The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) by James Ronald

James Ronald's The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) is the second, somewhat shortish, novel in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024) originally serialized in Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser during the December month of 1931 – published in book form under the title The House of Horror (1935). The editor, Chris Verner, restored the original title as being more suitable for this lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek spoof of writers like Edgar Wallace and Carolyn Wells. A mystery of adventure and romance packing "enough secret passages and hidden doors to satisfy most readers for the rest of their lives."

The spacious house, or rather mansion, is the remote, richly historied Hunter's Keep belonging to a well-known, celebrated gentleman of leisure and thriller writer, Wilmer Basingstoke. A man of mystery who became interested in crime and "plunged into a wholehearted study of crime from every angle."

Basingstoke had acted first as a criminal, "two burglaries he planned and carried out alone were never traced to him," before becoming an amateur detective "running down burglars and handing them over to justice." Getting bored by the whole thing, Basingstoke toyed with the idea to commit a murder, but a timely discovered talent for writing contained his murderous ambitions to the printed page as he became a bestselling thriller author.

The story takes place during a house party thrown to liven up the place. Basingstoke has invited his two nephews, Percy Hyth and John Ridgeway and young niece, Lucy Halperin, who he hasn't seen since they were children. The cousins meet each other for the first time. Philip Lavery and Irma Dering are bored, flirtatious socialites who amused their host with their trivial conversations and "belief that their own silly little world was the centre of the universe." Reverend Cyril Wootton and his brother, Peter Wootton, who's a Scotland Yard detective ("...at present on holiday"). Someone in the first chapter mentions wonders how someone who can write such thrilling yarns can give such dull house parties, but that changes quickly when they hear bell ringing followed by the maid screaming, "the master—'e's dead" – saying she found him dead and covered in blood. But when they go to look, they find an empty room and a bloodstained dagger. Basingstoke's body is nowhere to be found.

However, The Secret of Hunter's Keep is not a locked room mystery about impossibly vanishing corpses. Basingstoke's body is not the only one to disappear under mysterious circumstances, but how the bodies disappeared is not some terrifying, unfathomable mystery. Hunter's Keep is known to be honeycombed with concealed passages, hidden doors, secret staircases and subterranean rooms. While their locations and entrances have been lost to time, someone has started to make use of them. Peter Wootton observes "Hunter's Keep was not one house, but two, and it was the house within the walls that held the secret they were bent on solving." It really does appear as if the main building is merely a front for the rabbit warren of hidden passages, rooms and staircases, but that probably makes it sound better than it actually is.

Ronald was an uneven plotter. For every Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938), you have a Six Were to Die (1932) and Death Croons the Blues (1934), but one thing all have in common is their readability and sometimes surprisingly good characterization. The Secret of Hunter's Keep is no exception to the rule, which makes it better than most pulp mysteries of the time festooned with cliches and secret passages. It honestly little more than a very readable, sometimes amusing pile up of turn-of-the-century cliches and sniping at the thriller novel itself. More on that in moment.

The Secret of Hunter's Keep is not wholly an overly cliched, featureless but readable piece of pulp fiction. It has some points of interest. During his day as an amateur detective, Basingstoke helped Scotland Yard to catch a criminal known as "The Basher." Peter Wootton finds an unread telegram informing Basingstoke that John Albert Green, a.k.a. "The Basher," had escaped that morning from Dartmoor prison. And probably on his way to get his revenge.

Their backstory is told to the reader in the form of two excerpts from one of Basingstoke's novels based on him capturing Green. Yeah, it's blatant padding, but didn't dislike it and the only thing in the book to briefly throw me off my game. For a moment, I feared Ronald was lazily going for a variation on a well-known mystery novel (ROT13: fve neguhe pbana qblyr'f gur inyyrl bs srne, oevrsyl fhfcrpgvat onfvatfgbxr unq xvyyrq gur onfure naq jnf uvqvat, nybat jvgu gur obql, vafvqr gur jnyyf bs gur ubhfr). I'll get back to the solution. Another thing that stood out to me was the introduction of a plagiarism plot thread, when someone comes forward claiming Basingstoke plagiarized his work. How this plot-thread is revealed and eventually resolved is not without interest, perhaps the best handled part of the story, but couldn't escape the feeling Ronald was laughing here at his readers – not with them. I know pulp thrillers brandishing book titles like The Ho-Fong Mystery, The Eye of Cho-Fang and The Chinese Dagger aren't known for their quality writing or careful plotting, not without reason nor undeserving of criticism, but this came across as a politely-worded, but somewhat mean spirited, swipe at everyone who wrote and read them (ROT13: “turfr cybgf nera'g lbhef be zvar, gurl ner pbzzba cebcregl” nf gur npphfre vf pnegrq bss gb gur ybbal ova). No wonder John Norris panned the book in his 2019 review!

