Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2025

 

So this has to be first "Murder in Retrospect" since 2019 not starting on somber or outright depressing note, because the first-half of the 2020s has been a ride, but now can delve right into the annual blog roundup – beginning with the lists and some filler stuff. This year, I cobbled together only three posts under "The Hit List" banner. The first of these lists was "Top 10 Locked Room Mystery Novels That Need to Be Reprinted" for obvious, self-explanatory reasons. "Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 26-50" is a follow up to "Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 1-25" and "Top 7 Most Murderable "Victims" in Detective Fiction" is most recent one. I probably could have picked a better topic for the last list, but a few ideas are knocking about for next year. I also made an ill-fated, largely ignored attempt to make headway in "The Unbreakable Discussion on Impossible Alibis."

Last year, I looked ahead at the reprints, translations and new detective fiction scheduled to be published in the coming year and 2026 already looks packed! Let's look what has been announced as forthcoming as of this writing.

British Library Crime Classics is going to publish reprints of Carter Dickson's The Unicorn Murder (1936), Joseph Shearing's Airing in a Close Carriage (1943), Carol Carnac's The Double Turn (1956) and Leo Bruce's Jack on the Gallows Tree (1960). Yes, I'm very pleased with the Carnac reprint! Galileo Publishers have reprints of Joan Coggin's Why Did She Die? (1946) and Clifford Wittings' Villainous Saltpetre (1962) in the pipeline, while Dean Street Press is likely going to continue reissuing Brian Flynn and Sara Woods. In the US, Otto Penzler's American Mystery Classics is reprinting Lassiter Wren & Randle McKay's The Baffle Book (1928), Mignon G. Eberhart's While the Patient Slept (1930), Ellery Queen's The Tragedy of Y (1932), Phoebe Atwood Taylor's Sandbar Sinister (1934), C. Daly King's Obelists Fly High (1935) and the anthology Golden Age Suspense Stories (2026). Pushkin Vertigo 2026 lineup doesn't disappoint either with translations of Seishi Yokomizo's Yoru aruku (It Walks by Night, 1948), Yukito Ayatsuji's Kuronekokan no satsujin (The Black Cat House Murders, 1992), Akane Araki's Konoyo no hate no satsujin (Murder at the End of the World, 2022) and Haruo Yuki's Hakobune (The Ark, 2022). While the BBB is going to publish the full translation of MORI Hiroshi's Shiteki shiteki Jack (Jack the Poetical Private, 1997), which they're currently serializing. When it comes to the translations, you can really feel John Pugmire's absence by the lack of Paul Halter and other French mysteries.

Before going down the yearly list of best and worst mysteries, a few comments about the list itself. Firstly, the Japanese honkaku and shin honkaku mysteries have had a strong present on this list ever since the translation wave began. And, usually, they delivered the best locked room mysteries and impossible crimes of the year. But most of the Japanese mysteries this year were either non-impossible crimes or the impossibilities were minor elements. Danro Kamosaki kindly filled that gap with his first two “Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms” novels. Secondly, I was pleased to see a solid block of 2020s mysteries emerge when putting the list together, exactly like I envisioned it all those years ago. Lastly, I tried to bring more order to this years list, but it's still a mess. I'm probably just going to do a top 20 next year.

So let me all wish you a Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2026! Hope to see all back next year when I do what I usually do.

 

Another year, another list.

THE BEST DETECTIVE NOVELS:

Golden Age:

The Moving House of Foscaldo (1925/26) by Charles Chadwick

For me, this was one of the most surprising reprints of the year! The Moving House of Foscaldo is more a novel of adventure and romance with detective story elements than a detective novel with a dash of adventure and romance, but what it does it does very well. Not to mention a surprisingly good and even original impossibility centering on a string of disappearances from a old, creaking cliff side windmill.

The Garston Murder Case (1930) by H.C. Bailey

A serious satire of the turn-of-the-century Gothic novel and introduces Bailey's second series-character, the lawyer Joshua Clunk. A hall of fame hypocrite who sucks sweets, hums hymns, tut-tuts the authorities at every opportunity they hand him making Clunk a strangely compelling anti-hero.

Top Storey Murder (1931) by Anthony Berkeley

A pretty straightforward, regular whodunit by Berkeley's own standards, but, while not a masterpiece, it's a top-notch early 1930s mystery showcasing Berkeley's talent for fabricating false-solutions. A small scale version of Berkeley's The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) and Leo Bruce's Case for Three Detectives (1936).

From This Dark Stairway (1931) by Mignon G. Eberhart

Set in Melady Memorial Hospital, during an oppressive July heatwave, where a frail, sickly patient scheduled for surgery disappears from a sealed elevator and locked building – leaving only the body of his surgeon behind. Nurse Sarah Keate and Policeman Lance O'Leary try to figure out what, exactly, happened while keeping the hospital routine running. A small gem of the 1930s American detective novel.

Fear Stalks the Village (1932) by Ethel Lina White

This is not your typical village mystery or countryside whodunit, but a nicely done, leisurely-paced and oddly effective village thriller. Rather than tossing a corpse on the hearth rug of a prominent villager's library, it shows the slow, corrosive effect of poison pen letters on a peaceful community of sun drenched flower gardens, cobbled streets and Tudor cottages. Something good off the beaten garden path.

Obelists en Route (1934) by C. Daly King

Considered at one point be one of the ten rarest, most sought after out-of-print Golden Age mysteries finally returned to print this year. This story of murder aboard a coast-to-coast luxury train from New York City to San Francisco was well worth the wait and an excellent addition to the list of classic railway mysteries.

The Sealed Room Murder (1934) by James Ronald

Unfortunately, the titular sealed room is only a small, fairly routine part of the plot tucked away near the end and not quite as good as Ronald's Murder in the Family (1936) or They Can't Hang Me (1938), but an excellent, twisty piece of pulp fiction you can breeze through in one sitting. Moonstone Press and Chris Verner deserve a ton of praise for succeeding, where past attempts had failed, in finally bringing James Ronald back to print.

The Burning Court (1937) by John Dickson Carr (a reread)

A favorite among Carr's fans for its daring, genre crossing epilogue, but personally didn't care for the supernatural twist and preferred the detective novel preceding the epilogue. A classic JDC mystery with vanishing corpses, disappearing doorways and the lingering presence long-dead poisoners.

