate a little but not much. The plot was so intricate that I had to go back and reread parts of it several times. The interaction between the Inspector and the magicians became more and more humorous as the story developed and additional magician characters were introduced.

Trivia: This locked room mystery is the inspiration for the 1939 Robert Young movie Miracles For Sale. The book, as usual, is better than the movie.

[Gregory Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clayton Rawson wasn't super prolific, but is a pretty big name in locked room mystery circles. On Hoch’s famous list, this novel is identified as the seventh best locked room mystery of all time (although that list is surely pretty creaky by now; it was produced in 1981 and only includes one novel that wasn’t written in English). His novels are all available in ebook format, and this book in paperback at time of writing.

This novel is upfront with its intentions. In the first chapter, we’re told that it recounts a seemingly impossible crime, and that after Merlini solved it, the police inspector had no objections except that “he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t seen it all along.” In the second chapter, the narrator is writing an essay on mystery novels, where he argues that all of the possible variations of suspects and clues have been used, that nobody could create an original detective, and that people should therefore stop writing them. In the third chapter, a scholar of black magic is found dead, strangled in a room that was sealed shut from the inside, lying inside of a pentagram. But how? And whodunnit?

Because it’s upfront, one forgives this novel for things one would criticize others for. The suspects, on the whole, are very flat. But what’s the use of complaining? The book looked you in the eye and told you that it doesn’t care about any of that. Merlini is … fine. He sometimes tells puns and recites limericks? Is that a personality? But again, lots of Great Detectives are basically collections of quirks, and since this novel positions itself as a love-letter to that type of novel, it’s pointless to kvetch. Here’s a seemingly impossible puzzle. Can you solve it or not?

That said, there are pacing issues that it being a puzzle novel doesn’t really excuse. The first half of the book takes place entirely in two rooms, and feels more leaden than miraculous. When we should be marveling over the impossible death, we are instead suffering through a chapter-long summery of the dead man’s occult library, complete with footnotes.

And as for the solution, hm. I do like the central "twist" to the first murder. The second murder is silly, in a way you might or might not be willing to excuse on account of the novel's age. More than anything else though, I ended the novel with the feeling that the killer had done a bunch of nonsense and taken an absolutely hideous risk for no reason. The novel gestures at the idea that creating a locked room would make a murder impossible to prosecute, because you couldn’t explain to the jury how the crime was committed. The problem with presenting that as a motive for an impossible crime (Carr did it in The Ten Teacups as well) is always the same—the writer refuses to commit to the bit and let the police in on who the killer is. It's not true that the killer can't be prosecuted because nobody can explain their trick; the killer can’t be prosecuted because the police don’t know who they are, which is the exact same situation that would have arisen if the killer had walked into the first victim’s room, shot him, and then walked out without all the rigmarole.

Another complaint, something that I see more than I'd like to in this kind of novel. I said that I'm fine with the characters being flat, because the author was trying to do something else, but there's one thing I can't abide, when, after a killer is revealed, the detective makes sweeping statements about their personality in ways that are supposed to make sense of the novel, but the killer has never demonstrated for the reader any of the traits they're supposed to have. That is, Rawson realizes that the killer behaves pretty nonsensically; but, Merlini explains, they're an "egomaniac" so they don't act the way a regular person would act. I maintain that if you claim you're writing fair-play detection, and a character being an egomaniac is a necessary piece of the solution, you have to portray them as such, or at least give some hint that they have that quality.

[Kelvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 1938 locked room mystery written by Clayton Rawson and is the first book in the Great Merlini series. Merlini is a magician who helps police solve crimes. The setting is in Manhattan in late 1930s. The story involves two back to back locked room murders. All the suspects are all magicians or people related to that business. It turns out that the two victims, Cesare Sabbat and Eugene Tarot (both magicians) were blackmailing the murderer Dave Duvallo. Dave Duvallo used two different locked room methods to kill his blackmailers and to deceive the police and disguise his involvement. This book is very much a timeline and suspect alibi checking game with an interesting twist on how Duvallo cleverly manipulated the alibi timeline using a disguise and a clever inpersonation. Ultimately Merlini was able to see through it and helped the police, his friend Inspector Homer Gavigan, to solve the murders by setting a trap for Duvallo.