Well, there's the ending and solution. While I briefly entertained a slightly different solution, the final twist complete with a Scooby Doo-esque unmasking of the villain is not a rug puller of a surprise. You can see it coming from a mile ahead, but think most people will be irked that the solution (ROT13) jnyxf onpx rirelguvat gung unccrarq cerivbhfyl. Honestly, if I had bought The Secret of Hunter's Keep separately, I would have been a bit disappointed. I got this volume for the reprint of The Sealed Room Murder (1934) with The Secret of Hunter's Keep. So got to enjoy it for what it's. A lighthearted romp poking fun at the country house mystery that's fun enough, if you don't expect a serious detective novel.

The House of Snow and the Six Tricks (2022) by Danro Kamosaki

Last year, the first round of nominations for the updated "Locked Room Library," hosted by Alexander of The Detection Collection, introduced me to the fanlations from Mitsuda Madoy and "cosmmiicnana" – whose work got several novels on the nomination list. Kie Houjou's Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022) became instant favorites, Takekuni Kitayama's Rurijou satsujin jiken (The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders, 2002) is close on their heels. All three are modern masterpieces of the hybrid mystery with incredibly imaginative, visionary even, plots and original locked room mysteries. I also enjoyed their translation of Jun Kurachi's excellent, non-impossible crime mystery Hoshifuri sansou no satsujin (Murders in the Mountain Lodges Beneath the Shooting Stars, 1996). This duo also translated two novels from a series with a very alluring premise.

Danro Kamosaki wordily titled 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) is the first entry in the "Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms" series. I'll simply refer to it as The House of Snow and the Six Tricks.

Three years previously, the first ever, real-life locked room murder was committed in Japan. Fortunately, the murderer was arrested, put on trial and acquitted, because nobody could break down the killer's locked room-trick – protecting the murderer like an unbreakable alibi. So the locked room murder and impossible crime, "that common fiction trope so looked down upon for its unreality," became "preeminently practical" over night. Just a month after the trial, the police were faced with four more locked room murders and the numbers climbed over the following months ("locked rooms spread throughout society like a disease"). The counter stands at 302 at the opening of the story meaning "30% of the total number of murders committed in Japan in an average year are locked room murders."

Over the course of the story, the reader learns just how much this epidemic of impossible crimes have changed police work and given rise to new jobs. There are now specialized detectives to handle complicated locked room murders that do not involve any of the routine tricks, "like using string to turn the key in the inside lock or hiding inside the room," but a murderer with a fresh idea or using new, cutting-edge tricks. The so called locked room detectives aren't the only newly created experts to combat the rash of impossible crimes. Locked room appraisal companies specialize in finding secret passages, hidden doors and other such hiding places with ultrasound and x-rays. A service provided to both the police and private citizens to make sure their crime scene or house they intend to buy is free of any hoary, nineteenth century plot device. That and much more you have to read for yourself.

So that's the country 17-year-old high school student, Kasumi Kuzushiro, finds himself in when he's dragged along by his friend, Yozuki Asahina, to the famous House of Snow. Apparently, the hunt for UMA (Unidentified Mysterious Animal), but the House of Snow, currently a hotel, used to be the home of the celebrated mystery writer, the late Byakuya Yukishiro. A locked room specialist who was years ahead of the locked room boom when he created one of his own. However, the locked room was a challenge, not a crime, thrown down during a house party.

Ten years ago, Yukishiro hosted a party where his guests, comprising of some well-known mystery writers and critics, were surprised with a mocked murder – which they would declare later that night a perfect locked room mystery. A doll with a knife in its chest is found a room with the door locked from the inside, windows either do not open or have lattices to prevent them from being used, but the finishing touch is that the sole key to the room was inside a bottle with the lid closed tight! This prompted a lively, all-night debate and "an impromptu deduction competition," but nobody that night had been able to solve the mystery. Nobody else had since. So the House of Snow Locked Room Case, "Yukishiro's true masterpiece," became an attraction when he died and his home was turned into a hotel.

 

 

When they arrive, Kasumi Kuzushiro and Yozuki Asahina find an odd collection of guests gathering at the hotel. Eiji Sagurioka, a Locked Room Detective, who came to the hotel to try and find a solution to Yukishiro's mystery for a magazine. Riria Hasemi, a famous teenage actress, who's accompanied by her downtrodden manager, Toshiro Manei. Fenrir Alicehazard, a British woman, who claims to have come to the hotel to hunt for another UMA ("I heard there are skyfish near here"). Satoru Kanzaki, a priest of the Tower of Dawn, representing a religious sect who worship and purify crime scenes with prayer ("...one they held in highest regard was the scene of a locked room murder"). Dr. Hironobu Ishikawa and Haruki Yashiro, president of a trading company, are the more normal guests. Kuzushiro is surprised to find a familiar face among the guests, Shitsuri Mitsumura, who was his classmate in middle school and were the only members of the literature club. She has talent for solving locked room puzzles. Something that comes in handy when people begin to turn up dead under seemingly impossible circumstances.

