The Inner Sanctum was a successful radio program in the 1940's, which inspired a string of hit mysteries starring Lon Chaney Jr., and a series of mystery novels from Simon & Schuster. "There's a new Inner Sanctum Mystery every month!"
Written by Roman Mcdougald in 1944, The Deaths of Lora Karen is a fast paced and convoluted who-done-it, with a clever private detective on hand. I certainly didn't figure it out.
Philip Cabot is invited to the apartment of the Karens - Wealthy and charming Lora and her husband Charles. Present also is her psychiatrist, a swindler cousin, step daughter Felicie and her friend Avis, the artist Maurice Bode, and the family lawyer, so it's a full house for dinner. Philip had been consulted (and invited) by an increasingly anxious Lora who claims she will be killed that night!
Most of the family feels it's just hysteria, but one of them sent her a box of chocolates that tested positive for poison! As dinner ends there is a screaming commotion upstairs when the maid catches a strange jewel thief in the house - a man or a child or a monster, she couldn't say which! The guests disperse all over the house and when they reconvene in the dining room, Lora drinks a glass of poisoned wine. With the police called in, there are very little clues except - the robber was a midget! Another robber escaped through the dark greenhouse below! As the doctor tries to revive Lora in her room he is bludgeoned over the head! What does the robbery have to do with the killing, and why is someone repeatedly trying to kill Philip or divert him off the case? Many of them had a motive, but which one of them poisoned her drink and why?
The action begins in the early chapters and the momentum doesn't let up. As Philip unravels the case he finds a persistent blackmailer, Charles's adulterous habits, what happened to the first Mrs. Karen, Lora's changed will, an ex-maid of the Karens who turns up in town and a mysterious woman who is trying to find her - and then, there is the mysterious midget!
There isn't too much character back story, just enough to keep the mystery going. It's mainly action and detection as Philip and the police track down leads from one place to another. I sometimes had to remind myself which location they were at as they came and went so suddenly. Like the films and radio program, this Inner Sanctum mystery was complex and entertaining, with a real twist as the murderer is revealed. Recommended to mystery fans!
Don't let the title fool you, she dies but once.
1944 / Hardcover / 249 pages
Comments