The White Priory Murders (1934) by Carter Dickson

I previously ranked a dozen of my favorite seasonal detective stories, "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories," which I think turned out be nice Christmas arrangement of the classics, lesser-known, recently reprinted titles and some fun short stories – covering a period from 1934 to 2023. John Dickson Carr's short story "Blind Man's Hood" (1937) secured a slot on the list, but one of his novels was considered as well.

The White Priory Murders (1934), as by "Carter Dickson," was republished in 2022 in the British Library Crime Classics series with the descriptive subtitle, "A Mystery for Christmas." A more accurate description would have been "A Winter Mystery" as the Christmas is mentioned only in passing, but technically qualified. So why was it left off the list? I simply needed to reread it first. Practically every detail of the story, plot and characters is blurred out of recognition worsened by the memories of several snowy, no-footprints impossible crime stories (e.g. Nicholas Blake's Thou Shell of Death, 1936) blending together over the years.

A reread was in order and it's something I should have done sooner, because rereading The White Priory Murders was like finding a new H.M. novel I had until then only read about. Memory can play some funny tricks on you.

The White Priory Murders takes place during "the frosty twilight of Christmas week" and begins with James Bennett visiting his uncle, the old man, Sir Henry Merrivale ("you're Kitty's son, hey? The one that married the Yank?"). Bennett is a diplomatic errand boy for his father, a big enough name in Washington, who instructed his son what to expect and how to handle his eccentric – neatly doubling as a delightful snapshot introduction. The White Priory Murders is only H.M.'s second appearance following The Plague Court Murders (1934). Bennett consulted H.M. on a curious incident concerning a Hollywood starlet, Marcia Tait, who walked out in the middle of a contract with her film studio to perform in a London play. A spiteful move intended to make everyone eat their own words as Tait flopped on the London stage, before going to America to be transformed into movie star.

The play in question, The Private Life of Charles II, is an independent production by John Bohun, written by his brother Maurice Bohun and backed by Lord Canifest. Several producers in London offered to back it, but Tait took great pleasure in publicly sneering at them. And, generally, she's "courting hostility." On top of that, Tait's publicist, Emery, and her director, Rainger, have furiously followed her to London hoping to persuade her to return. Bennett became entangled with the group aboard an ocean liner sailing from New York to London, which gave him a front row seat when an attempt is made to poison Tait. Someone in their party had send her a box of poisoned chocolates.

Worryingly, the party is gathering in the run-up to Christmas at the ancestral home of the Bohuns, the White Priory, near Epsom. Other guests include the Bohuns niece, Katherine Bohun, Lord Canifest's daughter, Louise, and one of the best character-actors in England, Jervis Willard – who's to play opposite Tait in the play. Rounding out the party is Bennett. So, naturally, he's a bit worried what might happened. H.M. gives him the telephone numbers of his private wire and Inspector Humphrey Masters in case something happens.

The White Priory has a marble pavilion, called the Queen's Mirror, comprising of only four rooms and standing in the middle of a small artificial lake. Tait wanted to spend the night in the Queen's Mirror and she's found there by John Bohun the next morning with her head smashed in. Just one problem. Tait died long after the snow had stopped falling, but the pavilion is surrounded by half an inch of unmarked snow, sixty feet of it thin ice on every side and not a tree, or shrub, within a hundred feet of it. Only marks in the snow is the track of fresh prints ("of course they were fresh tracks") John Bohun made when he found Tait's body. So an impossible crime and not your average impossible crime as H.M. eventually takes a break from drinking hot punch and trimming to Christmas tree to give it his personal attention ("if it's a new wrinkle in the art of homicide, I want to know all about it").

H.M. gives a mini-version of Dr. Gideon Fell's "The Locked Room Lecture," from The Three Coffins (1935), going over the three known motives/reasons for creating a locked room situation or impossible crime – namely the suicide-fake, ghost-fake and the accident. A fourth motive was added to the list in The Peacock Feather Murders (1937). H.M. delightfully gives a hypothetical scenario for the suicide and accident scenario as the ghost-fake obviously doesn't apply to this murder, however, neither do the suicide or accident motives. You can't commit suicide by beating your skull to mush and you can't accidentally walk over snow without leaving footprints. So how the murderer managed to flee from the pavilion very much becomes the central question of The White Priory Murders. There are, however, enough volunteers among the suspects willing to take a crack at this impossible problem and eagerly share their solutions with H.M. and Masters. What follows is a procession of cleverly thought out false-solutions reminiscent of Christianna Brand's recently reviewed Tour de Force (1955). How beautifully they complement each other with their footprints in the snow, alibis on the beach and a conga line of false-solutions!

I've said before how I consider the no-footprints/miraculous footprints the most difficult, trickiest of all impossible crimes to pull off convincingly and satisfactory. Even trickier is to be original without relying on one of the familiar dodges or a variation on it, which is why Arthur Porges' "No Killer Has Wings" (1961) is beloved among impossible crime aficionados. So always appreciate and admire when a mystery writer can deliver a good one, but to make things extra difficult by parading out false-solutions is only to be applauded. A seven percent solution for every unashamed detective fiction junkie!

However, the solution to both the murder and impossibility is not without a noticeable smudge holding it back from taking a place in the first ranks (SPOILER/ROT13): gur zheqrere qrnyg zhygvcyr oybjf jvgu gur zrqvpny rknzvare abgvat frireny oybjf jrer fgehpx nsgre fur unq qvrq, ohg Pnee nccneragyl vtaberq be qvqa'g ernyvmr gur haubyl, tbel zrff n seramvrq oyhqtrbavat yrnirf oruvaq – rfcrpvnyyl vs lbh fgevxr gur fnzr jbhaq frireny gvzrf. Pnee bireybbxrq, be vtaberq, gur fnzr ceboyrz va Gur Rzcrebe'f Fahss-Obk, ohg urer vg unf sne zber frevbhf pbafrdhraprf gb gur fbyhgvba. Gur cbyvpr naq zrqvpny rknzvare fubhyq unir orra vzzrqvngryl noyr gb gryy Gnvg jnf zheqrerq fbzrjurer ryfr naq zbirq gb gur cnivyvba yngre sebz gur ynpx bs oybbq cbbyvat nebhaq gur urnq naq ab oybbq fcnggrerq jnyyf. That fact is ignored and why the solution to the no-footprints problem is not half as obvious as Carr or H.M. would like you to believe. I think a lot of readers wouldn't consider it on account of (ROT13) xabjvat vg jbhyq or vzcbffvoyr gb zbir n onqyl onggrerq obql gb n qvssrerag ybpngvba naq bofphevat gur snpg gur ivpgvz unq orra onggrerq fbzrjurer ryfr. Probably the reason why it got so distorted in my memories, because remembered (ROT13) Gnvg jnf fgenatyrq vafgrnq bs orngra. Vs fur unq orra fgenatyrq, be uvg whfg bapr, gur gevpx jbhyq unir jbexrq jvgubhg n ceboyrz. Abj vg pbairavragyl vtaberf, jung fubhyq unir orra, n qrnq tvirnjnl. Znlor zl oenva nhgb-pbeerpgrq vg, be fbzrguvat.

