Obelists Fly High

by C. Daly King

Book Overview

A very thrilling story ... with] a real surprise midway in the book, and a double-barreled shock at the end ... the reader's interest is never allowed to flag. ― The New York Times.
Captain Michael Lord of the New York City Police is the target of desperate shots fired on board a twin-engine plane, where a premeditated murder has already taken place. Will the dashing detective survive the assault? Will anyone emerge alive from the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486250369
• ISBN13: 9780486250366
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Great fun

Entertaining for the story and characters, but especially charming as a portrait of a cross-country commercial airline flight in the 1930s. Have times ever changed since a 10-passenger plane was considered large! The story has some far-fetched aspects, but was great fun nonetheless. The author has even provided a list of clues, with page and line references, at the end of the book. Nice touch.

C. Daly King Flies High

An excellent book, with a smash-finish. The author, a psychologist as was his detective's Watson (Capt. Michael Lord's Dr. Love Rees Pons, to be precise), has devised a murder tale of immense complexity, dealing with the murder of a sexually possessive physician (and brother to an important American politician) on board a plane after receiving death-threats. The characterisation is good, if not excellent, but the dialogue is apposite to the characters, and the theories concerning the impossible murder on the part of an English novelist are good. Despite an alibi business which would have made Freeman Wills Crofts drool with envy (though it's not that dull,) the book must be one of the masterpieces of the Van Dine school - and, taking into consideration the fact that the Van Dine school included such people as S. S. Van Dine and Ellery Queen, as well as the awful Rex Stout, it must therefore be excellent. Read it!