The Nine Wrong Answers

infobox Book |
name = The Nine Wrong Answers
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author = John Dickson Carr
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country = United Kingdom
language = English
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genre = Mystery, Detective novel
publisher = Hamish Hamilton (UK) & Harper (USA)
release_date = 1952
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 186 pp (Carroll and Graf paperback edition, 1995)
isbn = 0-7867-0174-9 (Carroll and Graf paperback edition, 1995)
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"The Nine Wrong Answers", first published in 1952, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr which does not feature any of Carr's series detectives. This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit. It is unusual because on nine occasions the author breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader, advising that a solution to the mystery which may have been suggested by the surrounding text is not actually the solution; the "nine wrong answers".

Plot summary

Bill Dawson is a broke young Brit sitting in the waiting room of a lawyer's office in New York City. He overhears Larry Hurst and his girlfriend Joy Tennant discussing with the lawyer the prospect of Larry becoming sole heir to the large estate of his uncle Gaylord Hurst, providing that Larry returns to England immediately and visits his uncle at least once a week. Larry, however, is convinced that his uncle wants to murder him. Larry and Joy ask Bill to witness Larry's signature, invite him for a drink, and propose that Bill impersonates Larry for six months for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Bill agrees; Larry is almost immediately poisoned. Bill escapes and takes the next flight to England to complete his end of the agreement.

Upon arrival at Gaylord's flat, Bill soon learns that Hurst and his manservant Hatto are both practised sadists whose plans certainly included the psychological torture of Larry; however, Bill is soon found out. Hurst, not to be cheated of prey, offers Bill a bargain; continue to meet once weekly for three months and keep the ten thousand dollars he has already received. Bill agrees, and almost immediately there is an attempt on his life with a clever trap -- then another, that lands him in the hospital. Finally, after another death, Bill confronts the villain in a dramatic conclusion that takes place in a reconstruction of the sitting room of Sherlock Holmes and that reveals a very surprising tenth answer to the book's events.