In this novel, for the first time the reader is brought face-to-face with Carr’s most established and long-lasting detective tradition: the clumsy drunk Gideon Fell, created in the manner and traditions of G. K. Chesterton, whom Carr himself idolized. …Men from the Starberts family die by breaking their necks. Such is the legend in the village where the Chatterham prison lies—abandoned for hundreds of years, yet still keeping its terrible secrets. Scotland Yard hears about this legend after Martin Starbert’s death. But it’s Gideon Fell who will have to uncover one of the most treacherous and mysterious crimes…