Dance of Death (1938) by Helen McCloy

A debutante, who disappeared from her coming out party, is found dead from heat stroke in a snowdrift on a New York sidewalk. A suitably baffling first case for McCloy's psychiatrist sleuth, Dr. Basil Willing, but even more remarkable than the unusual murder is its background of medicine and cosmetic endorsements with the victim being a 1930s analog version of a social media influencer. So, ironically, it's a vintage mystery barely showing its age.

Nine Times Nine (1940) by Anthony Boucher (a reread)

So much better and more fun than I remembered! Boucher, a Californian, had a front row seat when cults, pseudo-religious and fringe sects flocked to California during the 1930s and '40s – which likely provided the idea for this novel. A locked room mystery about the impossible murder of a debunker, apparently done by a cult leader, who miraculously disappeared from the locked and watched crime scene. Nine Times Nine earned a lot of pasts glory for being a good locked room mystery not written by Carr, but even without the unfair comparison it remains a treat for impossible crime fanatics.

Such Bright Disguises (1941) by Brian Flynn

A brilliantly staged, but soul-crushingly grim, inverted mystery in which Dorothy Grant and her secret lover, Laurence Weston, dispose of Dorothy's husband in order to build a new life together. And they get away with it. But even a perfect murder can demand a toll. A superb psychological crime novel full of domestic suspense, heart-wrenching tragedy and a very cruel twist.

Reunion with Murder (1941) by Timothy Fuller

I returned Timothy Fuller's Jupiter Jones series this year when picking Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950) from the big pile, but it's the two (reverse) follow ups that earned a spot on the list. Reunion with Murder counts as one of the better American college mysteries in which Jupiter's dragged away from his wedding preparations to engage on some prenuptial sleuthing when a Harvard reunion produces a body. Fuller's best and most subtle detective novel with a brilliant solution and memorable denouement.

Murder, M.D. (1943) by Miles Burton

This one came recommended, likely from Curt Evans, as an excellent and noteworthy WWII village mystery. He was not wrong! The story deals with a village that had its population drained by the war machine and their unpopular locum killed under suspicious circumstances. A mystery not only marked by good, solid detective work, but a better hidden murderer and motive than is usually the case with Rhode/Burton.

Wilders Walk Away (1948) by Herbert Brean (a reread)

I came away more than a little disappointed when first reading Wilders Walk Away, because it was supposed to be one of those great, nearly legendary, impossible crime novels not written by John Dickson Carr or Hake Talbot – which is not what it is at all. Wilders Walk Away is good, old-fashioned and fun whodunit compellingly presented as a prototype of the small town thriller. The string of inexplicably disappearances stretching across the centuries is just a bonus.

An English Murder (1951) by Cyril Hare (a reread)

A Christmas mystery with all the apparent trappings of a good, old-fashioned country house whodunit, but one taking place under post-war austerities and the strain of politics at the dinner table. And it's a whydunit with an original, cleverly-hidden motive.

Murder as a Fine Art (1953) by E.C.R. Lorac (writing as "Carol Carnac")

A vintage mystery from the Golden Age's twilight years skewering and satirizing both politics and modern art when a brutal, seemingly impossible murder disrupts the bureaucratic routine at the Ministry of Fine Arts. Lorac takes a surprisingly routine and procedural approach to a non-routine murder case, but the loony solution to the how is grand. Brutalism applied to the fine art of murder!

Moderns:

Reckoning at the Riviera Royale (2022) by P.J. Fitzsimmons

Fitzsimmons is unquestionable angling to be become the Leo Bruce or Edmund Crispin of the Golden Age revival. When it comes to the comedy, Fitzsimmons is succeeding with flying colors, but where the plots are concerned, the quality is uneven. The best, so far, are The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (2021) and Reckoning at the Riviera Royale. In this fifth novel, Anty travels to the Riviera to discuss with his mother the possibility of her having killed his father and has to clear an elephant from a charge of murder. Great fun!

Black Lake Manor (2022) by Guy Morpuss

A mind bending, genre crossing hybrid mystery, stretching across three centuries, that impossible to encapsulate in a short synopsis, but Morpuss delivered on the promise of a mystery with a twist on reality and playing with the consequences. Only downside is Morpuss writes standalones, not series, which means he's unlikely to ever return to this Hard Light universe.

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

The first, of currently three, novels in the Ernest Cunningham series is not merely a superbly plotted, funny meta-mystery, but a genuine, character-driven continuation of the plot-oriented Golden Age detective novel. Stevenson understands how to lie through his teeth without uttering a single untrue word, technically speaking. A sign the revival is slowly turning into a Second Golden Age.

Last One to Leave (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

Before the success of the Ernest Cunningham series, Stevenson published two detective novels starring a disgraced TV producer and a couple of non-series e-novellas. Last One to Leave stages an impossible crime in the middle of an endurance contest organized by a YouTube content mill. A truly traditional mystery for the modern era!

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) by Benjamin Stevenson

A sort of sequel-within-a-sequel. Ernest wrote a moderately successful book based on his experiences from Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone and finds himself aboard a train hosting a crime writers festival filled with bickering authors and fans. Even better than the first! Not to mention a great example of how to blend the modern world with a good, old-fashioned whodunit.

The Riddle of the Ravens (2024) by J.S. Savage

The second novel in the Inspector Graves & Constable Carver series of 1920s locked room mysteries. This time, they're called to the Tower of London when the ravens begin to come down with a touch of death. And then the murders begin. A pretty solid, pleasingly tricky historical mystery. Savage hasn't published anything this year. So, hopefully, we'll get the third one next year.

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024) by Benjamin Stevenson

You can say this series is my favorite discovery of the year and the series “Christmas Special” doesn't disappoint. How can you not like a Christmas mystery structured and clued like an advent calendar about a seemingly impossible, onstage decapitation and magicians, hypnotists and even a dead guy as potential suspects.

Hangings at Hempel's Green (2025) by A. Carver

Practically a standalone mystery as both Alex Corby and Cornelia Crow fulfill the role of background characters, in favor of a poor stand-in character, but the plot is a return to the first two novels – especially the numerous impossible hangings. Simply a great village mystery, but hope Alex and Cornelia take the center stage again in their fifth outing.