I find the book unnecessarily complicated. Rawson spent too much time throwing in a lot of unnecessary factoids on magic, the magic trade the occult and magic history. It also provides good descriptions on how different magic and parlor tricks work. For somebody who is into magic this book could be very interesting. However, from a pure mystery story perspective, all those long writeups are a huge distraction. Merlini also has a habit of being long winded and talks in riddles, which not only infuriates his friend Inspector Gavigan but the reader as well.

The book also has a very good discussion by Merlini quoting John Dickson Carr and The Three Coffins and elaborates on the various ways a locked room murder can be put together.

[Fabio Pucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clayton Rawson porta alle estreme conseguenze il linguaggio già collaudato da John Dickson Carr: le trovate ingegnose del citato autore vengono qui moltiplicate ed elevate al cubo, e a rimetterci sono le psicologie dei personaggi, l'atmosfera e, a conti fatti, la scorrevolezza. Per concedersi ogni possibile libertà a livello di trovate fantasiose, Rawson ambienta il suo giallo tra un gruppo di maghi e prestigiatori privi di particolare spessore psicologico ma tutti dotati di capacità al limite del paranormale, con le uniche eccezioni rappresentate da un narratore piuttosto neutro e da un rude commissario che, nel dare perennemente risposte scontrose, finisce per sfiorare la parodia involontaria. Alcuni spunti riusciti ci sono, dal promettente spunto iniziale con omicidio in appartamento, all'effettivamente sterminata quantità di trovate e alla solida consapevolezza del tema trattato, oltre all'emergere, per riflesso, del curioso modus vivendi di un gruppo di persone con doti fuori dal comune ma senza sconfinare nel fantastico. L'insieme è però macchinoso, faticoso, privo di fascino e psicologicamente troppo basico per poter creare qualsivoglia sussulto nel disvelamento dell'identità del colpevole. Peraltro, con tale abbondanza di idee, dispiace trovare, nella soluzione, alcuni espedienti narrativi poco credibili, ampiamente abusati anche in prodotti molto meno ambiziosi.

**

Letto in: Mondadori, 1996, raccolta "Magia gialla", titolo: Morte dal cappello a cilindro

[Kayt O'Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounding up because it was nice to read a detective story that has friendly police instead of antagonistic.

Let's see: two occultists/magician-adjacent people, found dead in separate locked rooms. All the suspects are similar performers: a medium, a magician, an escape artist, a ventriloquist, and more. Faced with this and what looks like completely sealed rooms the victims were murdered in, the police call in magician and magic shop-owner Merlini.

It was enjoyable--Merlini is more even-tempered and has better interpersonal skills than we might expect of a golden age detective, and his relationship with the police (or at least, the main police inspector) is friendly. And while Merlini is, of course, the main attraction, the police inspector is no dunce. A nice change from what we usually see, honestly.

The story kept me guessing and guessing--both murders occur in locked rooms, and all the suspects are performers. Until the final trick was revealed, I was ready to believe anyone had done it.

The book's downside comes in its wordiness. There's a lot--a lot--of talking and explaining, and while the conversations are nice, I wish they'd been broken up with action a bit more (even if the action was just "walking to get lunch")--it was sometimes hard to absorb all the conversation that happened at one time.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

#1 in the Great Merlini mystery series. This 1938 series debut by author Clayton Rawson is a flavorful period mystery but a slow read due to the plentiful clues, theories, and explanations. Narrated by Ross Harte, magazine writer, friend to Merlini and known to Homicide Inspector Homer Gavigan. The murders take place in locked rooms and the suspects are all members of the magician community. The NYC locations are interesting as are references (Beebe and his bathyscape, Sonja Henie going in circles, and Prof. Rhine's experiments in parapsychology at Duke University) that would have been quite familiar to a 1938 audience but not as much to a modern reader. I enjoyed the puzzle.

