He Who Whispers - Literary Criticism and Significance

Literary Criticism and Significance

This novel is of some significance in the field of the Golden Age mystery because of its treatment of a sexual theme, that of nymphomania. This is one of a few Carr mystery novels to deal with such a psycho-sexual theme (others are The Judas Window, where a woman character poses for obscene photographs for her lover, and The Sleeping Sphinx, which deals with sexual hysteria). Many whodunnit novels are criticised for being artificial puzzles with little or no characterization, and this novel stands as an example of a writer attempting to bring some semblance of psychological realism to the motivations of his characters.

Novels by John Dickson Carr
Sir Henry Merrivale series
Novels
  • The Plague Court Murders (1934)
  • The White Priory Murders (1934)
  • The Red Widow Murders (1935)
  • The Unicorn Murders (1935)
  • The Punch and Judy Murders (1936)
  • The Ten Teacups (1937)
  • The Judas Window (1938)
  • Death in Five Boxes (1938)
  • The Reader is Warned (1939)
  • And So to Murder (1940)
  • Murder in the Submarine Zone (1940)
  • Seeing is Believing (1941)
  • The Gilded Man (1942)
  • She Died a Lady (1943)
  • He Wouldn't Kill Patience (1944)
  • The Curse of the Bronze Lamp (1945)
  • My Late Wives (1946)
  • The Skeleton in the Clock (1948)
  • A Graveyard to Let (1949)
  • Night at the Mocking Widow (1950)
  • Behind the Crimson Blind (1952)
  • The Cavalier's Cup (1953)
Short stories
  • Merrivale, March and Murder (1991)
Gideon Fell series
Novels
  • Hag's Nook (1933)
  • The Mad Hatter Mystery (1933)
  • The Blind Barber (1934)
  • The Eight of Swords (1934)
  • Death-Watch (1935)
  • The Hollow Man (1935)
  • The Arabian Nights Murder (1936)
  • To Wake the Dead (1938)
  • The Crooked Hinge (1938)
  • The Black Spectacles (1939)
  • The Problem of the Wire Cage (1939)
  • The Man Who Could Not Shudder (1940)
  • The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941)
  • Death Turns the Tables (1941)
  • Till Death Do Us Part (1944)
  • He Who Whispers (1946)
  • The Sleeping Sphinx (1947)
  • Below Suspicion (1949)
  • The Dead Man's Knock (1958)
  • In Spite of Thunder (1960)
  • The House at Satan's Elbow (1965)
  • Panic in Box C (1966)
  • Dark of the Moon (1968)
Short story
collections
  • Dr. Fell, Detective, and Other Stories (1947)
  • The Men Who Explained Miracles (1963)
  • Fell and Foul Play (1991)
The Henri Bencolin series
Novels
  • It Walks By Night (1930)
  • Castle Skull (1931)
  • The Lost Gallows (1931)
  • The Waxworks Murder (1932)
  • The Four False Weapons (1937)
Short stories
  • "The Shadow of the Goat"
  • "The Fourth Suspect"
  • "The End of Justice"
  • "Murder In Number Four"
Other novels
As John Dickson Carr
  • Poison In Jest (1932)
  • The Burning Court (1937)
  • The Emperor's Snuff-Box (1942)
  • The Bride of Newgate (1950)
  • The Devil in Velvet (1951)
  • The Nine Wrong Answers (1952)
  • Captain Cut-Throat (1955)
  • Patrick Butler for the Defense (1956)
  • Fire, Burn! (1957)
  • Scandal at High Chimneys: A Victorian Melodrama (1959)
  • The Witch of the Low Tide: An Edwardian Melodrama (1961)
  • The Demoniacs (1962)
  • Most Secret (1964)
  • Papa La-Bas (1968)
  • The Ghosts' High Noon (1970)
  • Deadly Hall (1971)
  • The Hungry Goblin: A Victorian Detective Novel (1972)
As Carter Dickson
  • The Bowstring Murders (1934)
  • Fear Is the Same (1956)

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