This is not to end this review on a sour note. The White Priory Murders is mostly excellent and not far behind Carr's best works from the early to mid 1930s. H.M. is in fine form as he's far more serious, intelligent and slightly baffled than he would be presented in later books coupled with a mini-locked room lecture, false-solutions and one hell of a premise. Only that one small, devilish and all important detail regarding the impossible crime places it a considerable step below other H.M. novels of the period like The Plague Court Murders (1934) and The Red Widow Murders (1935). I really shouldn't complain. The White Priory Murders was so blurred and distorted in my memory rereading it was like uncovering a unread H.M. novel I previous only heard about it. Even if the book in question doesn't show Carr at the top of his game as a plotter, but, even on an off-day, Carr is usually a good deal better than most of his contemporaries. The White Priory Murders is no exception. I just wished Carr had spotted the flaw in his impossible crime setup and fixed it, which would have propelled it to first ranks without any ifs or buts.

A note for the curious: during his mini-locked room lecture, H.M. naturally dismisses the third option, accidental impossibilities, in which the murderer "creates an impossible situation in spite of himself, without wantin' to" before throwing up his hands – asking "what kind of accident is it where a person don't make tracks in the snow?" There is, however, one very simple, elegant solution fitting the accidental impossibilities category that was never considered. The apparent impossibility of Tait's murder not only hinges on the unbroken snow surrounding the pavilion, but also the time of death ("it depends on the time a woman died"). What if she had been under the weather and had a slight fever? That way she could have been murdered before the snow stopped falling and the medical evidence pushing the time of death forwards. I think back then they could have checked the body to see if she had been sick. So a perfectly logical and reasoning explanation can be knocked down as a false-solution.

The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories

Now let me see... Sinterklaas candy has been on store shelves for months now, closely followed by Halloween ornaments and Christmas decorations, while the days get shorter, colder and darker – which can mean only one thing. It's that time of year again. The time for pepernoten, treats, presents and spreading cheer and goodwill during the miracle of the Christmas season. It's also the time when fans of Golden Age detective fiction turn their pile of seasonal mystery novels to read or, as it used to be more often is the case, reread one or two of the classic Christmas-themed mysteries published during the genre's golden decades.

That pile of vintage Christmas-themed mysteries used to be quite modest with only a handful of notable titles, but over the past ten years, several publishers added considerable height to that pile. Kate, of Cross Examining Crime, even compiled an "Epic Ranking of Christmas Mysteries" with no less than 40 novels in 2019. More has been added to the naughty list since then. Last year, British Library republished Carter Dickson's The White Priory Murders (1934), Galileo brought Joan Coggin's Who Killed the Curate (1944) back into print and this year Elizabeth Anthony's long-lost Dramatic Murder (1948) is added to the stack. Not to mention numerous anthologies, like Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries (2016) and The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories (2018), appropriate for the dark days of December.

I made it a tradition to read, and revisit, these merry mayhem mysteries during the holiday month and have read enough to do a seasonal edition of The Hit List. Like previous editions, I make an earnest attempt to avoid making a basic listicle or use it as an excuse to ride my locked room mystery hobby horse by picking somewhat unusual topics – allowing to avoid lists dominated with all usual suspects. So decided mix novels and short stories for this festive list ensuring there would be no easy pickings.

Hopefuly, some of you'll find the list handy to help pick, choose and put together your annual pile of Christmas mysteries to enjoy this month.

L'assassinat du Père Noël (The Murder of Father Christmas, 1934) by Pierre Véry

Véry's The Murder of Father Christmas is not the most devious, intricately-plotted title appearing on this list, however, the book certainly embodies the essence the spirit of Christmas. A gentle, fairy tale-like detective story about the search for a fabled relic, two gems spirited away from a vault and the body of Santa Claus found near the entrance of an underground passage to a castle. A charming, lighthearted seasonal mystery novel written in the spirit of G.K. Chesterton's short story "The Flying Stars" (1911).

Thou Shell of Death (1936) by Nicholas Blake

Last December, I revisited Blake's Thou Shell of Death and was surprised to find a better detective novel than I remembered it to be from my first read. Nigel Strangeways spends Christmas at the home of World War I flying ace, Fergus O'Brien, who's found shot and killed in the garden hut on Boxing Day – only a single track of footprints going from the veranda to the hut. I honestly had forgotten Blake at his best wrote and plotted the same legends league as Christianna Brand, John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie. Blake delivered with Thou Shell of Death a serious rival to another entry on this list for the title of best Golden Age Christmas mystery novel.

"Blind Man's Hood" (1937) by John Dickson Carr (writing as "Carter Dickson")

Lighting a fire to gather around to drink hot cocoa and telling ghost stories was once a staple of the good, old-fashioned family Christmas celebration, "there'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago," during that most wonderful time of the year – which is the premise of this small classic. A newlywed couple arrive at the home of friends to celebrate Christmas, but find the front door standing open and the house apparently abandoned. They're eventually greeted by a woman who tells them the household is away to attend a special church service, which is an excuse to be away from the house at a specific time on Christmas Eve. She then them about a murder that happened in the house decades ago as the ghost story slowly takes over the reigns from the detective story. Leave it to the maestro to turn a detective story into a ghost yarn without ruining the detective story part.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) by Agatha Christie

Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas is the quintessential, über conventional seasonal country house mystery, but, until rereading it in 2022, I had forgotten why it had been the Christmas mystery novel for ages. The book is simply a vintage Christie in which she applies her plotting talent to the problem of the brutal murder of nasty, old Simeon Lee on Christmas Eve. A murder methodically unraveled by Hercule Poirot with a keen eye for both the physical and psychological clues. Hercule Poirot's Christmas has become a model for the-country-house-family-Christmas-party-interrupted-by-murder, but rarely equalled or surpassed. A Christmas mystery classic!

Murder After Christmas (1944) by Rupert Latimer

One of those little-known, forgotten festive murder mysteries that had been out-of-print for nearly eighty years, until British Library reprinted it in 2021. Latimer's Murder After Christmas had no business languishing in obscurity as it ranks alongside Blake and Christie's Christmas mysteries as one of the best of its kind. A richly-plotted detective novel with the customary body in Santa Claus costume and a whole array of bizarre clues as slippery as red herrings, which range from a track of footprints to a toppled snowman to a parcel of mince-pies sewn in the upholstery of an armchair – which enough to make Superintendent Culley wonder if he's going balmy. A fun and unexpectedly excellent Golden Age mystery. One that's going to be fun revisiting in a few years time.

"The Christmas Bear" (1990) by Herbert Resnicow

Just like the first entry on this list, Resnicow's short story "The Christmas Bear" is not the most intricate, deviously-plotted yuletide puzzle, but it's a heartwarming story fully embracing the spirit of Christmas – taking place during a fundraiser in a poor neighborhood. A little girl needs a liver transplant and the neighborhood is trying to raise the money, which is why Miz Sophie Slowinski taker her great-grand daughter, Deborah, to the toy auction at the local firehouse. Deborah falls in love with a very odd, funny looking teddy bear. However, the bear disappears, presumably stolen, but how could it have been taken from the top shelf without collapsing the whole rickety, shaky structure? Yes, plot-wise, "The Christmas Bear" is very light bordering "Every Day Life Mystery," but, to quote Mike Grost, "every part of the story is developed with rich detail in the Van Dine School tradition." Simply a perfect little Christmas mystery.

Mom Meets Her Maker (1990) by James Yaffe

A radical departure from the conventional, British country house mysteries of previous entries or the seasonal whimsy of Resnicow and Véry. Yaffe does the murder around Christmastime the American way! Very loud, punctuated by the sound of gunshots. It all begins with a dispute over the Christmas decorations of Reverend Chuck Candy, a veritable light show complete with sound installation blasting holiday jingles, which devolves into murder rife with small town politics, religious strife and a dying message. A better Ellery Queen-style Christmas mystery than Ellery Queen's The Finishing Stroke (1958).

