'In a prologue set in 1901 London, a woman is apparently killed outside her home after her gold watch falls out of her pocket. Flash forward to 1991... playwright André Lévêque seeks help identifying a film he saw at a friend’s house when he was 10, whose story seems to match the circumstances of the 1901 crime. And in the winter of 1911, Victoria Sanders... has invited guests to her English country house. Burns investigates after someone takes a fatal fall on the house’s snowy grounds. Since the only footprints in the snow near the body are the victim’s, it appears the death—from impact with a rock—was accidental. That the deceased was reading Robert Chambers’s macabre classic, The King in Yellow, could be a clue to foul play. Halter links everything logically, further burnishing his reputation as a modern master of the impossible crime mystery.' Publishers Weekly.And, in a further impossibility, a woman is apparently pushed from a cliff quarry with nobody closer than thirty feet away.Locked Room International translates and publishes the works of international impossible crime authors past and present. For information about signed and lettered editions of all living authors please contact pugmire1@yahoo.com or go to www.mylri.com.

当代法国侦探小说作家，硕果仅存的坚持本格侦探小说创作的欧美作家，被誉为“黄金时代侦探小说最后的捍卫者”。

霍尔特一九五六年出生于法国东北部亚尔萨斯省的阿格诺。一九八七年以《第四扇门》一书获得干邑侦探小说奖而正式出道。之后陆续创作以“阿兰•图威斯特博士”为主人公的系列作品及其他系列作品，代表作有《第七重解答》、《达特穆尔的恶魔》、《恶狼之夜》等。霍尔特的绝大多数作品都是描写不可能犯罪的正统解谜之作，以密室、不在场证明、足迹消失等核心诡计为卖点，凭借异想天开的构思、缜密的逻辑推导以及意料之外、情理之中的解答征服了广大读者，成为当代欧美侦探小说作家中最为“古典”、“另类”的一位，是当之无愧的当代本格侦探小说的领军人物。