The Black Spectacles (1939) by John Dickson Carr

🕶 The story opens with Marcus Chesney, a wealthy man and the owner of Sodbury Cross, who was on holiday to Greece. He was accompanied by her niece Marjorie Wills, his brother Doctor Joseph (Joe) Chesney and a few friends. Marjorie's fiance completed the group, he's a photographer called Geoege something (I forgot). Inspector Elliot from Scotland Yard was also on the same tour, and he intently watched how things get awkward with the family as soon "poisoner" was mentioned. From here we get to know that Marjorie Wills had been suspected to have poisoned some chocolates in the local shop, causing death of one little boy.

🕶 Inspector Elliot was involved in this case, and while discussing the matter with the Superintendent and Chief Constable, a news came that Marcus Chesney has just been murdered, apparently, in front of eyewitnesses. Marcus held a conviction that eyewitnesses are mostly unreliable; they wouldn't relate accurately of what they had seen. He also solved To proof his theory, he staged a test for the family and friends - all who had accompanied him to Greece. George was tasked to film the whole procedure, while Joe Chesney couldn't attend due to his being summoned by a patient.

🕶 Marcus was helped by someone who was masked and disguised, who would given Marcus a green capsule, supposedly, to contain poison. You guest correctly if you think the capsule did contained poison, and thus, a staged murder became a real one. But if the other three persons were all spectators, who, then, was the murderer?

🕶 While the story unfolds, we get to notice that Inspector Elliot is not going to be the star investigator. Especially when it's clear that he was infatuated with Marjorie, and he let his emotion clouded his logical mind. He consulted Doctor Gideon Fell, and the latter it was who would become the mystery solver.

🕶 This was my first Carr, and I was thoroughly impressed. No wonder too, since The Black Spectacles is daubed to be Carr's masterpiece. The plot is genius, with minimum suspect, and lack of clear motive. There are two cases of poisoning too, the chocolate poisoning seems to be a random case. No one could predict who's going to buy the poisoned chocolate among the harmless others. So, what's the motive? And Marcus' murder, is it to prevent him revealing the chocolate poisoner? Or something else? On the whole, it's an ingenious mystery, a perfect read for true murder mystery/detective novels lovers, highlighted the psychological aspect. One slight problem for me is the lengthy explanation from Doctor Fell on the psychological theory; it's interesting, but a bit too long to be entertaining.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2