The Great Merlini is the owner of Miracles for Sale, a Manhattan magic shop. Merlini's mastery of misdirection enables him to assist his friend with the NYPD, Insp. Homer Gavigan, who has two bizarre murder cases to solve. In one, anthropologist Cesare Sabbat was found on a pentagram in a locked room all of whose keyholes were stuffed with cloth on the inside. Around the pentagram were written the names of various deities and demons, including that of Surgat, "who opens all locks." The second case is quite similar.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good mystery novel is like a good magic trick. It needs to be clever enough that you're a bit dazzled when the ending is revealed, but it can't be so complicated that you're left feeling bewildered rather than tricked. The novelist (or the magician) needs to keep you up to speed with him long enough that when the outcome arrives, you're surprised because it didn't seem possible. Death from a Top Hat doesn't quite manage this, and the result felt so overcomplicated that by the end I was willing to just take Clayton Rawson's word for it that the whole thing worked out. Additionally, just like a magician needs to play fair with the audience (aside from pulling the wool over their eyes), a novelist can't introduce ridiculous explanations without offending the reader's sensibilities a bit. That's why when it's revealed that the killer hypnotized another character into unwittingly giving the killer an alibi and making himself a suspect it comes off less as a clever twist and more like fantasy.

I'd probably try the next one in the series, but my hopes aren't up for it.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

A locked room puzzle. Probably a good choice for fans of the genre.

Usually I'm down for a mystery with magicians, this one was just too overstuffed. By the time we encountered a ventriloquist, it was getting to be a bit much. The hypnotist was a step too far. The motive for the murders randomly gets presented in the last few pages of the book almost as an afterthought. This is much more of a puzzle book, so if you are really into Dickson Carr and like books where the motive doesn't really matter and the characters are little more than chess pieces without anything close to a personality, you'll probably enjoy this more than I did. By the end I was having a little trouble working through the specifics of the locked room of it all. The author is clearly in conversation with Dickson Carr through much of the book, there are explicit references and footnotes to Dickson Carr novels and there are some objects and methods I recognized from other Dickson Carr novels. (That was kind of cool in its own way. "Why is Merlini randomly looking at a random object and why is the author drawing our attention to it? Oh right, I remember that book.")

[David Dunlap · Rating 2 out of 5]

A reclusive occultist is found dead in his locked apartment; it was most likely murder. Most of the suspects have connections with the magical arts: a sleight-of-hand magician, an escape artist, a mentalist and his wife/partner, a clairvoyant. The police accept the assistance of now-retired magician The Great Merlini. In short order, another body is discovered -- again, in a locked room. Are the two deaths connected? If so, how? And who among the suspects had motive and opportunity to kill?-- A fitfully intriguing story with colorful characters, but I didn't find this book to be worth the encomia lavished upon it.

[Jan (the Gryphon) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Classic Reprint of a 1938 novel:
Ross Waite, ex-newspaper writer now free-lancing, hearing a commotion in the hall, discovers that a group of people have come to meet with the across-the-hall-neighbor, a stand-offish fellow by the name of Sabbat. They break into Sabbat's rooms and find him dead in the middle of a pentagram chalk-drawn on the living room floor. All the exit doors are locked, with a bit of cloth handkerchief stuffed into the keyholes and the kitchen door is also bolted from the inside. Waite draws his ex-stage Magician friend, Merlini, in to help the police in their investigation of what quickly turns into 2 murders.

[Jessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grabbed this book because it was first in a series and I had read two other books and figured, "Why not?" Well. It took me a LONG time to read this book. I can usually finish a book this long in a week and it took me over 5 months. It just didn't hold my interest. I like the series because Merlini is a detective who comes with the background of being a magician. This book had too MANY peformers (also a medium, an escape artist, and a ventriloquist) and it ended up being very confusing with some misconceptions about hypnotism. If you want to read a locked room mystery involving a two different dead magicians, I'd highly recommend reading it in as few sittings as possible.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magicians, Murder, and Mystery, oh my! If you like "impossible" mysteries or "locked room" stories, this novel is for you. Cerebral, witty, and inventive this classic was a new read for me. God bless Otto Penzler for republishing it. This one will make you think and unlike some puzzle mystery writers I could name (*cough* cough* Agatha Christie *cough*) Clayton Rawson plays fair. This was really terrific and I hope that Penzler publishers will consider releasing the other Merlini novels. I know I want to read them!