Noel Vindry wrote twelve locked room novels between 1932 and 1937, of a quality and quantity to rival his contemporary locked room specialist John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson, yet he has so far remained unknown to English-speaking readers.  The legendary Boileau-Narcejac team, responsible for Vertigo and Diabolique, spoke of Vindry’s “unequalled virtuosity” and “stupefying puzzles.” Thomas Narcejac said that not even Ellery Queen or Carr were Vindry’s equal. He was the poet of the puzzle novel, and  The House That Kills (“La Maison Qui Tue”) was Vindry’s first book, featuring examining magistrate Monsieur Allou — who must first solve a baffling locked room mystery before then finding himself at the centre of a second impossible crime…