Nine Times Nine

by Anthony Boucher and H.H. (Aka Anthony Boucher) Holmes

Book Overview

The man in the yellow robe had put a curse on Wolfe Harrigan-the ancient curse called the Nine Times Nine. And when Matt Duncan looked up from the croquet lawn that afternoon, he saw the man in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930330374
• ISBN13: 9780930330378
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: International Polygonics
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Great Picture of LA in The Year 1940

By the time Sister Ursula unveiled her solution I was considerably underwhelmed. The mystery set-up was well worked out and beautifully written, but a child could have guessed it all things put together. Matt Duncan and R. Joseph Harrigan are standing there playing croquet on the lawn outside the study of Joseph's brother Wolfe, an arrogant, yet charismatic investigator whose specialty is exposing fraudulent religious cults. Matt sees pretty clearly through the glass that what seems to be a man in a yellow robe is standing over Wolfe's desk. When Matt breaks into the study, he finds Wolfe's dead body streaming with blood and gray brain matter, but no yellow robed figure! And a devout, pious woman, Ellen, has been sitting keeping guard at the study door and she swears that no one has come in or out. Obviously Boucher made a study of locked room problems before he started writing this novel, and amusingly enough Matt Duncan and Lieutenant Marshall run the murder through all the principles of Dr. Fell's famous "Locked Room Lecture" from John Dickson Carr's crime novel "The Hollow Man," but all in all, the solution does not have the snap of one of Carr's, I thought it was ludicrous, and the solution to the mystery of how the yellow-robed man could appear in two places at one time was severely laughable. On the other hand, the homophobia of the LA police towards gay men was, I thought, pictured extremely honestly, without any of the usual liberal sheen that some detective writers would put over their heroes to make them seem sympathetic. Here, Marshall and Duncan sneer every time Robin Cooper, the doorman to the Temple of Light, opens his effeminate mouth. This book is interesting in several ways, and even though it isn't the best detective story you've ever read, it is a corker of a document for all the wrong reasons.

Boucher could write 'em as well as pick 'em

I was introduced to the name "Anthony Boucher' when I happened upon a group of five mystery paperbacks in the mid 1960's grouped as "The World's Great Novels of Detection." Boucher wrote the intro to each book, and since three of the books in that series are among my favorite all-time reads ("Rim of the Pit" by Hake Talbot, "Cue for Murder" by Helen McCloy and "Green For Danger" by Christianna Brand), I gained respect for Boucher's ability to choose mysteries for me. When I happened on this and a few of his other mysteries, I was naturally anxious to read them. They don't disappoint (although they don't soar to the heights of the three books mentioned above.) This one, involving a cult, is fun to read and has some impossible crimes to solve, in keeping with the Golden Age.(By the way, the other two books in that series were "A Blunt Instrument" by Georgette heyer, and "Cat of Many Tails" by Ellery Queen.)