The first of the murders is practically a copy of Yukishiro's locked room challenge, but, instead of a doll, the knife is now sticking out of a corpse and a unique, hand painted playing card is found – linking the murder to unsolved case known as "The Playing Card Serial Murder Case." On top of that, the murderer cut the phone lines and torched the bridge to trap them in the remote hotel during the dead of winter.

Kuzushiro and Mitsumura have all the time to pick both locked rooms, past and present, over the course of several chapters. Mitsumura pieces together the correct solution and her reconstruction sets the tone for what's to come. The locked room-trick is a complicated, but original, one in both presentation and resolution coming with a clear cut diagram to show the trick worked. Danro Kamosaki loves technical and physical tricks, which is here on full display, but this merely the first of half a dozen impossible murders.

I commented before on these multiple impossible crime mysteries and that they tend to run into one of two problems. They either have one, or two, good locked room-tricks with the remaining being either filler, to put kindly, or downright bad and disappointing. Or they feel to crammed with all the good ideas not given enough room to breath. The magical number to perfectly balance quality and quantity appears to be three or four. The House of Snow and the Six Tricks goes over that margin, however, it maintains a pretty decent quality overall. Only two of them failed to impress me.

There's a rather gruesome stabbing in the dining hall at the time the only entrance was under constant observation. The solution is, visually, unintentionally hilarious and should have been used in a Takemaru Abiko story or some dark, comedic-style mystery (what a way (ROT13) gb hfr n uvqqra, nhgbzngvp qbbe gb n frperg cnffntr!). I hated the third locked room murder, a shooting in a bedroom, which is bad enough to actually slightly detract from the story's overall quality. One of the clearest examples of smearing lipstick on a pig trying to make it look more impossible than it really is. Had the trick gone off as planned, it would have still posed a similar problem in distance. The fourth impossible situation places the body inside a locked room surrounded by "a square arrangement of dominoes" extending towards the door continuing right up to the last one. So nobody could have left the room without toppling the stones. A clever enough solution and the situation demanded a dash of originality, but found the trick contrived and unconvincing.

Even after all they explain all the locked rooms and apprehend the killer, another murderer strikes with a fifth and final impossible murder. A truly ingenious variation on Yukishiro's masterpiece with added difficulties. This time, the only key to the room is found inside a jam jar and the thumb turn, "used to lock the door from the inside," covered with a gachapon capsule ("...the lid of a capsule toy from a gachapon machine") – which immediately eliminates several potential tricks. Kuzushiro, not Mitsumura, finally gets to solve one with a fresh treatment of John Dickson Carr's "Locked Room Lecture" (see The Three Coffins, 1935). Kuzushiro uses the Locked Room Classification List, created by the Ministry of Justice, which lists all "fifteen different types of locked room tricks in existence.” One by one, Kuzushiro's Ellery Queen-style reasoning eliminates every trick on the list, before revealing "an extremely simple trick that doesn't fit into any existing category." I think this fifth is the best of the half a dozen, or so, impossible crimes with clues to its solution dropped throughout the story and doesn't need a diagram to provide a clear visual image of the trick.

If you haven't had your fill of miracle crimes, the murder that started the locked room boom comes into play as it's linked to one of the characters. That murder is revealed to have been something of nestling doll. Locked rooms within locked rooms! A murder in a mansion surrounded by a high wall with the only entrance under CCTV surveillance. The body was found in the customary locked room with the key to the door locked away in a drawer and the key to the drawer was found in the victim's pocket.

So, yes, the love of locked rooms and physical tricks is front and center of The House of Snow and the Six Tricks, but it's not all tricks, tricks and tricks. Just mostly. There's the intriguing backstory of the Japan's first locked room murder and how it's linked up to the main characters, but also a bit of gruesome meta-playfulness with the playing cards and their true meaning. It helped to make this densely-plotted, very technical and detailed locked room mystery fun and readable. Even though the story sometimes tried to be a little too clever for it's own good, The House of Snow and the Six Tricks comes highly recommended to rabid locked room fanatics and everyone who simply enjoys a meaty puzzle plot. You can expect a review of the sequel sometime in the not so distant future.

Crossover at the Borders: C.M.B. vol. 19 & Q.E.D. vol. 41 by Motohiro Katou

This took longer than planned, but after a year, or two, I finally arrived at the big crossover event between Motohiro Katou's two flagship series, Q.E.D. and C.M.B., which is an international affair bringing casting both series detectives in the roles of special envoys – dispatching them to my country! Now I know why some of you were so eager for me to get to this crossover event.

