Gideon Fell
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Doctor Gideon Fell is a fictional detective created by John Dickson Carr. He is the protagonist of 23 novels from 1933 through 1967 as well as a few short stories. Carr was an American who lived most of his adult life in England; Dr. Fell is an Englishman who lives in the London suburbs. He is described as a huge, mustached, corpulent man who wears a cape and a shovel hat and walks with the aid of two canes. He is frequently described as bringing the spirit of Father Christmas or Old King Cole into a room. In his early appearances he was called a lexicographer but this description gradually disappeared and he was thereafter mostly referred to as working on a monumental history of the beer-drinking habits of the English people. He is, of course, an amateur sleuth, frequently called upon by the police, who then frustrates them in the usual manner of most fictional detectives by refusing to reveal his deductions until he has arrived at a complete solution to the problem. Most of his exploits concern the unraveling of locked room mysterys or of "impossible crimes."
Doctor Fell is supposedly based upon a real person -- G.K. Chesterton, who, like Carr, was a master of detective fiction (the Father Brown stories), and whose physical appearance and personality were apparently similar to that of Doctor Fell.
External links
- appraisal of all the Dr. Fell books (http://www.mysterylist.com/carr2.htm)
- Mystery Guild Book Club, Murder Mystery Books, Detective Fiction, Thriller Books, True Crime Novels (http://www.mysteryguild.com) Mystery Guild Book Club offers discount mystery books including murder mysteries, detective fiction, thriller books, crime novels and true crime books from best selling mystery authors