A Graveyard To Let by Carter Dickson – #1949Club

Any club year is a good excuse to read a good, old-fashioned murder mystery. In Keswick a few years ago, I bought a handful of a shop’s wide selection of novels by Carter Dickson and John Dickson Carr – who are, of course, the same person. I’m not sure what distinction there might be between the type of novel he wrote under each name, or what makes this book a ‘fast, tough mystery’ in the words of the cover blurb. ‘Tough’ as in hard-to-solve, or hard-boiled, or some third option? No matter, let’s enjoy this ludicrous cover image and get into it! Dickson is renowed for variations on the locked room mystery, and this is a curious spin on it. Frederick Manning is a very wealthy American businessman who doesn’t seem particularly fond of any of his three adult children. The novel opens with a meeting between he and they, and his daughter’s all-American boyfriend, in his offices – where he laments the memory fo their long-dead mother, admits to have a mistress, and sets various cats among…