Original Sin (1991) by Mary Monica Pulver

If you, like me, can't help but shudder at modern mysteries advertised as loving send ups of the classic, snowed-in country house mystery at Christmas, rest assured. Pulver's Original Sin is not a tangle of poorly dome, often mishandled cliches and tropes presented as a clever, humorous take on the snowed-in gathering at Christmas – rudely interrupted by murder. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot-patterns emerging from this story are both original and very pleasing. Like the modern crime novel is performing a synchronized dance routine with the ghost of the Golden Age detective around the Christmas tree. So a modern-ish country house mystery that actually has something to say and new to add to what came before.

"La marchande de fleurs" ("The Flower Girl," 2000) by Paul Halter

I need to reread "The Flower Girl" and refresh my memory, but remember being convinced the story would become a staple of future impossible crime-themed anthologies. This time, the impossibilities concern physical evidence for the existence of Santa Claus. Evidence that would implicate Santa Claus in the murder of a Scrooge-like figure trying to ruin Christmas for a 12-year-old girl. A slightly darker, shorter, but better plotted, take on Véry's fairy tale-like The Murder of Father Christmas.

"The Miracle on Christmas Eve" (2016?) by Szu-Yen Lin

This story appears to have become a fan favorite shortly after its English translation was collected in John Pugmire and Brian Skupin's The Realm of the Impossible (2017), which rivals the disgustingly warm, sugary sweet content of Resnicow's "The Christmas Bear." Meng-Hsing Ko was raised by his kindhearted, widowed father who wanted to give him good, carefree childhood and instilled in him a believe in goodness – including a genuine believe in the existence of Santa Claus. That painted a target on his back in school, but his father invited the bullies over for a sleepover on Christmas Eve to prove Santa Claus is real. A sleepover ending with a sack of presents appearing as by magic inside a locked, closely guarded room and the children seeing the silhouette of Santa Claus flying across the sky in his sleigh. Years later, the now adult Ko asks the detective Ruoping Lin how his father managed to pull off a miracle like that. Only thing this story needed was "A Message from the Heart," as opposed to "A Challenge to the Reader," giving the reader to option to stop reading and keep the miracle in tact.

"Het huis dat ongeluk bracht" ("The House That Brought Bad Luck," 2018) by Anne van Doorn

This short story by M.P.O. Books, writing as "Anne van Doorn," has another interpretation of the Christmas tradition of telling ghost stories. The setting is a gated villa, somewhere in Oosterbeek, haunted by the ghost of a Nazi soldier who died there during Operation Market Garden. The current owner believes her ex-husband is behind the revived haunting and hires two private investigators, Robbie Corbijn and Lowina de Jong, to put a stop to paranormal activity. Corbijn is present at the villa, on Christmas Eve, to witness the apparent supernatural, inexplicable phenomena first hand. I called it a snowfall of impossible crime material. So "The House That Brought Bad Luck" is the kind of short story Hake Talbot would have written had he been around today.

The Christmas Miracle Crimes (2023) by A. Carver

This final, most recently published entry takes a novel-length approach to the snowfall of impossibilities at Christmas and upped the ante to brings a Christmas mystery like no other before. Alex Corby and her great-aunt Cornelia find themselves stranded at Whitefell Chimneys, a valley mansion somewhere in the middle of nowhere, which is conventional enough, but the mansion is invaded by a shotgun carrying Santa Claus who disappeared up the chimney – leaving behind a body in a locked room. This is only one of many, many Christmas-themed impossible crimes, locked room murders and attempted murder, eight in total, littering this ambitious holiday mystery. A holiday mystery in which Christmas is an integral part of the plot and not merely background decoration. Just take your time reading and digesting this delicious, rich plum pudding of a Christmas mystery novel.

Five Honorable Mentions: Moray Dalton's The Night of Fear (1931), Clifford Witting's Catt Out of the Bag (1939), Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca (1941), Francis Duncan's Murder at Christmas (1949) and Cyril Hare's An English Murder (1951).

 

And Two Dishonorable Mentions: I gave a seasonal twist to the title of this post, which is technically incorrect, because this should be The Nice List. The Naughty List simply sounds better for a best-of list of mystery novels than The Nice List. That and an accurate naughty list would only have two entries, Mavis Doriel Hay's The Santa Klaus Murder (1936) and Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (2006). One is deadly dull and the other insultingly bad. A lump of coal in both their stockings!

 

The Hit Lists:

Top 10 Favorite Reprints from Dean Street Press

Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels

Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 1-25

Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated

Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction That Have Been Lost to History

Top 5 Intriguing Pieces of Impossible Crime Fiction That Vanished Into Thin Air

Top 10 Best Translations & Reprints from Locked Room International

Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance

Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder (2024) by P. Dieudonné

During the summer, E-Pulp published the tenth novel in P. Dieudonné's Rotterdam police series, Rechercheur De Klerck en de sluier van de dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Veil of Death, 2024), which is a double-sized politieroman to mark the series' first milestone – reason why its publication was delayed several months. So didn't expect them to keep to the customary schedule of two novels a year, but the eleventh title in the series was recently published. And it's better than the previous, double-sized De Klerck mystery!

Rechercheur De Klerck en de status in moord (Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder, 2024) begins with a request to Lucien de Klerck and Ruben Klaver, of the Rotterdam police, to assist the harbor police investigate a suspicious death. One that looks an awfully lot like murder.

In the Veerhaven, a luxurious sailing yacht has been deliberately sunk and divers found the body of a woman floating inside, but the doors where sealed shut from the outside to keep her from escaping – turning the yacht into an inescapable death trap. De Klerck and Klaver quickly find out that the victim, Ismene Duetz, gave people around her plenty of reason to be glad someone gave her a one-way trip to the bottom of the river. Ismene was recently deserted by her long-suffering, browbeaten and now ex-husband, Ivo Lambriex, which is why she was temporarily living on her yacht. That ties-in with her favorite hobby: brown-nosing the Dutch aristocracy ("she absolutely adored the nobility...").

Ismene is friends with Lady Noëlle de Beauchateau, daughter of Lord Maximiliaan de Beauchateau, who is engaged to Baron van Feyesslink tot Elzeveld. Before her engagement to the Baron, Noëlle was dating the owner of a struggling diving supply store, Peter Versantvoort. Ismene got wind of Peter's financial troubles and told the Lord about. Similarly warned Noëlle about potential future advances from her brother, IJsbrand ("blue blood marries blue blood"). So more than enough to keep to the two inspectors busy for some time, but further complications arise when a member of the aristocracy is shot and a third, very surprising death. None of these murders follows the pattern expected from a Baantjer-style politieroman, which in this case added to the fun.

That third, final death really took me by surprise as it made me second guess my deductions, because it looked like a daring attempt to present De Klerck and Klaver with an easy solution to close the case – which didn't turn out to be the case. But an interesting turn of events. And was on the right track all along!

Dieudonné returned with Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder to previous novels like Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020), Rechercheur De Klerck en moord in scène (Inspector De Klerck and Murder on the Scene, 2021) and Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongewenste dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Unwanted Death, 2023) by presenting an old-school detective novel as a contemporary politieroman a la Baantjer. All very fairly clued, too. There are a couple of important pieces of information given late into the story, but, if you spotted the clues and hints, they shouldn't come like bolt from the blue. So what more can I say about this early Sinterklaas present that hasn't already been said in previous reviews? This series continues to be a rare treat giving me a double shot of nostalgia and something to sooth that detective itch in my own language! In that regard, Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder is another success story and a strong, solid entry in the series. I look forward to the next one and plan to do another “Hit List” blog-post ranking the first dozen De Klerck novels when it gets published.

