The Eight of Swords, first published in 1934, is a detective story by 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....

 featuring his series detective Gideon Fell

Gideon Fell

Doctor Gideon Fell is a fictional character created by John Dickson Carr. He is the protagonist of 23 novels from 1933 through 1967 as well as a few short stories. Carr was an American who lived most of his adult life in England; Dr. Fell is an Englishman who lives in the London suburbs.Dr...

. This 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....

 is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

Plot summary

Mr. Septimus Depping is found dead in his Gloucestershire country house, shot with his own gun and holding a card from the Tarot deck, the eight of swords, which stands for "condemning justice". Among those present is an Anglican bishop who is an expert in criminology, and sees wanted criminals in every parlourmaid, and Henry Morgan, who writes exciting mystery novels under two different names. Mr. Depping turns out to have been an American criminal, and Gideon Fell must penetrate the secrets of his American associates as well as his British life in retirement in order to bring home the crime to the unlikely criminal.