In the eyes of most mystery fans, these four words can perfectly sum up the reasons why they like mystery novels: mysterious atmosphere, romantic theme, rigorous conclusion, and courage to innovate.

Almost all reasoning writers also have the dream of writing secret room tricks. Even if it is not feasible in many cases, once a secret room trick that has not been written by predecessors comes into their minds, they will be eager to write it. And already full of elements and rich structure of mystery novels, many mystery writers always want to add even a fairly qualified secret room trick in it, as if in this way, this "book of mystery novels" written by themselves is complete and justified.

It can be said that secret room reasoning is the jewel in the field of mystery novels, which has a unique charm and can temporarily give way to writing skills, characters’ emotions and the feasibility of tricks. In the history of reasoning for nearly two hundred years, a large number of excellent works and writers of secret room reasoning have been born, but in the final analysis, all these works and writers can’t be separated from a man named john dickson carr.

In other words, all the chamber tricks are either deliberately imitating Carl or trying to surpass Carl. The latter is rare, but if you can do it, it is a classic.

Today, let’s talk about john dickson carr, the king of the Chamber of Secrets, and see how he wrote to perfection with the weapon of the Chamber of Secrets, and became the "Three Giants of the Golden Age" on par with agatha christie and ellery queen.

Before Carl officially appeared, let’s learn about his period.

We often say that there was a "golden age" in the history of reasoning, that is, in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, when the development of mystery novels was the fastest, detectives were everywhere, and masterpieces were everywhere, and this period should be called "the golden age of European and American reasoning" more accurately.

Before 1920, mystery novels had developed into the golden age of short stories. Father Brown of chesterton and Van Dusen, the "thinking machine" of Jacques Futrelle, were both classic detective images in the short period, and the most representative detective among them was of course Sherlock Holmes written by Conan Doyle. The golden age of short stories gave birth to a large number of mystery lovers, and also influenced many mystery writers who are about to make great achievements in the future.

After the market boom, the "one story, one trick" mode of short mystery novels can hardly meet the needs of most readers. Their aesthetics are improving and their requirements are changing, so long mystery arises at the historic moment. In 1920, agatha christie published his first novel, mysterious affair at styles, which opened the door to the age of long reasoning. In the following years, Agatha and a group of pioneers of long-form reasoning consolidated their position of long-form reasoning at an average rate of publishing several books every year. Agatha herself also made a lot of attempts to change her style during this period. For example, mysterious affair at styles was a classic work that completely abandoned the "adventure element", while the works such as The Man in Brown and seven dials mystery returned to the popular spy war adventure field. During this period, in addition to long-form reasoning, she also created a number of works.

Of course, the charm and rules of long mystery novels were quickly established in this process. In 1928, Fan Dayin, an equally prestigious mystery writer, published The Murder of the Greens and was writing The Murder of the Bishop, which will be the most representative works of his whole career. Therefore, Fan Dayin was confident at this time and published 20 rules that should be followed in writing long mystery novels, namely "20 Rules for Detective Novels".

Poster of The Grimm Murder (1929).

Now we look back at these 20 rules, each of which has been broken, but we can’t deny its value. At that time, this approach of emphasizing rules was very compatible with the unique gameplay of mystery novels, just as now we often popularize science. This book is a "social school" and this book is a "benjamin school". In fact, a good book should not have so-called writing rules regardless of genre, but for a literary type whose public awareness is not enough.

Therefore, since 1920, with the unremitting efforts of some writers, mystery novels have been formally established as a brand-new literary type. If 1920 was the year to knock on the door of the golden age, then ten years later, in 1930, the golden age of mystery novels came completely. Almost half of the classic European and American classical reasoning works we can see at present were born in the short period of 20 years from 1930 to 1950.

The first is the substantial increase in the number of works. At that time, there was a magazine in the United States called Book Review Digest, which was similar to our Beijing News Book Review Weekly, and published some critical articles on books and culture. Someone made an interesting statistic on the number of crime novels in Book Review Digest, and found that in 1914, there were no more than 12 review articles on detective novels. By 1925, in the early golden age, the number had increased to 97. In 1937, at the height of the golden age, this number became 217.

Of course, this figure does not represent the actual number of mystery novels published, but if we divide the golden age into "before the golden age", "at the beginning of the golden age" and "in the golden age", it is obvious that both the number of mystery novels published and the degree of public discussion are increasing several times.

After 1930, the quantity and quality of mystery novels exploded, and a great deal of credit was attributed to three people. Among them, agatha christie had reached the peak of creation and created another classic detective image, Miss Ma Puer. In addition, two new writers made their debut, one was Quinn, the king of logic, and the other was John Dixon Carr, the king of the Chamber of Secrets.

Detective Poirot in mysterious affair at styles (1990).

