The House at Satan's Elbow
The House at Satan's Elbow
The House at Satan's Elbow is a 1965 mystery novel by John Dickson Carr, featuring his detective Gideon Fell. It is a classic locked-room mystery and is dedicated to fellow mystery writer Clayton Rawson “because of our mutual interest in tricks and impossibilities.”
Plot
Historian Garret Anderson suddenly comes into money when one of his biographies is turned into a hit musical. With time on his hands, he travels to a family home in Hampshire, England to witness some unusual happenings. The central puzzle is a missing will, but a ghostly figure portraying Mr. Justice Wildfare, an 18th‑century hanging judge and ancestor of the family, complicates matters. The head of the family is shot with a blank cartridge by a shadowy intruder who vanishes through a locked window, and is later shot again, more seriously. Gideon Fell is called in to unravel the mystery and identify the killer.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 03:12 (CET).