A note for the curious: I wonder how many readers heard these words in their head when the murderer was revealed (SPOILER/ROT13), “qebzzryf, qebzzryf ra abt rraf qebzzryf, qvr pybja ra qvr npebonng!” :)

Tour de Force (1955) by Christianna Brand

The last two, three years of the reprint renaissance have been especially kind to the legacy of Christianna Brand as Green for Danger (1944), Suddenly at His Residence (1946), Death of Jezebel (1948) and London Particular (1952) appeared back in print – reissued in the British Library Crime Classics series. Death of Jezebel came in as an incredibly close second in the 2022 Reprint of the Year Award, before going on to unseat Green for Danger as Brand's definitive novel and currently trying to topple John Dickson Carr's The Three Coffins (1935) as the Golden Age locked room mystery. I noted in "The Hit List: Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" it would be a genuine, posthumous accomplishment if Death of Jezebel dethrones The Three Coffins. In addition to several rarely reprinted or previously unpublished short stories and a short serialized novel, Shadowed Sunlight (1945), reprinted for the first time in Bodies from the Library 4 (2021).

So not only is Brand finally getting the proper reprints her work deserves, but her frustratingly small body of work has been actually been expanding. There's enough in cold storage, so to speak, to continue this trend for a few more years. Such as the unpublished novella "The Dead Hold Fast" featuring Inspector Charlesworth, the mouthwatering Inspector Cockrill impossible crime novel The Chinese Puzzle and an unfinished manuscript titled Cat Among the Pigeons. And, of course, the reprints!

The latest offering from the British Library in Brand reprints is the modestly titled, absolute fan favorite Tour de Force (1955). I planned to reread Death of Jezebel and London Particular first or try one of her often overlooked Inspector Chucky novels, but got my arm twisted to give Tour de Force an immediate reevaluation. The book got nominated for the "New Locked Room Library," but didn't remember it being an impossible crime novel and voted no without a comment. Only no-vote cast for Tour de Force. So was strongarmed into a dimly-lit room, planted on a chair and asked to urgently explain my conduct – brass knucks and clubs were pulled out as encouragement. No, I didn't see any of their faces. I promised to reread Tour de Force to see if my previous held opinions needed editing. Well...

Tour de Force finds Detective Inspector Cockrill, the Terror of Kent, on a conducted tour of Italy, but has come to regret it and eyes the company with his fellow British tourists with "ever-increasing gloom." Cockrill becomes entangled with seven of them at a hotel on the island of San Juan el Pirata in a tricky murder case involving a tangle of apparently incontestable alibis.

A group of holidaymakers comprising of a successful novelist, Louvaine "Louli" Barker. An ex-pianist, Leo Rodd, who lost his right arm and career in a bicycle accident. Helen Rodd is his "patient, considerate, silently sympathetic, relentlessly kind" wife. Vanda Lane is a young woman who keeps herself to herself, but has fallen in love with the ugly, angry looking one-armed man ("after all the years of existing upon vicarious romanticism"). Miss Trapp is another lonely woman ("rich and lonely") who has caught the roving eye of the tour guide, Fernando Gomez. Last, but not least, Mr. Cecil, of Christophe et Cie, who previously appeared in the Inspector Charlesworth novel Death in High Heels (1941). That case is briefly mentioned in passing ("years ago, in Christophe's, one of the girls, you can't think how horrid").

Cockrill wisely decides to bury himself in "deep in the latest adventure of his favourite Detective Inspector Carstairs" ("...engaged upon The Case of the Leaping Blonde"), but then Vanda Lane is found stabbed to death in her hotel room. And her body almost ceremonially laid out on the bed. This unexpected murder presents two the holidaying Cockrill with a pair of pressing problems.

 

 

Firstly, everyone with a hint of a motive possesses a practically watertight alibi as Cockrill had them under observation, nobody could have sneaked away long enough to commit murder and it not being noticed, which comes with a detailed map of the beachfront scene – showing where everyone was on the beach and terrace. I can't remember a map being used (in a Western mystery) to illustrate an alibi problem rather than a locked room puzzle or simply giving a clearer picture of the story's setting. Secondly, the police force of San Juan el Pirata is not, exactly, a modern one who are mainly occupied with smuggling coffee, tobacco, hashish and taking bribes from other smugglers. They have no time for a long, drawn out investigation or unsolved murder to scare away the tourists and they settle on anyone who fits in order to have "the whole thing wiped over and forgotten." Cockrill is even briefly imprisoned as a suspect and returns to the hotel to tell the six suspects he "was not going back to that dungeon to save the neck of any murderer" and going to find the murderer. Not ignoring the fact that it was his own testimony that handed out alibis to everyone.

Tour de Force becomes a showpiece of Brand's talent and specialty, the multiple false-solutions. Death of Jezebel famously overwhelms the reader with a dizzying number of false-solutions, but, perhaps better put to use in London Particular in which a closely-knit family create dummy cases implicating themselves to protect each other. Suddenly at His Residence, on the other hand, has a family creating dummy cases as ammunition to be used against each other. Tour de Force mixes things up starting with Cockrill showing how some could have escaped his attention or line of sight, before accusations begin to fly and false-solutions start coming out of the ranks of the suspects.

This continues building up, and knocking down again, of false-solutions is truly impressive and the highlight of the book. More impressive than the actual solution. A very clever, immaculately clued solution and remembering broad outline of the final twist made me enjoy it slightly more the second time around. I pointed out before that the truly greats of the genre have great reread value as not only do you get to admire their skills in laying out a plot, planting clues and dropping red herrings, but their boldness in pointing out the truth and simultaneously pushing you in the wrong direction is what separates the masters from the rest. That certainly was on full display in Tour de Force and loved (SPOILER/ROT13) Pbpxevyy'f pbzzrag nobhg bar bs gur punenpgref pregnvayl orvat bhg nf n cbgragvny fhfcrpg, which technically correct. A blatant, highly suspicious observation that's too obvious as both a clue or red herring. Love it when mystery writers lie through their teeth without uttering a single untrue word.

So no complaints there, however, I think this is going to be point where most of you'll start shouting at me. Angrily. The actual solution coming right after the final, twisty false-solution is both clever and immaculately clued, but nothing more, or less, than a plot-technical achievement. I think most (seasoned) readers will either pick up enough clues and hints or instinctively guess (see ROT13 comment) from which direction to expect the solution to come. And to give that expectation an unexpected form is, once again, a plot-technical achievement. Such an achievement would have been enough to elevate the work of a lesser writer to a five-star mystery novel, but Brand has written legitimate masterpieces. Tour de Force is simply not one of them.

Neither is it any way, shape or form an impossible crime nor is it an example of the impossible alibi. I explained before in the past that a manufactured alibi can only be considered an impossible problem under one very simple, but uncompromising, condition: the alibi solely relies on the murderer appearing to have been physically incapable of having carried out the crime. For example, the murderer is bound to a wheelchair and the victim is discovered in a place inaccessible to wheelchairs or someone is suspected of having broken somebody's neck after breaking both his arms. I exaggerate to clarify to show the impossible alibi is easily identified by the apparent impossibility of the murderer's physical circumstances to have killed the victim. So alibis depending on witnesses, documentation or tinkering with clocks are out as witnesses can be misled, mistaken or outright lie and documents can be faked or misinterpreted – similar objections for alibis depending on clocks and time stamps. More importantly, they're not needed for an impossible alibi. A gray area is admittedly murderer's who appear to have been in a different country or continent. I'll probably dedicate a post to the subject.

