I recently reviewed the John Dickson Carr novel Castle Skull here at ClimbingSky, which I liked very much. When I went online to my local library to find another book in the British Library Crime Classics Series to read this Carr novel, The Corpse in the Waxworks, immediately caught my eye.

In The Corpse in the Waxworks, two young women are found dead in Paris. One is discovered floating in the Seine, stabbed in the back. The other is found in a wax museum, a knife protruding from her back, cradled in the arms of the museum’s “Satyr of the Seine” wax figure.

The investigation leads Bencolin and Marle to the “Club of the Silver Key,” an exclusive, members-only establishment where the city’s elite engage in illicit affairs. To solve the murders, Bencolin and his friend Marle must infiltrate this secretive club and decipher the scant clues left behind.

The Corpse in the Waxworks was, unfortunately, no where near as entertaining as Castle Skull. I wish Carr would have chosen to set more of the book in the spooky setting he created at the outset of this one with the waxworks.

Reading comments online I see that many reviewers share my same disappointment with Carr’s choice of direction after such an excellent beginning.

Unless you are trying to read all of Carr’s work or the complete British Library Crime Classics Series you can probably skip this one. Or just read the first few chapters and imagine your own plot taking place entirely within the wax museum.