The Judas Window

James Answell has been accused of murdering his fiancee's father, Avory Hume. The case is quite grim: the murder occurred in Hume's study, where every window and the sole door was bolted—not merely locked!—from the inside. There were no secret passages, and absolutely no gaps in any of the entrances. The murder weapon was an arrow that had been hanging in the study, and the only fingerprints on it are Answell's. Answell claims that this was a set-up and that he drank tampered whiskey... but the decanter in Hume's study is full, all the glasses are dry, and the doctor who checks Answell concludes he wasn't drugged.

Despite these overwhelming circumstances, one man believes in Answell's innocence—Sir Henry Merrivale—and takes up his defense in court.

The book follows Answell's trial from start to finish. I think that structure is what elevates The Judas Window above Carr's other works. I normally find Carr's dialogue vague and difficult to parse, but the trial setting forces The Judas Window's characters to be clear and articulate. While the out-of-court scenes still fall prey to Carr's typical issues, most of the book is easily digestible. This is also probably the funniest Carr book I've read, as Merrivale's outbursts contrast nicely with the stuffy court setting.

The key, of course, is not the quality of the writing, but of the crime. It's... pretty good. The basic idea is delightfully elegant, although it's not without issue. First off, the specifics probably require a bit too much technical knowledge to be called fair. The solution also relies on a certain trope (also present in The Three Coffins) that I'm not a huge fan of. A few times in the book Merrivale mysteriously refers to the solution of the locked room, and but he outright lies in his vague allusions. I honestly don't understand why Carr did that, as the solution is difficult enough to grasp without such unfair misdirection. My last main issue (which only dawned on me a number of days after finishing) was that the killer's plan actually seemed... kinda shoddy. I think I can put it this way without spoiling anything: while the likelihood of injuring the victim was very high with the culprit's trick, the chance of killing the victim seems pretty low.

...Also, even after finishing the book, I still don't get why Merrivale had to go through the entire trial and couldn't just reveal the answer from the start.

But hey, nothing is perfect, and there's still plenty to like. The path leading towards the culprit will make you slap your forehead in how obvious it should have been if you don't manage to finger them. The fact that all the clues are neatly presented in evidence and testimony make them a bit easier to manage, even if a few of them are quite subtle.

The Judas Window is a classic, and with good reason. It's a solid Carr mystery, with humor and palatable dialogue. Read it, if you haven't already.