In 1906, john dickson carr was born in Pennsylvania, the United States, and his father was a Q member of the House of Representatives. Influenced by his father, Carl was very interested in social cases and legal trials when he was a child, and he showed his enthusiasm for writing very early. At the age of 11, Carl was able to write reports on court trials independently.

These basic knowledge, which he has been exposed and practiced since childhood, will also be applied to the creation of mystery novels. For example, the catalogue of Burning Court is divided into five chapters: accusation, evidence, debate, summary and conclusion, which closely combines the court trial with the main plot of mystery novels. In Window of Judah, Carl directly sets the stage for detectives to make final reasoning and reveal criminals to the court. This book is Carl’s best.

Carl entered Harvey Buddhist College in 1925, and the following year, he published his own novels and poems in the school magazine. After graduation, Carl left the United States and went to the University of Paris for further study, but during his study abroad, he still serialized his novels in Haverford magazine.

John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906—February 27, 1977) is an American mystery novelist. Karl is an important writer in the golden age of mystery novels, and he is also called "the Big Three in the Golden Age" with agatha christie and Ellery Quinn.

In 1930, one of the most important years in the history of reasoning, Karl revised his novel serialized in a university magazine and published it officially. This novel, named Night Walk, marked the official arrival of the King of the Chamber of Secrets and the golden age.

As Carl’s debut work, Nocturnal Journey is not the best of all his works, but it still caused a sensation at that time, and it was printed seven times within two months. With his unique personal style, Carl has already made a blockbuster in the reasoning literary world. In this book, Karl explained his own creative style through the mouth of the protagonist detective Becklin:

This is Carl’s style from the beginning of his debut: the mystery of the secret room. A mystery like a miracle, and the only one who can explain this miracle is Carl himself.

The cover of Night Travel in English.

In addition to the secret room tricks, Carl’s writing style is also impressive. His writing style was a very popular "Gothic style" in the field of thriller novels at that time.

Ellen Poe, the originator of mystery novels, is also a master of Gothic horror novels, but compared with Poe’s theory of "unified effect", Carl is more like "using" Goth. Because the core mystery of the novel is the seemingly unsolvable secret room, in order to create this incredible atmosphere, Carl adopted the most matching and popular style.

Carl’s Gothic style is mainly reflected in image expression and environmental description. Imagery, witches, cemeteries, coffins, legends … these are all elements that can be seen everywhere in Karl’s works, and they can always match the mystery of the secret room to write the most appropriate images. Before the mystery is revealed, readers will always be dominated by unknown horror. As for the description of the environment, Carl sets the stage of the story in the middle of nowhere and on a dark night. He is an American himself, but in order to better create this gothic style, his stories always take place in Britain. This is why many people mistakenly think that Carl is an English writer.

However, in 1932, Carl fell in love with an English woman and settled in England after marriage. Since then, he has become a "British reasoning writer". The biggest difference between British and American mystery writers at that time was that British writers tended to be more romantic in mystery and inherited the original purport of mystery novels, while American writers gradually tended to be more modern in style such as crime and coldness.

In 1936, Carl joined the British detective club, and he was one of only two overseas members of the club.

Carl really became one of the most important writers in the field of reasoning literature in 1933. In that year, he published his new work "The Witch Corner", which not only upgraded the previously determined Gothic style and miraculous secret room tricks, but also introduced a brand-new detective image-Dr. Phil.

Dr Phil is a chubby scholar who smokes a sepiolite pipe and has an exaggerated robber beard. His prototype is easily reminiscent of Karl’s ancestor chesterton.

Chesterton, as one of the most prestigious writers in the short period, has contributed countless novel tricks in the series of Father Brown. Compared with other writers, chesterton’s style of emphasizing tricks and atmosphere rendering is obviously more to Carl’s taste.

A year later, Carl published "The Murder in Plague Village" under the pseudonym of Carter Dixon, and once again introduced a brand-new detective role: Henry Melville, a lawyer and doctor, whose multi-elite status shows his erudition. The wonderful court reasoning in "Window of Judah" is tailor-made for the lawyer’s identity.

Although Melville is no less clever than Dr. Phil, and he is also the protagonist of many famous books, there is a crucial reason why Carl’s most representative detective is still Dr. Phil: Carl gave his most important "lecture notes in the Chamber of Secrets" to Dr. Phil for publication.

In 1935, Three Coffins, one of the most important works in the history of reasoning, was published. In chapter 17 of this book, Karl published a classic "lecture notes on the secret room" by Dr. Phil, which summarized the principles of almost all secret room tricks and classified them in detail. This chapter is carried out separately, and it is also a single trick type integration and research that will never be out of date.

It is such a handout that includes all the ideas that Carl can think of in the secret room, which is about the same as raising the creative difficulty of secret room reasoning directly to the extreme difficulty. Of course, as the creator of secret room reasoning, Carl himself is the first to be affected. However, Carl not only gives novel answers beautifully in the content after Three Coffins, but also always gives high-quality answers in later works. This kind of blood and talent, which makes it difficult for oneself and peers, but can always solve it perfectly, is, in my opinion, an important cornerstone for Carl as a fan of mystery novels and a writer in the history of mystery.

