Review: Max Carrados

Max Carrados by Ernest Bramah
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

We aren't privy to the detective's knowledge until he explains everything at the end of each of these stories, so the enjoyment here consists of watching a clever man solve odd problems. There's an extra wrinkle in that Carrados is blind, so he relies on his other senses (and his author-given ability to reason accurately from limited information, and his extremely observant manservant) to work on the strange cases that he encounters, usually by having them brought to him by his friend the private inquiry agent. He doesn't do it professionally, having inherited a lot of money, so he can choose cases that he finds interesting - thus increasing the chances that we will also find them interesting.

The author is clever in setting up the situations and having the detective figure them out, so the stories are enjoyable, though they're not "fair play" detective stories by any measure. The author also makes sure that, usually, virtue is rewarded and vice punished, even if this sometimes requires coincidences outside the control of any of the characters, including Carrados.

The last story includes some tense moments and a bit of action, driven by Carrados being more of a protagonist than usual.

They're entertaining, but I'm not about to rush off and read others.

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