The Dead Sleep Lightly and Other Mysteries from Radio's Golden Age

by John Dickson Carr, Douglas G. Greene

A collection of nine mysteries, based on original radio plays written during the forties and fifties

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

181 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1983

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

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for fans of both golden age radio and golden age detective fiction, by none other than the king of both, John Dickson Carr. Besides two or three of these, which you can easily find online (archive.org being a great place to start), the screenplays here are all that remain since so many good radio plays are lost to time, as they say. (I do believe some are collected in The Black Man, as well.)

Twilight Zone fans, keep an eye out for a proto-Long Distance Call in the titular episode.

[Gabriele Crescenzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un must per tutti gli amanti di Carr, di cui io sono sinceramente un ammiratore accanito. Carr riesce sempre ad ammaliare il lettore con le atmosfere da incubo ma allo stesso tempo razionali che solo lui sa creare. È in assoluto, a mio parere, il più grande narratore esistente nel panorama giallistico, tanto che anche a distanza di tempo dalla lettura di un suo romanzo, rimangono ben impresse le sensazioni di angoscia, di pericolo presenti in esso, rimangono ben scolpiti nella mente anche i più piccoli dettagli di alcune scene magistrali. E in questa raccolta Carr dimostra di saper scrivere in maniera magistrale anche radiodrammi. Un gioiello da possedere. Tra i miei preferiti "L'attimo oscuro", "I morti hanno il sonno leggero", "Le quattro facce della morte" e "La torre del vampiro". Quindi 5 stelle.

[Jimmie Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too outdated and the format stinks

[Starry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun to read—short stories adapted into radio plays to entertain the British people during WW2. The introduction/background was informative and interesting.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I could hear these performed on the radio.