Death from a Top Hat
Encyclopedia
Death from a Top Hat is a locked-room mystery
novel
written by Clayton Rawson
.
It is the first of four mysteries featuring The Great Merlini
, a stage magician
and Rawson's favorite protagonist.
In a poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, this novel was voted as the seventh best locked room mystery
of all time.
When a magician is found dead inside his locked and (thoroughly) sealed apartment, the police call in Merlini to help explain the impossible, "perhaps on the theory that it takes a magician to catch one."
All the suspects, however, are accustomed to producing the impossible. They include a professional medium, an escape artist, a couple of magicians, a ventriloquist, and two people who claim to exhibit mental telepathy in their nightclub act.
The first murder victim is found spread-eagled inside a pentagram, surrounded by the trappings of black magic. The second victim, also spread-eagled, seems to have been in two places at once during the first murder. After a number of breakneck chases from one scene to the next, Merlini and his assistant are a couple of steps ahead of the police and provide a far-fetched but logical solution to the impossible crimes.
In between, Merlini and other characters deliver great chunks of informative conversation mixed with paragraphs of information about entirely unrelated but fascinating topics, like yogic bilocation, making the keys of a typewriter move without touching them, and even posing a tricky problem in geometry. The action also stops for a while when Merlini quotes a well-known passage from John Dickson Carr
's The Three Coffins about the nature of locked-room mystery
novels, and adds some flourishes of his own in relation to the problems at hand.
The penultimate scene in which the murderer is revealed is enlivened by one of the suspects attempting (on stage) to catch a bullet in his teeth, and all is explained in the final chapter when everyone gathers at Merlini's Magic Shop in the best whodunnit tradition.
. The film simplifies the complex plot and replaces the character of Merlini with the Great Morgan (Mike), played by Young.
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies...
.
It is the first of four mysteries featuring The Great Merlini
The Great Merlini
The Great Merlini is a fictional detective created by Clayton Rawson. He is a professional magician who appears in four locked room or impossible crime novels written in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as well as in a few short stories....
, a stage magician
Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
and Rawson's favorite protagonist.
In a poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, this novel was voted as the seventh best locked room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
of all time.
Plot summary
"As the story opens, free-lance writer Ross Harte is writing a magazine article on the modern detective story, and most of this article-to-be is included in the first chapter."When a magician is found dead inside his locked and (thoroughly) sealed apartment, the police call in Merlini to help explain the impossible, "perhaps on the theory that it takes a magician to catch one."
All the suspects, however, are accustomed to producing the impossible. They include a professional medium, an escape artist, a couple of magicians, a ventriloquist, and two people who claim to exhibit mental telepathy in their nightclub act.
The first murder victim is found spread-eagled inside a pentagram, surrounded by the trappings of black magic. The second victim, also spread-eagled, seems to have been in two places at once during the first murder. After a number of breakneck chases from one scene to the next, Merlini and his assistant are a couple of steps ahead of the police and provide a far-fetched but logical solution to the impossible crimes.
In between, Merlini and other characters deliver great chunks of informative conversation mixed with paragraphs of information about entirely unrelated but fascinating topics, like yogic bilocation, making the keys of a typewriter move without touching them, and even posing a tricky problem in geometry. The action also stops for a while when Merlini quotes a well-known passage from John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
's The Three Coffins about the nature of locked-room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
novels, and adds some flourishes of his own in relation to the problems at hand.
The penultimate scene in which the murderer is revealed is enlivened by one of the suspects attempting (on stage) to catch a bullet in his teeth, and all is explained in the final chapter when everyone gathers at Merlini's Magic Shop in the best whodunnit tradition.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The book was adapted for the film Miracles For Sale (1939) starring Robert YoungRobert Young (actor)
Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...
. The film simplifies the complex plot and replaces the character of Merlini with the Great Morgan (Mike), played by Young.