Winner of the Prix du Roman Policier 1987 Someone has volunteered to spend the night in the haunted room at the Darnley House. The room is sealed by pressing a unique coin, selected moments before, on wax melted over the jamb, but when the door is re-opened someone else’s body is found inside. The seals are unbroken, and the coin has not left the possession of a witness.  Then a second impossible murder occurs inside a house surrounded by virgin snow, and the strangeness is only just beginning…  Things are never what they seem in this classic Golden Age mystery, with a new twist in every chapter, and the detective in charge believes he is dealing with the re-incarnation of Houdini. But in the end there is a rational explanation to everything, and it is left to Dr. Alan Twist to provide it.