Castle Skull — John Dickson Carr

FLAMES OF DEATH

The burning body of actor Myron Alison performed a sparkling danse macabre on the castle battlement before plunging to the earth below in a final blaze of glory. Had the legendary magician Maleger--dead for seventeen years--matched his greatest trick of all from beyond the grave?

ENTER HENRI BENCOLIN
The hand might be quicker than the eye, but ghost stories didn't hoodwink world-famous Henri Bencolin, head of the Paris Police. To Bencolin, phantoms in old castles were figments of overactive imaginations. A very real murderer was afoot in Castle Skull, and it was up to Europe's foremost law enforcer to smoke out the deadly firebrand before he struck again.