The House at Devil's Neck (2025) by Tom Mead

The fourth and most inspired of the ongoing Joseph Spector series of retro-Golden Age locked room mysteries. Mead employed the dual narrative split between a haunted military hospital from the First World War and London with a handful of impossible crimes between them. The ending strongly suggests the next few novels will be taking place under the cover of the blackouts and Blitz of World War II.

Translations:

Kuronekotei jiken (Murder at the Black Cat Cafe, 1946/47) by Seishi Yokomizo

This latest translation is a twofer offering two shorter Kosuke Kindaichi novels. The title novel is the best of the two and very different, offbeat and somewhat noir-ish compared to to the previous Yokomizo translations. A grim story concerning a faceless corpse, buried in a shallow grave, behind the Black Cat Cafe in a dark, tucked away in a seedy maze of backstreets, alleyways and passages – dotted with cafes and brothels. What held this crime story up as a detective story are the prologue and epilogue.

Kuroi hakuchou (The Black Swan Mystery, 1960) by Tetsuya Ayukawa

Written decades before the shin honkaku boom, when the Japanese crime story was dominated by the social school of Seicho Matsumoto of Ten to sen (Points and Lines, 1958) fame, but this railway mystery has the heart, soul and plot of a classic, fairly detective novel – like a juiced up Christopher Bush or Freeman Wills Crofts. So even during their genre's “dark era,” the Japanese continued to produce first-rate detective fiction.

Meirokan no satsujin (The Labyrinth House Murders, 1988) by Yukito Ayatsuji

The third translation in the "Bizarre House Mysteries" series and difficult to encapsulate with its dueling narratives, story-within-a-story structure and the maze-like backdrop. A first-rate, ghoulish fun meta-mystery that's not to be missed!

Tokeikan no satsujin (The Clock Mansion Murders, 1991) by Yukito Ayatsuji

A 400-page gold brick of a detective novel and my favorite entry Yukito Ayatsuji's "Bizarre House Mysteries" series, but, since I very recently reviewed it, I recommend taking a look at the review.

Nanakai shinda otoko (The Man Who Died Seven Times, 1995) by Yasuhiko Nishizawa

From all the Japanese titles on this years list, Nishizawa's The Man Who Died Seven Times could very well be my personal favorite. Kyutaro, a high school student, frequently experiences time loops in which the same day resets, not replays, nine times. Very handy when you need to ace a school exam, but horrifying when you try to prevent your grandfather's murder. Like I said in my review, if it's not perfect, it comes close enough.

Katou no raihousha (Visitors to the Isolated Island, 2020) by Kie Houjou

The second title in the "Ryuuzen Clan" series of genre bending, hybrid mysteries tackling the truly unknown this time. Not time travel or immersive technology, but an otherworldly entities, the Visitors, wreaking havoc on a small, remote island – while remaining a classically-styled, fair play mystery. As good and impressive as the first and third novel.

Oomarike satsujin jiken (Murder in the House of Omari, 2021) by Taku Ashibe

A historical detective novel intricately weaving a tale of murder and old sins casting large shadows presented as a family epoch covering the first half of the previous century. Finally coming ahead as the first American bombers begin to appear on the distant horizon. A masterly done homage to honkaku legends like Akimitsu Takagi and Seishi Yokomizo.

Misshitsu ougon jidai no satsujin – Yuko no yakata to muttsu no trick (Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms – The House of Snow and the Six Tricks, 2022) by Danro Kamosaki

Yes, these Japanese detective novel can be difficult to sum up in a few short, snappy sentences and that's especially true of Danro Kamosaki's "Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms" series. A series taking place in an alternate version of Japan where a successful locked room murder caused an epidemic of impossible crimes. A high school student, Kasumi Kuzushiro, is dragged into the most complicated case of all with no less than six impossible crimes. A love letter to the impossible crime story and locked room trickery! The second novel in the series follows a similar track, but now with seven original, ingeniously-contrived and completely insane impossible crimes on a remote island. So you may take this one as a double entry.

Henna e (Strange Pictures, 2022) by Uketsu

A series of strange, apparently unconnected stories told and linked together through pictures and drawings. I liked it perhaps more than most around these parts and certainly liked it more than Henna le (Strange Houses, 2021), but both should be regarded as more than novelties or gimmick mysteries.

Rechercheur De Klerck en de dode weldoener (Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist, 2025) by P. Dieudonné

A very late, practically last minute entry on the list and another timely Christmas mystery, but more importantly, it can stand with the best in the series. Since I recently reviewed it, I suggests taking a look at the review.

THE BEST SHORT STORIES AND SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS:

Golden Age:

"John Archer's Nose" (1935) by Rudolph Fisher

"The Devil in the Summerhouse" (1942) by John Dickson Carr

"The Man Who Talked with Spirits" (1943) by Herbert Brean

Moderns:

"Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer" (1974) by Edward D. Hoch

"The Problem of the Pink Post Office" (1981) by Edward D. Hoch (a reread)

"Over the Edge" (2007) by James H. Cobb

Short Story Collections:

The Men Who Explained Miracles (1963) by John Dickson Carr (a reread)

The Will o' the Wisp Mystery (2024) by Edward D. Hoch

The Indian Rope Trick and Other Violent Entertainments (2024) by Tom Mead

It's About Impossible Crime (2025) by James Scott Byrnside

THE WORST DETECTIVE NOVELS:

Novels:

Give Me Death (1934) by Isabel Briggs Myers

Well, I was warned before hand it would be terrible. The premise begins with a fascinating premise: members of a family driven to suicide upon learning a terrible secret. A hazardous piece of information that made death preferable, but the execution went from unintentional self parody to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Belt of Suspicion (1936) by H. Russell Wakefield

Better written than plotted with barely anything to recommend, except the writing and occasional modern, realistic touches to the characterization. But an unremarkable bland as a detective novel.

The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) by Richard Foster

A pulp-style locked room mystery lacking a substantial plot to prop up the story, while wasting an interesting character, Chin Kwang Kham, who could have been the Charlie Chan of the Pulps.

Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist (2025) by P. Dieudonné

Earlier this month, E-Pulp released P. Dieudonné's thirteenth novel in the Rotterdam police series, Rechercheur De Klerck en de dode weldoener (Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist, 2025), set during those cold, dark days between Sinterklaas and Christmas – when the strangest cases happen in the Netherlands. At least, that's what A.C. Baantjer tried to make happen in De Cock en een dodelijke dreiging (DeKok and the Deadly Threat, 1988), but it never got anywhere. So good to see Dieudonné giving it another try with Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist.

This curious case begins innocently enough with an elderly, obviously lonely woman, Neeltje van Kwawegen, calling the police to report that her beloved Tom has gone missing. She can't bear the thought of spending Christmas without him and even accuses her neighbor of murder. Albert Cornelis de Waal, a young cop, takes pity and answers the call. When he arrives at her apartment, De Waal indeed finds a lonely, elderly woman living a dozen, or so, cats. Neeltje's beloved Tom is indeed a tomcat who has gone missing. I was only half joking when ending the review of the previous De Klerck novel hoping the thirteenth would be titled Rechercheur De Klerck en de dertien katten (Inspector De Klerck and the Thirteen Cats), because it would be too tempting not to do for a Baantjer fan. Dieudonné is the Baantjer fan. Not that I expected this book to actually feature a dozen, plus one, cats. Let's return to the story.

Neeltje is a deeply superstitious woman, referring to the number thirteen as "a dozen plus one," who believes Tom's disappearance is a bad omen as the tomcat was her fourteenth feline and she's now left with a dozen, plus one – bound to bring misfortune ("...expect death and destruction"). What else can the kindly De Waal do, except to promise to look around for Tom? Next day, Inspectors Lucien de Klerck and Ruben Klaver are called to the same apartment complex where a prominent, dying citizen of Rotterdam is found brutally murdered in his own home.

Waldemar van Henegouwen was a well-known, beloved city philanthropist whose charity, Weldaad aan de Maas, dedicated to help the poorer people of the city and terminally ill children. It earned him a knighthood and numerous other prestigious awards. Van Henegouwen was dying himself with only a month, or two, left to live, but why kill a terminal ill, dying man? Why use a harpoon to run him through to leave him pinned to the chair? Someone is laboring very hard this December on their ponderous chain! And the strangeness doesn't end there. When reviewing the security footage, De Klerck and Klaver not only spot their colleague De Waal, but someone dressed up as the Grinch in Santa Claus custom. Klaver is shocked by the costumed figure, because only the night before he had attended a benefit show organized by Van Henegouwen's charity. A comedy-magic act by Felix Froentjes and his sons, Floris en Frans-Jan, who performed a magic portal-trick with them dresses as the Grinch's Santa Claus. Felix Frientjes was Van Henegouwen's best friend and Frans-Jan was a former tenant who got kicked out for being a nuisance, but is there connection with the murder? There's also two handymen with a criminal records, Neeltje's cat hating neighbor, the missing cat and a Commissioner De Froideville who's being more difficult than usual.

Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist is as packed as a Christmas stocking filled with more than one surprise and definitely marks a return to form after the uncharacteristic messily plotted Rechercheur De Klerck en de stille hoop (Inspector De Klerck and the Silent Hope, 2025). Dieudonné is definitely back to his old tricks here with the exterior of the story belying the intricate scheme and plot cleverly hidden underneath. When it comes to the conclusion, the temptation is there to draw comparison to some of the Golden Age names, but here it would constitute a spoiler. That solution can be worked out, roughly speaking, by the time De Klerck pieces the whole thing together. And it turns out the missing cat had a not unimportant role to play in this Christmas drama. So perhaps the book really should have been titled Rechercheur De Klerck and de dertiende kat (Inspector De Klerck and the Thirteenth Cat), but in every other way it can stand with the best in the series like Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020) and Rechercheur De Klerck en moord in scène (Inspector De Klerck and Murder on the Scene, 2021). You can definitely expect Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist to get a spot on a future followup to "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories."

There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940) by Michael Innes

Last year, I posted "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories" ranging from a few celebrated classics (Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas, 1938) and a couple of recent reprints (Rupert Latimer's Murder After Christmas, 1944) to more modern titles (James Yaffe's Mom Meets Her Maker, 1990) and even a fresh one (A. Carver's The Christmas Miracle Crimes, 2023) – sprinkled with a few short stories (Herbert Resnicow's "The Christmas Bear," 1990). Nick Fuller, of the Grandest Game in the World, turned up in the comments to suggest a few alternatives like G.K. Chesterton's "The Flying Stars" (1911), Gladys Mitchell's Dead Men's Morris (1936) and Michael Innes' There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940). I had read the Chesterton story and Mitchell novel, but not the Innes novel. So tossed it on the December pile for this year.

There Came Both Mist and Snow, published in the US as A Comedy of Terrors, is the fifth novel in the Inspector John Appleby series and the first to establish a formula. The late Wyatt James wrote on the GADWiki that There Came Both Mist and Snow was the first Innes "cloned over and over again" with "odd folks in a decayed, or not so decaying but threatened, fancy house" tucked away somewhere in rural England. A formula that nonetheless lends itself perfectly for a family Christimas mystery, which just so happened to be mentioned in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991). Not that it influenced my choice, of course. It's not even an impossible crime at all. So, really, this one is for you, Nick!

Arthur Ferryman, "fashionable contemporary novelist," is on his way to Belrive Priory to spend Christmas with his cousin Sir Basil Roper and their extended family, mostly "cousinly relationships," while doing narration duty. So the first half dozen chapters has Ferryman describing the surroundings, introducing the family and indulges, in what can be deemed, literary flourishes – peppered with archaic words and pretentious phrases ("...desuetude of agriculture"). Not exactly a good beginning to convince those who find Innes too dense and at times pedantic to be truly enjoyable. A style, I think, worked best in his early, magniloquent detective fantasies like Hamlet, Revenge! (1937) and Lament for a Maker (1938), but its effectiveness varies in a conventional country house mystery. So the chapters leading up to the crime can be a slog to get through, but even then the preamble was not without its moments. In the first chapter, Ferryman gives a description of the historical surroundings, "park, mansion and ruins," where the modern world is already taking root. Notably the giant, flickering mechanical neon sign of Horace Cudbird's brewery, "Cudbird's Beers are Best," which has become something of a local attraction and landmark. Casting a futuristic play of light, color and moving shadows on its surroundings that people watch from their terrace.

