John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was the son of Congressman Wooda Nicholas Carr; he went to very nice schools, and then in the 1930s, he moved to England for a while. An enthusiast for Gaston Leroux and G. K. Chesterton, he also at that time began writing detective stories. To say that he was successful at them is an understatement; he became one of the greatest mystery writers of the day, famous for his impossible-puzzle stories and locked-room mysteries, and in 1936 became the first American to be a member of the Detection Club. He eventually returned the United States, where he hosted the radio program Murder by Experts and wrote a well-reviewed biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He suffered a stroke in 1963, which paralyzed his entire left-hand side; he managed to work around this, but developed lung cancer and died in February 1977.
The next fortnightly book is what is commonly regarded as his greatest work, The Hollow Man, starring what is commonly regarded as his greatest detective-hero, Dr. Gideon Fell. (The book is the sixth Dr. Fell mystery.) It was published in 1935, and became an instant classic among locked-room mysteries. It is famous for the 'locked room lecture', in which Dr. Fell systematically analyzes all possible locked-room solutions, which has influenced any number of other works.
Professor Charles Grimaud has been threatened by an illusionist, Pierre Fley, and not long after is shot in a locked room. There is no visitor, there is no viable egress from the room, and there is no gun, but there is a dying Professor Grimaud. When the murderer left, he shot another person in the street, with two witnesses in the street, neither of whom saw him, and he left no footprints in the snow. It will take a great detective to untangle this knot....