Three Coffins, by john dickson carr, translated by Xin Kejia, Xinxing Publishing House, March 2019.

"Three Coffins" directly promoted Carl to the status of a master. Later, many secret room lovers paid tribute to and discussed his "secret room lecture notes" in their works. Until today, the discussion on this text nearly a hundred years ago is still going on. For example, clayton rawson, as Karl’s contemporary master of tricks, himself had a reasoning competition with Karl, and left famous articles for the limited theme of tape secret room. In Lawson’s works, he quoted "lecture notes of secret room" and made his own supplements. In the last column, "Edogawa Rampo’s Trick Integration", the lecture notes were further studied.

In addition, Reito Nikaido’s House of Evil Spirits, My grandson Wuwan’s Murder of Eight, The Magic Mirror with Habitat in Sichuan, Shoichiro Dashan’s Collectors in the Chamber of Secrets, Shichen’s Obsidian Museum Incident, Imamura’s Chang Hong’s Mystery of the Dead Man’s Village, and Highland Barley’s Killing of the Bell Tower, and so on, all paid tribute to Carl’s works in different degrees.

Oh, by the way, in the movie Detective Chinatown 3, Qin Feng, the hero, also elaborated a "lecture notes in the Chamber of Secrets". Above all, it is a direct tribute to the lecture notes in the secret room, and there are countless works such as generating new inspiration and writing other types of lectures according to the lecture notes in the secret room.

Carl himself has been challenging the secret room problem. In 1980, there was a poll of "Top Ten Secret Room Reasoning". The voters were composed of reasoning writers, editors, critics and readers. In this list, Carl occupied four places. Three Coffins, the first place, won twice as many votes as the second place, and the other three books, The Twisted Hub, The Window of Judah and The Peacock Feather Murder, are also important masterpieces of secret room reasoning in the history of reasoning.

Carl’s career has been challenging the same mystery-the Chamber of Secrets, but he has drilled deep enough and thought wide enough to turn a mystery that was originally an exclusive mystery in mystery novels into a complex and far-reaching type. Just as Karl absorbed the tricks of Ellen Poe’s Goth and chesterton, and combined them to open up a long golden age, many writers now are also inheriting Karl’s creative ideas, and this case will not wither, and the tricks will always be fresh.

Detective Chinatown 3 stills.

Agatha said of Carl: "Few detective stories can confuse me now, but Carl can always."

The reason why the detective queen from the same "scheming" can give such a high evaluation is because Carl almost determined the kingly position of the "secret room" in mystery novels by himself, and because of their competition and mutual support, the golden age of Europe and America is so shining.

However, there will be a curtain call in any era. After 1950, the creation of the "Big Three" gradually declined, and Agatha still maintained a good writing speed, but as she got older, it was difficult to return to the level of amazing masterpieces every year in the 1930s. Quinn, the "king of logic", has also entered the later stage of his career. The series of country names and tragedies on which they became famous have long since ended. Under the wave of Hollywood movies, the Quinn brothers began to change their styles and write more popular novels. Carl, on the other hand, had physical problems in 1951, and he struggled with the disease until 1954, when he fully recovered.

Window of Judas, by john dickson carr, translated by Cai Miao, Xinxing Publishing House, June 2019.

However, the decline of this case reasoning is hard to recover, not only because these reasoning writers have left their peak period, but more importantly, the world has just experienced the Second World War, and the original rationality and order have been broken. World War II is a watershed in the development of mystery novels. The quiet manor, crimes against individuals, the behavior of racking one’s brains for a detail, the criminal motives of love and property … all these have been broken, replaced by more complicated and realistic problems, the fate of a whole country, the living conditions of a large group of people, and the violence that is inconsistent with a word. The golden age of the traditional case ended, and the American cold hards and Japanese social schools began to rise, and the mystery novel has been completely changed.

Later in his career, Carl never wrote a more gorgeous secret room. In 1962, Carl won the MWA Lifetime Master Award, which is the highest honor in the field of crime novels in Europe and America.

Now, many people are still remembering and looking back at the golden age, but I think that each period is a period created by all kinds of good times and good places. For example, the next 30 years will be the golden age of social groups, and the next 30 years will be the golden age of the new case. Every era can’t be copied, and masters and masterpieces in their respective fields are born. It is this constant iterative update that makes the vitality of mystery novels continue.

Therefore, what we have to do is not only to remember, but also to cherish this "golden age" that we are now in. As for Carl, he has completed his mission and left an indelible mark in the history of reasoning.

After all, no matter what era, as long as it is written in secret room reasoning, it will be compared with Carl by readers.

Author/Lu Yehua

Editor/Miyako Li Yongbo Qingqingzi

Proofreading/Wang Xin