One other scene worth mentioning is the ill-fated attempt at an impromptu parlor game, Shakespeare's bells, which revolves around quotations from Shakespeare involving bells ("who can keep Shakespeare's bells ringing longest?"). Since most of Shakespeare's bells toll for the departed, this "literary competition" lost its lighthearted touch to a funereal atmosphere. It probably also didn't help that revolver shooting was picked as another game to living up the Christmas party. So, yes, the first-half moves very slowly and feels directionless, until one of the cousins is shot and wounded. Wilfred Foxcroft, a banker, is shot while writing a letter in his uncle's study shortly before the arrival of Sir Basil's mystery guest, Inspector John Appleby, who immediately takes charge of the case.

The attempted murder gives the story and plot some much needed focus and direction, because the shooting poses a number of tricky questions besides the routine ones. Who was the intended target, Wilfred or Sir Basil? Could the shooter have mistaken Wilfred for his uncle when he was sitting at his desk? Both were dressed in "the sort of uniform that a dinner-jacket constitutes." Why was Wilfred so imperfectly shot and what happened to the gun? Like I said, the problem of the gun is not an impossible crime as reported, it could have been tweaked into an impossible crime, but it would have neither been good nor particular satisfying – underwhelming at best. Innes smartly invested in another aspect of the plot that allowed the story to largely pull itself together in the second-half.

Ferryman gets roped in by Appleby to help, "as a sort of Watson," who gets to hear "seven principal theories sponsored by seven different people" in the tradition of Anthony Berkeley and Christianna Brand. Not all of the false-solutions are worthy of the comparison as they merely more than accusations or simplicity itself, but the last four, or so, are an exercise in the art of plotting and writing in giving original explanations for the all-important, imperfect shot. Even more impressively, Innes clued or foreshadowed every one of these false-solutions. I gladly would have accepted either Cudbird or Appleby's false-solution as correct solution to the case. Unfortunately, the correct solution is disappointing lacking the imaginative originality of the false-solutions preceding it. Not the first time one, or more, false-solutions undermine the ending of a detective story, but here it was more damaging as it needed a punchy conclusion after a rough, directionless first-half and the promise of its second-half pulling itself together.

There Came Both Mist and Snow is not without its moments, qualities or flashes of ingenuity, but, on a whole, too uneven to be truly good or recommend. The problem is in the first-half and the ending. The crawl that is the first-half is a test patience, which is deadly for a lighthearted country house mystery, but following up that parade of imaginative false-solutions with an explanation lacking all of their qualities is bound to disappoint – especially one (ROT13) erqhpvat gur fubbgvat vg gb n qhzo nppvqrag. Innes should have gone with Appleby's false-solution and called it a day. I suggest trying What Happened at Hazelwood (1946) instead.

I don't want to give up on Innes and Stop Press (1939) sounds like a trip, but Nick Fuller added a warning to his review that somehow feels directed at me. Stop Press is according to Nick an acquired taste and some readers might hate it, "particulary those who read little but detective fiction, and who read only for plot." That's not entirely true, but wholly incorrect either. So maybe A Private View (1952) or The Bloody Wood (1966) next?

The Clock House Murders (1991) by Yukito Ayatsuji

Pushkin Vertigo has, as of 2025, published four novels in Yukito Ayatsuji's "Bizarre House Mysteries" series, translated by Ho-Ling Wong, but the most recent addition to the list, Tokeikan no satsujin (The Clock House Murders, 1991), is the fifth title in the series – not the fourth. Ningyōkan no satsujin (The Doll House Murders, 1989), fourth in the series, provides "a change from the formula up until now" and therefore skipped over The Clock House Murders. That and Ayatsuji was really keen on getting The Clock House Murders published in English. Ayatsuji even suggested to Ho-Ling translating it after Suishakan no satsujin (The Mill House Murders, 1988) and before Meirokan no satsujin (The Labyrinth House Murders, 1988). I don't think I would have minded either way, because The Clock House Murders always seemed like a potential personal favorite in the offing. I wasn't wrong!

You know you're in for a treat when the book opens to a pair of floor plans with all the elaborate intricacies and complexities of clockwork mechanics. Not to mention a dramatis personae of more than thirty characters and a list of chapter titles promising Ayatsuji's signature dueling narratives.

The Clock House, in Kamakura, is one of the bizarre, gimmicked buildings designed by that eccentric architect, Nakamura Seiji, who had an acquired taste when it came to designing private dwellings. A specialist in designing "out-of-the-ordinary buildings" and every building "has some kind of concealed novelty," which had seen "a number of bloody incidents" since his grisly death four years ago – written down in Jukkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987). That specialization attracted a special set of clientele with their own special, or peculiar, wishes and quirks. Clock House was commissioned by Koga Michinori, former chairman of Koga Clocks, who has a valuable collection of 108 antique clocks stored away in a place as strange as the underground maze of rooms from The Labyrinth House Murders. You need the floor plans to get a clear picture of the layout, but basically comprises of two sections, the New Wing and Old Wing, separated by two sets of double iron doors. The former is the most normal part of the house, outside of the clock tower locals call the "whimsical clock," but the latter is a Nakamura Seiji vintage creation. A semi-basement, quasi-circular webwork design of windowless rooms, twisted corridors and dead ends crammed with ticking clocks. And, most notably, a private living quarters semi-attached to the wing by a long hallway called the Pendulum.

So the building itself is already a puzzle box waiting to be explored and picked apart, but the Clock House became the scene of tragedy and mystery soon after the New Wing was completed. Koga Michinori died shortly after and "a lot of other people died at around the same time." Most tragically of all was the death of Koga's 14-year-old daughter, Towa, whose ghost now reputedly haunts the house and roaming the surrounding forest. The people currently in charge of the house always denied requests from spiritualists, ghost hunters and the media to poke around the place, until now.