I didn't want to end this review by nitpicking small details, but people were being wrong on the internet and I couldn't let that stand (probably at the cost of a couple of broken fingers). Tour de Force is still an excellent, late-period Golden Age mystery and a plot-technical marvel in how it uses to the multiple false-solutions to rip through half a dozen alibis – dunking and flexing on Christopher Bush and Brian Flynn. However, the brand-name Brand's name demands something more than a technically-sound plot and knocking down alibis. So the book, for me, paled in comparison to the likes of Green for Danger, Death of Jezebel and London Particular. But feel free to disagree!

Locked and Loaded, Part 5: A Selection of Short Impossible Crime and Locked Room Mystery Stories

Every now and then, I do one of these "Locked and Loaded" posts to read and review mostly obscure, often uncollected short locked room mysteries and impossible crime stories covering nearly a century of miraculous crime fiction – stretching from Charles G. Booth's "One Shot" (1925) to James Scott Byrnside's "The Silent Steps of Murder" (2023). I discuss those two short stories, and everything in between, in Part 1, 2, 3 and 4. This fifth installment adds three more obscure, rarely reviewed short locked room mysteries and one magnificent impostor. So without further ado...

Christopher Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin," originally published in the April, 1974, issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, is part of a short-lived, now forgotten series about a somewhat unusual detective. Richard Verner is not a detective, technically speaking, but a heuristician. It translated to someone specialized in solving problems or a troubleshooter.

Verner is called to "Grove's Lake Cabins" by the local sheriff to assist him on an apparently open-and-shut case that simply doesn't sit well with him ("...I don't believe the evidence"). The owner of the cabin park, Grove, was found with a knife sticking out of his chest behind the triple locked door of the cabin he shared with his niece, Ellen Grove. A large, spacious cabin has a large room and bath at each end separated by an insulated wall with no door in it, which divides the living quarters of niece and uncle. So when her uncle failed to emerge from his part of the cabin, Ellen grabbed an electric saw and cut a doorway into the insulated dividing wall as it would have been easier than to smash the door or one of the windows. Unfortunately, cutting a doorway into the dividing wall immediately elevated Ellen to the status of prime suspect as the only door on her uncle's side was locked, bolted and securely chained – similar to the door on her side of the cabin. So nobody could have sneaked out that way, once Ellen had cut through the wall and ventured inside to discover the body. And, of course, the windows were all securely locked as well.

A phenomenal locked room setup! One that today's crop of locked room specialists would probably get a lot of mileage out of and had the solution been more than an elaborate take on a familiar locked room-trick, it would have been a little more than merely a solid locked room howdunit. Nevertheless, I enjoyed "The Drop of a Pin," especially the whole setup, enough to keep an eye out for the other stories. Christopher Anvil and Richard Verner might be of interest to Crippen & Landru as there appear to be enough material for a short story collection.

Robert C. Schweik's "Imagine a Murder," originally published in the June, 1978, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, is another story from an even shorter-lived, now forgotten series of detective stories. This series of three short stories stars an amateur detective of the old school, Professor Paul Engel, whose method is simply to analyze a problem, speculate on it and apply a dab of rich imagination – "just imagine what possibilities there are." So when his friend and bookseller, Harry, overhears the murder of his roommate over the telephone, Professor Engel is on his way to put his analytical mind and imagination to work. The victim, Markham, was an accountant working on a report that would place someone behind bars and called Harry to ask him to post a letter, which is when he got shot. Inexplicably, the place was locked and bolted from top to bottom ("...the entire apartment was buttoned down"). So how could the murderer and gun vanish from a thoroughly locked room with a crowd gathered in the hallway outside the locked door shortly after the gunshot rang out?

This story shares some outward similarities with Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin." Schweik created a pleasingly tight and baffling locked room scenario with the revelation of the murderer's identity adding a second, quasi-impossibility in the form of a cast-iron alibi. One hinging on the other. Just like the previous story, "Imagine a Murder" is an elaborate, pleasing and, in this case, fairly clued reworking of a classic locked room-technique/trick. So not a blistering original, cutting edge locked room mystery, but a solid, competently plotted impossible crime story. And not a bad one to help fill a future impossible crime themed anthology.

Jack Ritchie's "Cardula and the Locked Rooms," originally published in the March, 1982, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and collected in The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories (1983), sailed pass me under a false flag and not a locked room mystery – nor any other kind of impossible crime. Nevertheless, I was pleased to have stumbled to it right after my previous read. "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is eighth of nine comic private eye short stories about Cardula (Dracula) who "has been forced to leave his home country of Romania after being thrown out of his castle by communists" and moved to America to become a slick, nighttime private detective ("I am simply a night person"). Mike Grost praised the series for its many pleasant touches of "logical fantasy." Cardula is hired by a man named Thompson ("blood type B, I guessed") who bought a stolen Van Gogh years ago. The painting was his private pleasure for five years, but now it has been stolen from a private room. A simple case of breaking and entering, but who knew Thompson possessed a stolen Van Gogh?

Cardula is paid a handsome fee to locate and retrieve the painting, which is simple enough, but the theft of the painting and how it was stolen comes with a neat, well-done little twist worthy of Edward D. Hoch's best Nick Velvet stories. Of course, the fun and main draw of the story, and obviously the series as a whole, is Cardula's double role as detective and vampire. So another series of stories that needs further attention and looking into at some future date.

The last two short stories were nominated in the first round of voting for the "New Locked Room Library" and come from the same author, "Miŏgacu." Just like the previous review, I was gives copies of the short stories and told not to be smart ass who asks too many questions. So no background on the author nor stories except that "Miŏgacu" is a huge mystery fan who wrote the following two short stories as a homage to the Grandest Game in the World with the hope of having them properly published one day.

"Eggnog and the Cylinder" (2023) can be categorized as an impossible crime caper in the style of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin and Gosho Aoyama's Kaito KID. A French millionaire by the name of M. Aristide Benguet bought "the largest purple sapphire in the world on a whim" and decided to keep The Feline of Somerset in a locked room at his country home, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, to be displayed at a fancy Christmas party – which caught the attention of a renaissance criminal. Phantom Thief Lenoir, "dashing and masked," has become the scourge of the rich and famous of Europe as a modern-day Robin Hood. M. Benguet is taking extreme measures to protect the sapphire by engaging four different detectives/security agents from across the world to guard the sapphire in the locked room during the party. There's a rotating system to allow the detectives to take a break ("...stretch your legs, empty your bladder, grab some champagne"), but three detectives will stay with the sapphire in the locked room at all time.

A fail proof security measure, however, when their assignment comes to an end, they discover the sapphire has been replaced with a fake! Somehow, someway, Phantom Thief Lenoir switcharoo'd The Feline of Somerset under the nose of four detectives inside a securely locked room.

This story comes with a short "Author's Postface" in which "Miŏgacu" explains the inspiration for "Eggnog and the Cylinder" came from reading a description of the locked room puzzle in Marcel Lanteaume's untranslated, frustratingly out-of-reach Trompe l'oeil (1946) – realized "there is a very simple solution." That very simple solution is actually the cleverest, wildly imaginative and most original locked room-trick of the stories discussed so far. A trick certainly in the spirit of Lanteaume "in which imagination leaps confidently over probability" and perhaps a trick that would be hard to swallow in a regular locked room mystery, but perfectly suited for "a Japanese-y phantom thief story." It's unexpected gems like this making the future of the traditional Western (locked room) mysteries look very bright indeed. Not to mention a story with the potential to age like fine wine, if it ever turns out "Miŏgacu" constructed to correct solution from a short description of Lanteaume's Trompe l'oeil locked room puzzle. And makes me want to overlook (ROT13) gur znffvir onyyf vg gbbx gb abzvangr uvf bja jbex sbe pbafvqrengvba.

