"Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

I'm afraid there's a problem with the (first) italian edition of this book (I just bought it used).
I know the novel contains, in chapter 13, an essay on locked rooms, almost equal to "The three coffins"'s one, but there's no such an essay in my book, neither in chapter 13 nor elsewhere; also, after the second murder is committed, Merlini and others start talking about a "couch theory", which seems to refer to the first murder, but was never exposed before (the only trace of that theory is Merlini looking under the couch just a few minutes before exiting the first locked room).
The orrible sensation is that many pages are missing from the middle of the book, and also I'm afraid such a thing could have been done on purpose (italian editors are sadly famous for this).
Am I wrong?

Re: "Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

The "couch" solution is actually better (IMO) than the "true" solution. If you are missing that solution you are definitely either msising pages, or reading an abridgement.

Re: "Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

Maybe was too simple! Yes, I guessed that solution, thanks to the many references Merlini made to it ... but the locked room essay? Where should it be?

Re: "Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

Speaking of Merlini, I am reading a helluva a book called BLACK AURA by John Sladek, which I discovered while googling somethign totally unrelated. I'm only three chapters in but it has a marvelous Carr-Rawson feel, with all that casual debunking of occultism and pseudoscience, and it's extremely well-written. Has anybody else read this one?

Re: "Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

No, but keep us posted!

Re: "Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

John Sladek wrote two or three detective novels in the Carr/Rawson locked-room tradition with detective Thackeray Phin, also a short story ("By an Unknown Hand") that won a London Times detective story competition. Very good mysteries.... I am surprised the short story hasn't become a staple of locked-room anthologies -- it is a classic.

Re: "Death from a top hat": italian edition
 

OK, I posted my review of this novel here.

PG