Les meurtres de la Salamandre

Dr. Twist #18

by Paul Halter

Angleterre, 1927. Oliver Caine quitte son petit village près de Londres à la suite d’une rixe qui l’oppose à Patrick Neeson, son rival, pour les beaux yeux de Mary Caroll. Pendant l’altercation, il reçoit accidentellement de l’essence et prend feu. Hurlant de douleur, il s’écrie pourtant : « Je reviendrai me venger de vous tous ! Je suis comme la salamandre, le feu ne peut m’atteindre ! » Quelques mois plus tard, un voleur qui se fait appeler la Salamandre apparaît en France. Ne craignant pas le feu, il incendie le domicile de ses victimes et les dépouille de leurs biens tandis qu’elles fuient les flammes. En Angleterre, Patrick Neeson et Mary Caroll se sont mariés et installés au manoir de Marney Hall. Au bout de quelques années, Mary commence à recevoir des lettres de menace signées Oliver… Au même moment, la Salamandre avertit Scotland Yard de son retour en Angleterre. Le soir de Noël, Mary et Patrick Neeson s’apprêtent à recevoir famille et amis. L’inspecteur Hurst et le célèbre Dr Twist sont dépêchés au village après qu’un rôdeur a été aperçu près du manoir. Alors que la fête bat son plein, la tension monte et il semble que chacun des convives ait quelque chose à cacher.
Hurst et Twist auront bien besoin de conjuguer leurs talents pour démêler la terrible intrigue qui se prépare.

Genres: Mystery

315 pages, Poche

First published May 20, 2009

About the author

Paul Halter is a writer of crime fiction known for his locked room mysteries. Halter pursued technical studies in his youth before joining the French Marines in the hope of seeing the world. Disappointed with the lack of travel, he left the military and, for a while, sold life insurance while augmenting his income playing the guitar in the local dance orchestra. He gave up life insurance for a job in the state-owned telecommunications company, where he works in what is presently known as France Télécom. Halter has been compared with the late John Dickson Carr, generally considered the 20th century master of the locked room genre. Throughout his nearly thirty novels his genre has been almost entirely impossible crimes, and as a critic has said "Although strongly influenced by Carr and Christie, his style is his own and he can stand comparison with anyone for the originality of his plots and puzzles and his atmospheric writing."

His first published novel, La Quatrieme Porte ("The Fourth Door")was published in 1988 and won the Prix de Cognac, given for detective literature. The following year, his novel Le Brouillard Rouge (Red Mist) won "one of the highest accolades in French mystery literature", the Prix du Roman d'Aventures. He has now published more than thirty novels. Several of his short stories have been translated into English; by June 2010 six will have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; ten were collected and published by Wildside Press as The Night of the Wolf.

Reviews

[Juan Carlos]

Ingenioso y lleno de trucos, un libro que atrapa hasta el imprevisto final.

[Life]

There was a surprise John Pugmire cameo in this one which I didn't expect, which was perhaps the most interesting thing I could say about this, though there are some notable aspects of the solution.