Paul Halter

The Demon of Dartmoor Paul Halter

Publisher Marketing: A famous actor is sent to his death from a high window; eye witnesses say he was pushed by an invisible hand, thus mimicking another murder committed in the same house more than fifty years earlier. Three local girls have also died in similar inexplicable fashion, propelled from the top of Wish Tor, a rocky outcrop. Is there an invisible creature roaming the sinister and forbidding landscape of Dartmoor? Or is there a human agency behind the murders and, if so, how is it done? The renowned criminologist Dr. Twist and the irascible Inspector Hurst of Scotland Yard are sent to investigate. 'The Demon of Dartmoor' is the fourth Paul Halter novel to be published in English, and the second featuring Twist and Hurst. In the BBC Radio 4 program 'Miles Jupp in a Locked Room, ' broadcast on May 21, 2012, it was hailed as one of the most ingenious solutions ever written, and totally original. It has a plot line that writhes like a snake. The author, best-selling French writer Paul Halter, has written over thirty novels, almost all 'locked room' or 'impossible crime, ' and is widely regarded as the successor to John Dickson Carr. His prize-winning novel 'The Fourth Door, ' also featuring Dr. Twist, was published on Amazon in 2011. The two novels featuring the dilettante Owen Burns' 'The Lord of Misrule' and 'The Seven Wonders of Crime' were published in 2010 and 2011 respectively. A fifth Halter novel 'The Invisible Circle, ' is planned for late 2012. Locked Room International also published 'The Riddle of Monte Verita' in 2012 ("wonderfully captures and evokes the glory days of the detective story,") and plans to publish Henri Cauvin's 'The Killing Needle, ' featuring the French precursor to Sherlock Holmes, also in 2012. For more information, contact pugmire1@yahoo.com Contributor Bio:  Halter, Paul Paul Halter est ne en 1956 a Haguenau. Auteur bien connu des lecteurs du Masque, il a obtenu le Prix Cognac en 1987 avec "La quatrieme porte" et le prix du Roman d'aventures en 1988 pour "Le brouillard rouge". Il a publie plus d'une vingtaine de romans policiers tous inspires des mysteres en chambre close. Il vit aujourd'hui a Strasbourg. Contributor Bio:  Pugmire, John Paul Halter was born in Hagenau, Alsace, in 1956. He pursued technical studies in his youth before joining the French Marines in the hope of seeing the world. Disappointed with the lack of travel, he left the military and, for a while, sold life insurance while augmenting his income playing the guitar in the local dance orchestra. Upon discovering the writings of John Dickson Carr, he gave up the guitar for the pen. He has since written over 30 novels, almost all "locked room," including La Quatrieme Porte (The Fourth Door, ) which won the Prix du Roman Policier in 1987, and Le Brouillard Rouge (The Crimson Fog, ) which won the coveted French Prix du Roman d'Aventures in 1988, the prestigious Japanese Hunkaku Mystery Award in 2005, and was named as one of the Publisher's Weekly Top Mysteries of 2013. The Fourth Door and The Crimson Fog are both available in English, as are The Lord of Misrule, The Seven Wonders of Crime, The Demon of Dartmoor, The Seventh Hypothesis, The Tiger's Head and The Invisible Circle. M. Halter is a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: The Call of the Lorelei, The Tunnel of Death, The Night of the Wolf, The Robber's Grave, Nausicaa's Ball, The Gong of Doom, The Man With the Face of Clay and Jacob's Ladder and more to come. In 2006 his collection of short stories 'The Night of the Wolf' appeared in English, to critical acclaim. For more information and articles about Paul Halter, please go to: http: //lockedroominternational.com/