The Hollow Man

As seen in KNIVES OUT: WAKE UP DEAD MAN

By: John Dickson Carr

Narrated by: Peter Noble

The most famous of all locked-room mysteries - a classic in the crime genre.

'The first deadly walking of the hollow man took place when the side streets of London were quiet with snow and the three coffins of the prophecy were filled at last...'

The murderer of Dr Grimauld walked through a locked door, shot his victim and vanished. He killed his second victim in the middle of an empty street, with watchers at each end, yet nobody saw him, and he left no footprints in the snow.

And so it is up to the irrepressible, larger-than-life Dr Gideon Fell to solve this most famous and taxing of locked-room mysteries.

Critic reviews

John Dickson Carr was a master of the locked room mystery ... a murder takes place in circumstances that make it seem impossible for the killer to have escaped undetected ... The sheer ingenuity of the plot is a delight

Very few detective stories baffle me nowadays, but Mr Carr's always do (Agatha Christie)

A key influence on Wake Up Dead Man ... It's renowned for both the ingenuity of its central locked-room mystery - whereby a murderous visitor seemingly disappears into thin air - and a fourth-wall-stretching speech by sleuth Dr Gideon Fell, who lays out the various methods often used by writers to explain such "impossible crimes".

Carr's 1935 locked door mystery still rivals any present day crime novel and its status as a textbook for writers in the genre means it is a necessary read

The best Carr is the most ingenious, and my vote would go to THE HOLLOW MAN ... The conjuror's illusion here is marvellously clever (Julian Symons)

Probably the most ingenious of all detective story writers in the creation of puzzles (T J Binyon)

No one in the history of the genre could match him for sheer sustained ingenuity when it came to devising reader-bamboozling locked rooms and other impossible crimes

Fantastic as always!

John Dickson Carr is truly the master of the locked room mystery and the hollow man doesn't disappoint

COULDN'T GET THRU IT

It's a classic I know and i wanted to be engaged but somehow I wasn't. I tried a few times and will probably try again but so far I just could not get interested. Many others enjoyed it and many more will.

Narrator not consistent

An interesting story, culminating in Dr Fell's explanation of how things really unfolded near the end. Unfortunately the narrator's impersonation of characters is not consistent throughout the book, which has a very negative effect on one's enjoyment of the book.

Excellent Closed Room Murder

This is a must-read for murder mystery fans. It has one of the most complicated closed room murders I've ever seen.

clever story

This story is very complicated but interesting. I enjoyed the performance of a well written book