The Plague Court Murders

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The Plague Court Murders is a tale of a haunted house as only John Dickson Carr (aka, Carter Dickson) could tell it.

Throughout his life, Carr was fond of ghost stories. In a recently discovered article that Carr wrote when he was fifteen years old, he remarked: "To like such stories is entirely natural. We love to be scared, but unconsciously we challenge anyone to do it.... Despite science, despite common sense, still we lie awake o’ nights with a volume of Poe-of Kipling-of Marion Crawford-in our hands, while outside the circle of light thrown by the lamp at our bedside flit all the mocking phantoms of fancy, defying science, defying common sense to crush the ghost story:' Poe and Kipling are great figures in the history of the supernatural tale (and much else), but F Marion Crawford has been almost forgotten. Nonetheless, Carr praised several of Crawford's short stories, especially a small masterpiece called "The Screaming Skull," whose opening lines Carr liked to quote:

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