Golden Age Bibliomysteries by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: Penzler Publishers

THE EPISODE OF THE CODEX’ CURSE

C. Daly King

Of the merely seven volumes of detective fiction that C(harles) Daly King (1895-1963) produced in his lifetime, his undoubted masterpiece is the short story collection The Curious Mr. Tarrant. Although King was an American, the book was first published in England in 1935 and was among the rarest mystery books of the twentieth century until Dover issued the first American edition as a paperback in 1977. It was selected by Ellery Queen for his Queen’s Quorum as one of the 106 most important volumes of mystery short stories of all time, where it was described as containing “the most imaginative detective short stories of our time.”

Trevis Tarrant, the amateur detective in the eponymous story collection, is a wealthy, cultured gentleman of leisure who believes in cause and effect; they “rule the world,” he says. He takes it on himself to explain locked room mysteries and impossible crimes that involve such improbabilities as mysterious footsteps by an invisible entity heard even in broad daylight, horrible images of a hanged man haunting a modern house, headless corpses found on a heavily traveled highway, as well as dealing with apparent ghosts and other supernormal happenings. It entertains him to bring his gift of being able to see things clearly and solve mysteries by the use of inarguable logic. He is accompanied at all times by his valet, Katoh, a Japanese doctor and spy.

Born in New York City, King graduated from Yale University, received his master’s degree in psychology from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Yale. With the advent of World War II, he stopped writing mysteries and devoted the rest of his life to his work in psychology. Because of their uneven nature and occasional long, boring passages, King’s novels are not often read today, despite the ingenuity of their plotting, though Obelists at Sea (1932) and other of his novels have their champions. As a mystery writer, King is enigmatic, at times writing brilliantly with the verve and assurance of a master, at other times as frustrating as the club bore who tells the same stories over and over again, once inserting a fifteen-page treatise on economic theory into a detective novel for absolutely no reason.

“The Episode of the Codex’ Curse” was first published in The Curious Mr. Tarrant (London, Collins, 1935).

The Episode of the Codex’ Curse

C. Daly King

CHARACTERS OF THE EPISODE

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