The second story, "The First Meeting" (2017/23), is a homage to the Japanese shin honkaku mysteries (and a pastiche, of sorts) and particular to the teenage detectives of series such as Case Closed, The Kindaichi Case Files and Q.E.D. Niimoto Tadashi is the son of a typical, storybook detective, Tsukiko, who had to solve the Yellow Mask Mystery on her wedding day. Tadashi was never shielded from his mother's investigation, but "never knew corpses raining down upon him" like some other child detectives. So a relatively normal childhood, but, on his sixteenth birthday, Tadashi "made his first step to detectivehood." Tadashi got his own Watson, Zhenya, who's the son of a Russian scientist staying as a guest at the Niimoto home. Tadashi and Zhenya throw themselves at a local locked room murder.

On the morning January 18, 2005, the esteemed neurosurgeon, Furuta Fujio, was found stabbed to death in his stuffy, everyday working study with door locked from the inside and the key sticking out of the keyhole – windows either didn't open or looked over an obstacle. Such as a roaring river or locked garden gate. So the scene of the crime resembles "an impenetrable capsule," but trick is not nearly as good or even half as inspired as the brilliant solution to the previous story. An enormous step down, judged purely as an impossible crime story. On the other hand, simply as a homage to those meddling kid detectives of the manga/anime corner of the shin honkaku mysteries, "The First Meeting" is first class.

Not a bad harvest for a handful of, more or less, randomly selected short stories. Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin" and Schweik's "Imagine a Murder" didn't bring anything new or really innovative to the table, but showed some ingenuity in presentation and a solid hand in their solutions. Despite the misleading title, Ritchie's "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is an unexpected treasure and it goes without saying "Eggnog and the Cylinder" is the standout with "The First Meeting" having charm and qualities outside of its locked room puzzle. I told you I would pick something good eventually. :)

And Then There Were Nyan (2024) by A.Z. Ruin

So for the past three, four months, I've been reading, rating and reviewing impossible crime novels and short stories that were nominated in the first round of voting for the "New Locked Room Library" – organized by Alexander of The Detection Collection. Since I was already familiar with the majority of nominated titles, I decided to focus on the obscurer, lesser-known "exotic" picks that came out of the first round.

Some truly surprising, unexpected picks which, for some reason or another, flew under my radar. Several can now be counted among my personal favorites starting with Aosaki Yugo's short story "Knockin' On Locked Door" (2014) and Mitsuda Madoy's superb fanlations of Kie Houjou's modern classics Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022). Not to be overlooked K.O. Enigma's fun, off-beat self-published genre parody Bunraku Noir (2023) or nominations previously reviewed on this blog (e.g. H.M. Faust's Gospel of V, 2023). And not every nomination observes the rule of having to be "reasonably available." The subject of today's is a shining example of ignoring that rule.

I know nothing about the author nor book, except it's a write-in and was given a copy with the instruction not to be a smart ass who asks impertinent questions.

So there's nothing I can say about A.Z. Ruin and gather And Then There Were Nyan is an as of yet unpublished manuscript floating around certain circles, which explains why not a mention of it can be found online and still got nominated. So, knowing next to nothing about the author or book, I pieced together from the comments And And Then There Were Nyan is a hybrid mystery trying to bridge the gap between the grounded, fair play detective story and pure fantasy – presented as a courtroom drama. Apparently, wrote it as a homage to the Ace Attorney series. So this is more or less going to be a gamble rather than picking something good, because I'm notoriously skeptical when it comes to hybrids of pure fantasy and mystery. I prefer the horror and science-fiction concoctions of the mystery hybrid. A skepticism that can be partially blamed on Randall Garrett's godawful Too Many Magicians (1966), but promised someone to give them another shot when a reasonably promising-sounding fantasy/mystery hybrid turned up. So is Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan going to change my opinion on fantasy/mystery hybrids or cement it firmly in place? Let's find out!

And Then There Were Nyan follows a woman, simply referred to as the Hunter, who's traveling with her rifle and caravan to New York, but gets stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere. For some reason, she has been locked out of both the caravan and car. So the Hunter has to move on foot, unless she wants to be torn apart by the nighttime wildlife. It doesn't take long for her to arrive at a small town resembling "the remains of some long-abandoned Civil War outpost" with badly-worn sign reading, "In this town, no man may kill a cat." The town appears to be abandoned, but nearly every house is locked and every door has a cat flap. And in the only unlocked house, the Hunter finds the bloody remains of a dead cat with a bullet wound. But being made of sterner stuff, the Hunter thinks nothing of it, cleared the floor and went to sleep. Only to be awakened by a crowd of talking, upright walking cats who take a dim view of finding her next to the body of their fellow feline, Pluto.

The Hunter happened to stumble into the town of Ulthar, "any cat in Ulthar is granted the protection and blessings of the goddess Baast," which is why they can walk upright like humans and speak their languages. Ulthar appeared abandoned because the entire townfolks were away "celebrating the first night of Kattenstoet" (love that name!) and upon return found the Hunter in a situation demanding an explanation. So she's apprehended (not without a fight), thrown in a jail cell and placed on trial. A trial presided over by a giant female sphinx. Well, that escalated quickly!

This trial covers roughly the first-half of And Then There Were Nyan and cleverly exploited to do a bit of world-building throughout the courtroom proceedings. The Sphinx tells the Hunter that innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply in Ulthar. So the prosecution doesn't have to conclusively prove her guilt, but she has to demonstrate her innocence by questioning logically, "expose contradictions in arguments and otherwise convince the judge," the Sphinx – which she has to do in a situation entirely alien to her. Not only the town with its inhabitants and laws are strange and unknown, but the murder of Pluto itself seems to have been impossible to pull off for a feline murderer. While the door itself was unlocked, the doorknob can't be turned by kitty paws and the cat flap was sealed from the inside with magic talismans. Pluto was shot and that's another mark against the Hunter as "no cat could have shot the victim" ("...cats don't have opposable thumbs"). Finally, the house/hut had been abandoned for years and the floor was thick with dust, but the only tracks in the dust were "the pawprints of the victim and a single set of boot-prints" belonging to the Hunter.

So the Hunter has to be quick witted in order to parry the prosecutor's constant attacks and has to find alternative explanations on spot, not merely pointing out she had no motive to kill Pluto, but constantly disadvantaged by her lack of knowledge about the place and its feline inhabitants. Something Chat Botté, town prosecutor, viciously exploits especially during the first trial. Botté became one of my favorite characters. A delightfully slimy, elegantly dressed character who has a habit of dabbing his forehead with a lace handkerchief ("...cats only sweat from their paws") and the perfect (I refuse to use the pun purr-fect) antagonist for the Hunter during her many trials of the story. I also took a liking to the cat characters of Schrödinger, Dinah and her brother, the Cheshire Cat.

But what about the giant, magical elephant in the locked room at the heart of this feline mystery, you ask? Well...

