Bargains! PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

The Burning Court

John Dickson Carr Dan Napolitano

$35.95

Paperback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English
Penzler Publishers
04 November 2025
When Edward Stevens, an editor at Herald and Son's publishing house, learns of the mysterious events that befell his neighbor’s rich uncle, he shrugs off their seemingly supernatural circumstances. He’s a logical man and doesn’t give much credence to claims of a ghostly figure visiting the man before his death, or the witch’s ladder discovered under his pillow after he passed.

But as suspicions of strange murder begin to creep in, it becomes harder for Stevens to ignore their eerie potential. His neighbor breaks into the cement-sealed crypt where his uncle is buried, only to learn that the corpse has vanished. Witness testimony further implicates the intrusion of the spirit world into the affair of the murdered uncle, and unsettling echoes of the past into the present push things even further past Stevens’ understanding of reality.

Will the events be logically explained, or is there something unexplainable at work? The answer lies in the pages of this atmospheric and haunting puzzler, which finds Carr, the master of the locked room mystery, operating at the peak of his powers.
By:  
Introduction by:  
Imprint:   Penzler Publishers
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 206mm,  Width: 135mm,  Spine: 20mm
Weight:   361g
ISBN:   9781613166994
ISBN 10:   1613166990
Pages:   312
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) was one of the greatest writers of the American Golden Age mystery, and one of the only American authors to be included in England’s legendary Detection Club. Though he was born and died in the United States, Carr began his writing career while living in England, where he remained for nearly twenty years. Under his own name and various pseudonyms, he wrote more than seventy novels and numerous short stories, and is best known today for his locked-room mysteries. His beloved series character, Dr. Gideon Fell, was based on author G. K. Chesterton and appeared in twenty-four novels. Dan Napolitano, a reader of John Dickson Carr for three decades, is also a noted collector of Carr first printings and other collectible books. He published his first crime-fiction article, concerning Conan Doyle, as a student in the 1990s, but only began writing professionally about Carr as the editor of Crippen & Landru's 2022's collection, The Kindling Spark: Early Tales of Mystery, Horror, and Adventure by John Dickson Carr. Napolitano is the editor of a Crippen & Landru follow-up collection that will include more previously unknown and unpublished fiction by Carr.

Reviews for The Burning Court

""A fascinating tale of murder, a disappearing corpse and of two persons who appear to be the reincarnations of long dead poisoners. The book fairly drips mystery."" -- New York Times ""[The] finest of all fusions of deductive puzzle and supernatural horror."" -- Anthony Boucher


See Also