Book #1 of 5 in John Dickson Carr’s Henri Bencolin mystery series.

An escaped madman. A murder inside a watched and sealed room. A killer whose face is not his own.

In the shadowy gambling clubs of 1920s Paris, brilliant and ruthless examining magistrate Henri Bencolin—a former wartime spymaster with a penetrating knowledge of criminal psychology—is asked to prevent a murder. A violent fugitive has escaped confinement and undergone reconstructive surgery, meaning the vengeful killer could now be hiding behind the face of anyone within the intended victim’s aristocratic circle.

Despite Bencolin’s elaborate precautions, the threatened man enters a private card room—and ten minutes later is found decapitated. Both doors were under constant observation, yet someone entered, committed the gruesome crime, and vanished without being seen. To expose the impossible murderer, Bencolin must navigate a sinister maze of concealed identities, romantic betrayals, psychological manipulation, and seemingly supernatural terror.

Blending a fiendishly constructed locked-room puzzle with Gothic atmosphere, macabre suspense, and the decadence of Jazz Age Paris, It Walks by Night is John Dickson Carr’s debut detective novel and the first case featuring Henri Bencolin. With his Mephistophelean appearance, theatrical manner, and formidable intelligence, Carr’s darkly charismatic detective is nearly as compelling as the ingenious impossible crime itself.

Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, Gaston Leroux, Ellery Queen, and Clayton Rawson, as well as readers who enjoy sealed-room murders, elaborate whodunits, hidden identities, psychological suspense, classic French settings, and Golden Age detective thrillers. Ideal for libraries, book clubs, and collectors of vintage crime fiction.