I groaned audibly when it was revealed the cats of Ulthar can not only talk and walk like humans, but "every cat is granted a unique and singular blessing." Imagine the X-Men with tails, cat ears and they all shed on the couch. Not just Beast. Naturally, these individual abilities are gradually, and conveniently, revealed as the story progresses – right up to the very end. Not that it makes it less fun seeing the Hunter draw up reasonably logical cases and arguments, only to be torn down again. Just not as impressive when the tearing down is done by magical powers. It can come across as just making things up as you go along. Another problem with fantasy/mystery hybrids leaning heavily on the magical aspect of the story is that those magical elements eventually have to be constrained to drown out the detective element.

For example, the Sphinx presiding over the trials is omniscient, "she knows absolutely everything," but that would be a spoil sport in a detective story. So her omniscience is nerfed with a personal code allowing the Sphinx "to ignore her own omniscience and only make judgements based on what she sees before her eyes." I don't celestial boredom is good enough reason. Why make her omniscient in the first place? Why not simply make her a judge who acts as a storyguide, of sorts, who tells the characters/reader whether or not the evidence and testimonies presented to her were truthful. Like telling a witness told the truth or told what they believe to be truth. That was kind of set up with the Sphinx's only ironclad rule forbidding any falsified or tampered evidence being brought into her courtroom ("the courtroom is the sole domain of logical and oratorical prowess"), but never really put to good use. I hated how this potentially great character exited the story.

I could have put all of that aside as a personal prejudice against an over abundance of magical nonsense in a detective story. After all, I promised to be fair and seriously went to work on the impossible murder of Pluto. When you think about it, the murder only constitutes half an impossibility for an ordinary cat and combined with the ability of a certain cat it opened up a way in and out of the hut. So assumed (ROT13) Purfuver jnf gur zheqrere, nsgre nyy, jub hfrq gur sebt-naq-gur-fpbecvba ehfr gb trg Cyhgb gb pneel uvz vagb gur uhg, xvyyvat uvz bapr gurl jrer vafvqr naq gur gnyvfznaf nccyvrq gb gur png sync. Bapr gur png jub nccyvrq gur gnyvfzna qvrf, gur gnyvfzna fgbcf jbexvat (“...orpbzrf nf jrnx naq syvzfl”), ohg erznva haoebxra npebff gur png syng. Juvpu vf gur cbvag. Fb bapr gur zheqre jnf qbar (zber ba gung va n zvahgr), nyy penml Purfuver unq gb qb jnf jnvgvat gb or sbhaq. Bapr gur qbbe, be png sync, jnf bcrarq Purfuver fvzcyl gheaf vaivfvoyr naq nibvqf yrnivat uvf uhtr cnj cevagf va gur qhfg ol genirefvat n aneebj yrqtr ehaavat nebhaq gur jnyy gbjneqf gur qbbe. Nsgre gung, vg fvzcyl vf n pnfr bs whzcvat bhg bs gur bcra qbbe sebz nobir be penjy qbja gur qbbecbfg naq bhg bs gur png sync. Ol gung gvzr, gurer jrer nyernql bgure cnj cevagf va gur qhfg. Erzrzore pngf ner vaperqvoyl ntvyr navznyf jub pna rkcybvg gur fznyyrfg bs sbbgubyqf.

Only thing that had me stumped (ROT13) vf ubj Purfuver znantrq gb znxr vg nccrne nf vs Cyhgb jnf fubg. V fhccbfrq Cyhgb pbhyq unir orra fgnoorq nf vg jnf cbvagrq bhg rneyvre va gur fgbel Purfuver unf ybat, hagevzzrq pynjf. Naq fhccbfr n fcrag ohyyrg pbhyq unir orra ergevrirq sebz gur arneol uhzna frggyrzrag gung jnf chfurq qbja gur fgno jbhaq, ohg abg ubj ur pbhyq unir snxrq gur fpbepu znexf. It goes without saying my solution (actually solutions) missed the marked completely, but did put aside my skepticism, threw myself wholeheartedly at the game and this is the best I could do with what was given – what did I get in return? Let me tell you, (SPOILER/ROT13) gur bevtvany Cyhgb unq qvrq lrnef ntb naq jnf vzcrefbangrq, juvyr gur obql jnf chyyrq vagb n ibvq, n fcnpr orgjrra fcnprf, ol fbzr ryqevgpu nobzvangvba naq chfurq onpx lrnef yngre be fbzrguvat. Gung xvaq bs fuvg pna shpx bss evtug onpx gb gur Gjvyvtug Mbar.

Good luck trying to arrive at that conclusion yourself. Another thing that irked me (SPOILER/ROT13) vf gur pninyel ebyyvat va ng gur raq, juvpu jnf bayl znqr cbffvoyr ol n gryrcnguvp jneavat sebz Xvat Gvyqehz'f Fgenl Png pybarf. Abg bapr unf gryrcngul orra zragvbarq rira nf n oyrffvat sbe bar bs gur pngf. Vg nqzvggrqyl erfhygrq va arng fprar va juvpu nabgure png hfrq ure oyrffvat gb chccrgrre gur qrnq. Gur chccrgrrevat bs gur qrnq vf nabgure oyrffvat abg zragvbarq hagvy irel yngr vagb gur obbx naq arire pbafvqrerq ubj gung gevpx pbhyq or hfrq gb perngr n ybpxrq ebbz fpranevb. N qrnq Cyhgb unir orra “znevbarggrq” gb jnyx onpxjneqf va uvf bja cnj cevagf, cynpr aba-jbexvat gnyvfznaf ba gur png syng (gb znxr vg nccrne nf vs gurl fgbccrq jbexvat nsgre ur jnf xvyyrq va n ybpxrq ebbz) naq erghea gb gur cynpr jurer ur qvrq – ergenpvat uvf fgrcf cresrpgyl jvgu gur uryc bs zntvp naq zhfpyr zrzbel. You get the idea by now.

So, plot-wise, And Then There Were Nyan is very reminiscent of Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) with its fantastical premise, lengthy storytelling and a conceptually original locked room scenario, but both missed the mark in their execution. Kyogoku's The Summer of the Ubume ended up being more horror than an actual detective novel and Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan is in the end more fantasy than a proper locked room mystery.

You get the idea by now. Plot-wise, And Then There Were Nyan strongly reminded me of Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) with their fantastical premise, lengthy storytelling and a conceptually original locked room scenario, but both missed the mark in their execution. Kyogoku's The Summer of the Ubume ended up being more horror than mystery or detective story and Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan turned out to be more fantasy than a proper locked room mystery. I think I prefer my fantasy/mystery hybrids when the magic and fantasy is kept small and manageable. Takekuni Kitayama's Rurijou satsujin jiken (The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders, 2002) might be the best way to do it.

So, if your taste is even remotely similar to mine, And Then There Were Nyan is going to disappoint as a locked room and hybrid mystery, but, as a courtroom drama/mystery, it now ranks alongside Carter Dickson's The Judas Window (1938) and Anthony Gilbert's The Clock in the Hat Box (1939) as a personal favorite – even with the plot not being up to scratch. The cat-and-mouse games and courtroom shenanigans are just too damn fun and engrossing to sink the whole ship. Just a shame the detective elements took a backseat to all the fantasy hokum. Otherwise it would added another, surprisingly modern, masterpiece the growing list of hybrid (locked room) mysteries.

The Crossword Mystery (1979) by Robert B. Gillespie

Robert B. Gillespie is, or perhaps was, an American writer who authored eight now largely forgotten, out-of-print crime, detective and thriller novels – published between 1979 and 1990. Only his first mystery novel appears to have left a visible trace on the genre.