Kawaminami Takaaki, previously appearing in The Decagon House Murders, is the rookie editor of Chaos ("The Magazine That Goes beyond Science") and working on a special feature, "Confronting the Ghost of the Kamakura Clock Mansion." Chaos and a famous psychic, Kōmyōji Mikoto, secured permission to lead an expedition into the abandoned Old Wing – where they'll locked themselves in for three days. This expedition comprises of the Kawaminami, his editor-in-chief, a photographer, the medium and six members students from the Mystery Club of W— University. Not a Mystery Club interested in detective fiction, but "the supernatural kind of mystery." Since the Clock House is a creation of that eccentric architect, Kawaminami tells his friend and amateur detective, Shimada Kiyoshi, about the ghost hunting expedition.

Ever since The Decagon House Murders, Shimada Kiyoshi has been researching Nakamura Seiji's work and traveled "across the country to examine the buildings he left" such as the Mill House in the mountains of Okayama Prefecture. Shimada arrives at the Clock House when Kawaminami's group had already locked themselves inside the Old Wing. So he's left prying into the mysteries surrounding the house from the New Wing without being aware of the wholesale slaughter going on inside the securely locked Old Wing. So there you have the dueling narrative between Shimada's outside perspective of the case and Kawaminami on-the-ground reporting. What ended in a small scale massacre started innocently enough: a séance with all the standard trickery of ghostly knocks and a candle suddenly going out "as if an invisible person had suddenly pinched the wick," but then Kōmyōji vanishes without a trace from the locked wing. And then the gruesome killing begins with no way out or way to contact the other wing ("this house was designed to keep people locked inside").

Some of those murders are, of course, of the seemingly impossible kind where the killer strikes down the victims inside locked and barricaded rooms. However, the locked room murders here are only small cogs in the larger machinery that's The Clock House Murders. Not at all the focus of the story and plot, nor what makes it the most impressive of the "Bizarre House Mysteries," so far. So don't expect grandiose, overly elaborate locked room-tricks, whatever the floor plans might suggest, but something more subtle and closer to Agatha Christie than S.S. van Dine or John Dickson Carr.

The Clock House Murders is ultimately a first-rate whodunit hinging on something entirely different than locked doors and inexplicable disappearances. Ayatsuji deserves praise for how fairly he played out everything, even if it threatened to reveal too much. One incident stands out that made me glance in the direction of the murderer, but it's always better to play fairly than withhold vital clues. Ayatsuji understands that. Not only when it comes to the who, but the motive and method as well. Leave it to a Japanese mystery writer to use a small massacre as a red herring! Just on that score alone, The Clock House Murders is practically an immaculate, classically-style detective novel taken to the extreme. That would have made for an impressive, plot-technical achievement and storytelling, but what made The Clock House Murders the stuff of classics is the secret of the house itself. And what made all those murders in the locked wing possible.

I have described certain stories from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. series as “puzzles-with-a-heart” and can be applied to The Clock House Murders, but for very different reasons as the stories from Q.E.D. are character-driven mysteries in which a person is the puzzle – while here we have a plot-oriented variant of puzzles-with-a-heart. I found that truly impressive. Most locked room fans prefer the Chesterton-Carr approach to the impossible crime problem over technical solutions involving strings or mechanical devices, because they tend to be the most satisfying (i.e. misdirection over mechanics). Successfully combining the two is a rare achievement indeed with the real horror of the story not being the haunting, or murders, but learning how all that came crashing down in tragedy, upon tragedy, culminating in wholesale bloodshed. The Clock House Murder is to Ayatsuji what The Three Coffins (1935) is to Carr or And Then There Were None (1939) to Christie. A 400 page gold brick of a detective novel and look forward to Kuronekokan no satsujin (The Black Cat House Murders, 1992) coming next year!

An English Murder (1951) by Cyril Hare

An English Murder (1951) by "Cyril Hare," penname of Alfred A.G. Clark, was adapted from a radio-play, "Murder at Warbeck Hall," broadcast by the BBC on January 27, 1948 and a digest paperback was published in the US several years later – reprinted under the title The Christmas Murder. Hare's An English Murder is one of the better known, widely read holiday mysteries even before the reprint renaissance incidentally revived the Christmas detective novel.

I read Hare's An English Murder pre-blog and most of the details had faded from my memory, which is why it only got an honorable mention on "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories." Kate, of Cross Examining Crime, on the other hand gave An English Murder the second place in her "Epic Ranking of Christmas Mysteries" listing 40 titles in total. I figured a revisit was in order.

Warbeck Hall, "oldest inhabited house in Markshire," is the backdrop where the feeble, dying Lord Warbeck is preparing to celebrate, what's going to be, his last Christmas. So he has invited his last two living relatives, some acquaintances and still has a house guest, the Hungarian-born historian Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink, who's going through historical documents in the muniment room – studying developments of the English constitution during the 1700s. However, the problem is not a lingering house guest, but Lord Warbeck's relatives and trying to maintain the golden rule of no politics at Christmas. Richard Warbeck, Lord Warbeck's son, had "the misfortune to be born into the first generation of the dispossessed," because he was destined to be a lord without money or a manor. The post-WWII upheavals and austerity both cleaned out the estate and makes untenable to hold on to the manor house when Lord Warbeck passes away. So now Richard heads a Fascist organization, the League of Liberty and Justice, not unlike Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Richard sees his father's cousin, Sir Julius Warbeck, as the enemy within and the driving force behind all these changes. Sir Julius, "Chancellor of the Exchequer in the most advanced socialist government of," is an avowed democratic socialist who hates Richard and looks forward to the moment when there are "no more Warbecks of Warbeck Hall" ("the next Budget would see to that"). Even joking at breakfast he's going to put another sixpence on the income-tax.

So that all ensures a gloomy, somewhat tense and potentially hostile Christmas, but it's also a Christmas celebrated under post-war austerity. There no tree nor decorations and not a single mention of presents or Santa Claus. A dying Lord Warbeck gets to observe how the snow temporarily covered the traces of "neglect and disrepair or recent time," which were left neglected and broken due to a lack of funds. The celebration itself, a simple dinner, is not the event it once was when Briggs, loyal butler, had a kitchen staff of four and two footmen under him. An English Murder breaths atmosphere of the post-war malaise in Britain with its ongoing rationing, food shortages, housing crisis and the feeling that the fabric of British society was being unraveled. That marked a lot of the post-WWII British mysteries, especially the works of Christopher Bush and E.C.R. Lorac, but also novels like E.R. Punshon's Music Tells All (1948) and Leo Bruce's Cold Blood (1952). I don't think it has ever been as pivotal to a detective story or used as effectively than here.

