''The Waxworks Murder'', first published in 1932, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr featuring his series detective

Henri Bencolin Henri Bencolin is a fictional detective created by John Dickson Carr. He was Carr's first series detective, appearing in five "locked-room" and "impossible crime" mystery novels in the 1930s, and four short stories that appeared even earlier. In ...

of the Parisian police. This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

Plot summary

The body of a young woman, who has been stabbed in the back, is found floating in the Seine River. The body of another young woman, with a knife in her back, is found in the arms of a wax figure, the "Satyr of the Seine", in a local wax museum. All available clues lead directly to the infamous "Club of the Silver Key", where aristocratic masked club members mix and mingle in the darkened rooms in search of adulterous entertainment. Henri Bencolin and his friend Jeff Marle must penetrate the club and make sense of the few clues before Bencolin arrives at the solution and makes a very surprising wager with the murderer.

References

1932 American novels Novels by John Dickson Carr Novels set in Paris {{1930s-mystery-novel-stub