In the fog-shrouded streets of London, a sinister figure from the city's bloodstained past appears to have returned to life. Someone calling himself Jack Ketch, after England's notorious executioner, has begun terrorizing the wealthy Egyptian Nezam El Moulk with miniature gallows, threatening messages, and unmistakable promises of death. At the exclusive but increasingly disreputable Brimstone Club, the atmosphere is thick with suspicion, and an apparently impossible series of events suggests that the mysterious hangman can enter locked rooms and disappear without a trace. Then a limousine hurtles through the London fog with a murdered man behind the wheel, and a chilling message announces that another victim has been hanged on Ruination Street-a street that does not appear on any map of London.
Into this nightmare steps Henri Bencolin, the brilliant, sardonic French detective whose fascination with bizarre crimes makes him uniquely suited to unraveling the mystery. Accompanied by his young American friend Jeff Marle, Bencolin discovers that the threatening messages and seemingly supernatural manifestations conceal a tangled history of jealousy, betrayal, and vengeance reaching back to Paris a decade earlier. As witnesses disappear and new clues emerge, the investigation moves through London's shadowy streets, theatrical circles, and the troubled lives of those connected to El Moulk. Every revelation raises fresh questions: Who is the elusive Jack Ketch? How can a murderer invade seemingly inaccessible rooms? And where is the mysterious Ruination Street, upon which the unknown executioner claims to have erected his gallows?
First published in 1931, The Lost Gallows is the second novel in John Dickson Carr's Henri Bencolin mystery series and an outstanding early example of the author's mastery of atmosphere, misdirection, and ingenious detective puzzles. Blending the intellectual challenge of a classic whodunit with the macabre imagery of Gothic horror, Carr creates a London where ancient terrors seem frighteningly alive and rational explanations appear increasingly inadequate. The novel showcases the imagination and technical ingenuity that would make Carr one of the most celebrated practitioners of the impossible-crime mystery. For readers who enjoy Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, and the darker traditions of Golden Age detective fiction, The Lost Gallows offers an intricate puzzle wrapped in an unforgettable atmosphere of menace.