Hare is confident in taking the time in this already shortish novel to introduce the characters, outline their backstories and setting up all the pieces, before getting to the murder – a dozen, or so, pages short of the halfway mark. To ring in Christmas Day, they pop a bottle of champagne at the stroke of twelve "to drink in the festive season, according to custom," but one of the glass contains a deadly dose of cyanide. And, to give it an old-fashioned touch, a snowstorm cuts them off from the outside world. So the official investigation, for the time being, falls into the hands of Sergeant Rogers, Special Branch of Scotland Yard, who had been assigned as Sir Julius' bodyguard. Dr. Bottwink is the one who, of course, pieces together the correct solution.

I think Dr. Bottwink is the best and most interesting character from An English Murder. A serious treatment of the Hercule Poirot-type detective character: an outsider to British society, a Hungarian-born Jew, whom everyone assumes is out of depth when it comes to the intricacies of English customs ("...funny little foreigner"). It's noteworthy that Dr. Bottwink is the only character who's not being skewered and satirized. He's not taken very seriously, most of the time, but comes through in the end when he gets to explain the murder is not only "an essentially English crime," it's a murder that "could only have happened in England." That brings us to the best part of the book and possibly it's sole smudge.

An English Murder has all the trappings of a country house whodunit, albeit one under austerity measures, but the question here is not one of who or how. The question here is one of motive. Dr. Bottwink explains "a motive that is valid for one form of society may be totally non-existent in another" and "the social and political framework in which it occurs" must be considered – after which finding the killer "becomes a mere matter of simple deduction." This is usually applied to the regional/topographical detective novel taking place in foreign climes. Think of writers like S.H. Courtier, Todd Downing, Elspeth Huxley and Arthur W. Upfield, but Hare applied it perfectly to the quintessential English country house mystery. The motive earned An English Murder its status as a minor classic. A motive as unique as it's cleverly-hidden and maybe too well-hidden for its own good. Not that Hare went out of his way to unfairly hide it and Dr. Bottwink even tells the reader, through Rogers, where to find the solution, but you have to break off the story to do some homework. That's easier done today, as you only have take out your phone to at least get a summary, but not something you should expect a reader to do. So the integral part of the solution hinges on a piece of specialized knowledge. Even that shortcoming, somehow, fits the story perfectly.

So not your typical Christmas country house mystery, like those from the vastly fading 1930s, but the ingeniously plot and original motive proving the Golden Age detective story still had a few tricks to play going into its twilight decade.

Notes for the curious: Hare died in 1958 and left behind an unfinished, untitled manuscript of a second Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink mystery novel. Martin Edwards "has read the fragment but though he praised the characteristically careful, yet easy, style, comments that it offers no hint as the direction in which the story was heading." That's another title for the list of lost detective fiction. I don't remember if I got the idea to name my blog archive "The Muniment Room" from An English Murder, but, considering the role it played in the story, the idea probably appealed to me. I probably also thought it funny the book opened with an angry, bewildered Dr. Bottwink pouring over the illegible scribbles and hieroglyphics in the muniment room and "muttered maledictions on Lord Warbeck and his ill-mended quill pen" across two centuries. You can draw your own comparisons between the writings of the historical Lord Warbeck and my reviews. 😃

The Moving House of Foscaldo (1925/26) by Charles Chadwick

Charles Chadwick was an American author, lawyer, sportsman and a former college athlete, a Yale strongman, who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics and nearly won bronze in the men's hammer throw event – narrowly missing out on the medal by a few meters. Chadwick was a lawyer by trade who served as New York City's deputy assistant district attorney, worked as a sports writer for New York World and contributed short stories for publications like The Popular Magazine, The Ladies' Home Journal and Sport Story Magazine. Much more important than his public service and dalliance with sports is the fact Chadwick published two detective novels during the 1920s.

Robert Adey not only listed Chadwick's The Cactus (1925) and The Moving House of Foscaldo (1925/26) in Locked Room Murders (1991), but highlighted and praised them in the introduction ("both are well worth reading"). I mentioned Chadwick's two detective novels in 2022 blogpost "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted," but their obscurity and not having been in print for a century appeared to be an obstacle to their speedy return to print, one way or another. So was pleased when I recently came across a fresh reprint of Chadwick's The Moving House of Foscaldo.

Last year, I reviewed a reprint of Joseph Gollomb's The Girl in the Fog (1923) from a small, independent publisher, Serling Lake, which specialized in reprinting obscure, out-of-print locked room mystery novels – under the banner "Impossible Crime Classics." That sounded better than it was at the time as the then modest selection consisting mostly of earlier, poorer works from the public domain. Gollomb's The Girl in the Fog is nothing less than third-rate tripe and the titles added over the past year weren't much better, at least until recently. G.E. Locke's The Scarlet Macaw (1923) and Elsa Barker's The Cobra Candlestick (1928) aren't the best locked room mysteries the twenties produced, but have come across much, much worse from that decade (e.g. Robert Brennan's The Toledo Dagger, 1927). J.M. Walsh's "atmospheric mystery" The Hairpin Mystery (1926) and Henry Leverage's "high-stakes thriller" The Purple Limited (1927) seem to have some potential. It's their brand new edition of The Moving House of Foscaldo that made me bite again.

Before delving into this long lost, long forgotten detective novel, I should mention the curious, short publication history of The Cactus and The Moving House of Foscaldo.

Adey's Locked Room Murders names lawyer Bob Ellis as the detective of The Cactus, solving a stabbing in a locked room, whom previously appeared in two short stories, "Pawn to Queen's Eighth" (1910) and "The Twist of the Screw" (1912), published in The Popular Magazine as by "Daniel Steele." I checked and they appear to be the same character, but no idea why the short stories were published under a penname and the novel under his own name. The Cactus only appeared in the US and begins with an impossible murder in Greenwich Village, New York, which leads Ellis to Mexico. The Moving House of Foscaldo, a standalone, was serialized in The Elks magazine from October 1925 to February 1926 and published as a book only in the UK. So this probably contributed to them not getting reprinted over the past hundred years, but it also didn't help Chadwick simply stopped writing novels and even abandoned short stories by the end of the twenties. A shame as he seems to have been one of the better writers of the pre-and early Golden Age mystery with a healthy interest in locked rooms and impossible crimes. The two-parter, "Ellis in Search of a Feather," published in the January 15 and February 1, 1913, issues of The Popular Magazine, looks to be a locked room mystery. Chadwick's short stories needs further investigation, but, for now, let's take a look at his second and last detective novel.

