J.D. Carr is widely acknowledged as the Master of the “Locked Room Mystery”, and
The Hollow Man aside from Poe’s
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, is perhaps the classic locked room novel. In fact Carr's serial detective, Gideon Fell takes a chapter off from the plot to present his famous “locked room” lecture to a handful of long-suffering friends.
The plot: in
The Hollow Man, three brothers, jailed in Transylvania for bank robbery fake their deaths during an outbreak of the plague and are buried alive. The one with the shovel in his coffin digs his way to freedom, then leaves his brothers in their graves and runs off alone with the hidden bank loot. The two brothers who are left behind play important roles in the murder and counter-murder many years later in London.
Apart from the intricate murder set-up the book is wonderfully read for its subtly created ominous atmosphere.