First of all, The Crossword Mystery was reprinted by Raven House, a short-lived imprint of Harlequin Books, which was a line of paperback mysteries published with a recognizable, uniform cover designs. That makes them collectibles to some people. Despite only lasting two years, Raven House appears to be better remembered today than Harlequin's disastrous 2009 publication of a set of horrifically mutilated thoughtfully censored reprints of vintage hardboiled crime novels. Mysteries plotted around crossword puzzles is a-niche-within-a-niche with its loyal following who enjoy their daily crossword puzzle as much as their regular detective fix. More importantly, Robert Adey listed The Crossword Mystery in Locked Room Murders (1991) with a fascinating description of the impossibility ("starvation in a locked apartment") and briefly highlights it in his introduction ("...dry and unusual"). So it was bound to turn up here sooner or later.

Rocco "Rocky" Caputo is an English teacher at St. Malachy's, New York, who enjoys crossword puzzles, cryptograms and word games – solving and creating them. Rocky has been constructing crossword puzzles for Muriel van Dyne, puzzle editor of the New York Herald-Courier and the Herald-Courier syndicate, who's better known under her nom-de-plume of "Mary Cross." Now that she has passed away under tragic and somewhat mysterious circumstances, the newspaper is in desperate need for a new puzzle editor. Chuck Godbold, director of the New York Herald-Courier, is an old friend of Rocky and had shanghaied him before to take over for Van Dyne when her liver acted up for the first time. And practically demands he takes over again as readers expect their daily crosswords.

Rocky accepts to take a hiatus as a teacher and becomes the third person to inherit the "Mary Cross" name, but also inherits Van Dyne's aide and protege, Amy Gross. She believes Van Dyne didn't die naturally, or accidentally, but someone had a hand in her death.

The circumstances under which Van Dyne died can be called a little unusual. Van Dyne hadn't been seen, or heard of, for several weeks until Amy decided to get the janitor to enter her apartment where they found her dead in bed – surrounded by empty bottles. Van Dyne was an ex-alcoholic suffering from liver sclerosis. So everyone assumes she relapsed and died due complications, or a drunken accident, but the autopsy revealed the cause of death is starvation! The locked room fanatics among you will probably think The Crossword Mystery is a 1979 take on Ronald A. Knox's "Solved by Inspection" (1931), which deals with murder by starvation in a locked room. However, The Crossword Mystery can only under the most generous of terms be qualified as a locked room mystery. Technically, it's a howdunit employing something that could be, technically, termed as a locked room-trick (SPOILER/ROT13: gur zheqrere fghaarq Ina Qlar naq ybpxrq ure hc va ure bja fbhaqcebbs, jvaqbjyrff jbex qra ol hafperjvat naq erirefvat gur ybpx cyngr. Fb gur fbhaqcebbs ebbz pbhyq bayl or bcrarq sebz gur bhgfvqr, juvyr abobql pbhyq ure fpernz sbe uryc. Nsgre fur qvrq, gur zheqrere (jub hfrq n qhcyvpngr xrl) erghearq gb zbir ure obql gb gur orqebbz. But that's not much of a mystery for very long as Rocky (ROT13) svaqf gur gnyr-gryy fpengpurf ba gur cyngr, fperjf naq ybpx. One of the things he comes across that convinces him Van Dyne was deliberately murdered and begins to privately investigate together with Amy.

There are more than enough odd, suspicious looking or acting characters to keep them occupied for the next 180 pages. Such as Van Dyne's husband, Matthew, and their eccentric son, Robbie, who's a sculptor. The gruffy janitor of Van Dyne's apartment building and the figure of a tall man in fatigues carrying around a tool box who's often seen, but never really noticed. There's a woman by the name of Rose Hawkins who created crossword puzzles for Van Dyne and needed the money badly, but Van Dyne terminated their agreement when she found out Rose copied one of her crosswords ("...please look elsewhere for your food and shelter"). She also has an elusively, rarely seen son who might be a person of interest. Not to be overlooked are Chuck Godbold, half a dozen regulars of The Ink Spot ("...an oaken dive next door to the back entrance of the old Courier building...") or the fact that Van Dyne handed out spare keys to the male population of New York like candy bars to kids on Halloween. And she's been receiving threatening letters ("...YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED") melodramatically signed, "The Avenging Angel."

So the setup and characters certainly live up to the promise of an unusual, somewhat traditionally-styled detective novel, but the characters and characterization, or lack there of, can also be blamed why nothing lands as intended – everything simply falls flat on its face. Not only because of the shallow characterization (even by my shallow standards), but the first-half sees them acting more like school children than adults. From the barroom scene that got Van Dyne barred to Rocky challenging Masters to make a crossword puzzle, but the one he makes is not suitable for printing as every word was dirty and clean words were given "filthy clues" ("the word Pigtail was defined as 'Sloppy slut'"). Whenever the story tries to go for a serious note or attempts an emotional gut punch, it misses completely. The second murder with its unexpected and surprising victim should have come with that emotional gut punch considering the setup. And something that should have altered the tone of the story and left more of a mark on Rocky's mood. Both just walked it off.

Another problem is that everything of even remote interest is either left under developed, under utilized or something comes along to undermine it. For example, the combination of motive and method is quite good (more John Rhode than John Dickson Carr), but the identity of the murderer is preposterous. Rocky acknowledging the ridiculousness of it all doesn't automatically make it acceptable. Nor does the murderer hamming it up when exposed help things. Even worse, the titular crossword puzzle (a coded dying message) is poorly integrated into the plot. The crossword puzzle is included with the solved puzzle printed, upside down, on the next page, however, only certain clues were discussed in the story. Rocky tries to fit the clues to the known suspects without developing a single, fully-fledged false-solution.

That's another odd feature of the book. The Crossword Mystery has faint traces all over it of the Van Dine-Queen detective story. Most obviously, the victim's name, but Rocky's father is also a New York policeman and they exchange information on the case. A word-clue in the form of a crossword dying message, which should have been the focal point since nothing significant was done with the murder under bizarre and near impossible circumstances. Faint traces... like a pencil drawing that was erased and something new drawn on top of it, but you can still make out lines of the previous drawing. Interesting technique, artistically speaking, but not very satisfying for a detective flirting with so many classical tropes.

If experienced hadn't thought to expect nothing from these obscure, post-1950/pre-2015 one-off locked room novels and hope for the best, I would have been tremendously disappointed. The Crossword Mystery is pretty standard fare for these kind of between-eras (one-off) mysteries trying to work, one way or another, classical tropes like locked room murders and isolated mansions into a modern surrounding. Some definitely succeeded (e.g. John Sladek, Kip Chase, Charles Forsyte), while others ended up being neither fish nor fowl. These are your Stephen Frances' The Illusionist (1970), Tony Kenrick's A Tough One to Lose (1972), Richard Forrest's A Child's Garden of Death (1975) and Lionel Black's The Penny Murders (1979). Gillespie's The Crossword Mystery can be added to that list. So nothing really to recommend here, unless you happen to be a crossword historian or collector. Detective fans and especially locked room fanatics can safely cross this one off their wishlist.

A note for the curious: crosswords appear to have been hobby of Gillespie as he apparently wrote Cryptopic Crosswords (1983), which is even more obscure than his crime-and detective fiction. If you're still interested after my lukewarm review, Gillespie's other work include the mysteries Little Sally Does It Again (1982), Heads, You Loose (1985), The Last of the Honeywells (1988) and Deathstorm (1990). Print-Out (1983) appears to be an early techno-thriller. Empress of Coney Island (1986) and The Hell's Kitchen Connection (1987) sound like crime/thriller novels. I won't be seeking them out, but will try to pick something good next.