The setting here is a lonely, wooded and cliff-bound island near the French coast, Island of Foscaldo, which has an old, Dutch-style windmill tower perched on a cliff as its dominating landmark – known as la maison mouvante, the Moving House. It stands "dizzily on the cliff's very edge" held in place by "two chain stays whose huge rusted links fastened back into the rocks." Count Foscaldo built the windmill-like structure following his escape to the remote island during the Reign of Terror of Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. So the Island of Foscaldo is shrouded in obscure, forgotten history, mysterious structures and scenery that belongs on the canvas of a Romanticists painting. That's brought Peer Rackstrom, a landscape painter, to the island and becomes deeply entangled in a series of increasingly mysterious and dangerous adventures.

It begins innocently enough when Rackstrom finds an ancient, weathered brass key with a barely legible legend, "XETGAMAINFECI," engraved on it. A key belonging to the Royal locksmith, Gamain, who betrayed King Louis XVI? And, perhaps, linked to the armoire de fer, or iron box, which "had been taken from the walls of the King's chamber" to be stashed away on the island. So, of course, he loses the key. Next he catches a glimpse of a beautiful woman on a sailboat who looked at him in surprise, "like some wild creature," picked up anchor and sailed away. What really sets the ball rolling is the arrival on the island is several men from Paris. Firstly, there's Inspector Auguste Prontout, Prefecture of Police, who has come to the island with his subordinate, Dirmoir, to arrest one of the most dangerous man in the country, Gabas. Wanted for murder and robbery in the Marie Lafitte case. Inspector Prontout enlists Rackstrom's help, but ends up getting a front row seat to an inexplicable, seemingly impossible vanishing-act.

One night, Rackstrom observes Gabas going inside the windmill, closely followed by Dirmoir, but only Gabas comes back out muttering a strange goodbye ("Ha! Dirmoir! Adieu"). Rackstrom goes inside expecting to find a crime scene, but after searching the place, top to bottom, concludes "the place was empty of any soul" except himself. Gabas could not have concealed the body, anywhere, because of "the tower's simple, rude, unfinished mode of interior construction" – in which "planking, timbers and everything was exposed to view." So how did the policeman disappear when Rackstrom saw him following Gabas inside through the only entrance, and exit, to the windmill tower? And without a sign, or trace, of a struggle!That's not the last time someone vanishes from the windmill nor was it the first time it happened.

A promising and, above all, surprising beginning recalling, or rather anticipating, the French mystery writers from the 1930s. Writers like Stanislas-André Steeman, Gaston Boca, Noel Vindry, Pierre Véry, Herbert & Wyl, but the second-half suggests, if Chadwick was in influenced by French mystery writers at all, that influence likely came from Gaston Leroux and Maurice Leblanc. Both parts surprised me. I expected tougher stuff from an All-American college athlete, who competed in the Olympics, like Hake Talbot's Rogan Kincaid in The Hangman's Handyman (1942). Not a novel of adventure and romance soaked in French romanticism living up to Véry's credo "what counts for an author" is "to save what has been able to remain in us as the child that we were" so "full of flaws, of changes of heart, of shadow and mystery." That becomes particularly true around the second-half when every resemblance to a traditional detective, even by French standards, mostly comes to an end. Mostly.

The second-half finds Rackstrom and the woman on the sailboat exploring, and getting themselves trapped, inside a cavern system, but their subterranean adventure is not as cliché, dated or hackneyed as it sounds. It actually has a modern touch as their ordeal plays out like a video game in which they need to explore, solve puzzles and collect items to unlock new areas helped by a series of diagrams drawn to map the caverns. Yes, the pattern emerging from the diagrams and mapping attempts can be taken as a hint. And, eventually, reveals the solution to a century old mystery that has largely gone unnoticed by history. I also liked the scene in which Gabas explains his strange backstory to Rackstrom claiming royal blood and being haunted by his ancestors. Not haunted by their ghosts, but by "inherited memories." Like I said, The Moving House of Foscaldo might appear dated at a glance, but Chadwick didn't rely on them to fill the pages of a serial. He really tried to do something with the story and succeeded admirably, definitely by 1920s standards. That doubly goes for the impossible crime element.

That bizarre, crumbling cliff-bound structure dominates the story, especially during the story's opening and closing stages. I mentioned in a previous review how the 1920s was the decade when the 1930s, Golden Age detective story was beginning to take shape and solidify, but that came with growing pain and the overall quality being all over the place – until roughly 1927, 1928, when some real progress was being made. The solution to the impossible disappearances, past and present, is far above the average for the time and shows Chadwick liked to make work of his impossible crimes and locked room puzzles. A perfect fit for this kind of story and much more satisfying than my practical half-baked armchair solution. It all makes for a highly readable, absorbing and atmospheric tale of adventure, romance, mystery and history.

Chadwick's The Moving House of Foscaldo is undoubtedly a novel of adventure and romance with detective story elements rather than a detective novel with a dash of adventure and romance, but, if you're looking for something off the beaten track, it comes highly recommended! Fingers crossed The Cactus is next to be reprinted by Serling Lake. And, hopefully, a few more of the obscure, choosier items on my special locked room wishlist.

Note for the curious: my half-baked, completely wrong armchair solution "cleverly" hinged on a simple principle of magic tricks and illusions. Everything that should make the trick more difficult for the magician/culprit actually makes it easier. Rackstrom claims the body could not be concealed owning to the nature of the ramshackle windmill, but what if he simply didn't search good enough? The windmill has as to be expected sail arms that have long ceased to revolve and the canvas had torn and sagged over time. What if one of these torn, sagging sails created a fold, or pouch, in which a body can be tugged away. This pouch can be accessed from the inside the mill by moving some of the loose timber aside to create a small opening to worm a body through, before putting the timber or planks back in place. That way, you can search the place, top to bottom, all day long without ever finding a body.