A crossover event officially beginning in Q.E.D. vol. 41, "Special Envoy of Balkia," but you don't necessarily have to read them order. More on that in a moment.

"Special Envoy of Balkia" centers around ex-president Suami Gareth, of the fictitious Republic of Balkia in eastern Europe, who's primary interest was "hoarding illegal wealth" in smuggled diamonds, money laundering and other criminal activities – which resulted in economic sanctions. So the Republic of Balkia rapidly descended into social unrest and ultimately a short, but bloody, civil war ("he shot his own citizens") killing over thirty thousand people. President Suami Gareth left behind "destroyed buildings and overflowing graves" as he escaped the country. Fortunately, the Belgian police arrested him.

So the new president of the Balkia Republic, Mantley Coudan, requested the ex-president to be extradited to stand trial in Balkia. However, the Belgian authorities refuse to hand him over and intend to hold the trial themselves, because of the danger his return to the country poses. The ex-president still has a lot armed loyalists with a diamond crammed war chest, which could reignite the conflict. And they don't believe Balkia is capable of holding a trial in its current state. Balkia disagrees, "it infringes on our sovereignty," who take the dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands! Sou Touma is asked to represent and argue in the court on behalf of Balkia, while the group representing the Belgium is headed by Touma's cousin, Sakaki Shinra, from C.M.B. Yes, it's kind of awesome to see both of them wandering around my country. Netherlands mentioned!

Now this is where the story becomes a little tricky to discuss, because this crossover is a tale of two identical (copy and paste) stories with diverging endings. The first-half of the C.M.B. part of this crossover, "The Arrested President Affair," is practically identical as it copy/pastes the backstory from "Special Envoy of Balkia" and Touma's explanation of International Court of Justice – except it's from Shinra's perspective. A notable difference between the two is "The Arrested President Affair" giving a better picture of the crimes Suami Gareth committed during his presidency. Rampant corruption and triggering a civil war is bad enough, but his way of dealing with dissenters was forcing "parents and their children to kill each other." Most of the parents/dissenters killed themselves instead, which he referred to as "that boring incident." A crime deserving the kind of justice that can only be dispensed by a hangman, firing squad or a trip on the Orient Express.

So the two cousins and protagonists, Touma and Shinra, find themselves on opposite sides of the international court. Touma argues for Balkia's sovereign rights to be upheld, while Shinra argues to moral side the president must answer for his crimes and Balkia is not a position to make those guarantees ("Balkia cannot be trusted"). Where the stories differ is not in the conclusion of the hearing, but its aftermath which both take a thriller-ish approach. "Special Envoy of Balkia" ends with an out-and-out, anime-style fight scene with a loyalist faction that spills out to the rooftop of a church. It's sounds as ridiculous as it's fun! "The Arrested President Affair" aims with its ending for an international action thriller tying up several loose ends concerning the missing envoy, missing diamonds and bringing justice to war torn country. And no less fun than the epic battle of the other story.

"Special Envoy of Balkia" and "The Arrested President Affair" is certainly a fun, cross promotional crossover and, typical for these two series, not easily pigeonholed. I don't think you can call it a courtroom drama nor an action thriller in the traditional sense, but it sure was an entertaining way to pit Touma and Shinra against one another. That's also it's major drawback. The overall story would have been less repetitive, more effective and tighter had been told in go, i.e. contained to a single volume. But it something that had to be sacrificed for the cross promotion. What could have been fixed is order of the stories. "The Arrested President Affair" should have come before "Special Envoy of Balkia."

An anonymous comment left on my review of Q.E.D. vol. 37-38 pointed out reading the C.M.B. point of view of the case first is better, because you don't know what Touma thinks or why he's making certain moves – which makes for better storytelling. I agree. So far from a perfect or simply a very good story, even judged as one of Katou Motohiro's unorthodox mysteries, but still found it to be an entertaining one. Crossovers are my guilty pleasure and having one of favorite detective character visit my country is almost personalized fan service. That's probably the best way to sum up this crossover: a fan pleaser.

Hold on a minute, there's more. C.M.B. vol. 19 and Q.E.D. vol. 41 have additional, if minor, stories. C.M.B. opens with two shorter stories, "The Master of Ginza Mugen-Tei" and "Dance the Night Away," which try to emulate the character-driven puzzles of Q.E.D. However, I found neither particular interesting nor memorable. Only notable thing about "The Master of Ginza Mugen-Tei" is how inappropriate it's to ask someone of Shinra's age to probe a such a question. Although some would counter it's equally inappropriate to have a teenagers pawing around the scene of a murder or have them argue cases in the International Court of Justice.

The second story from Q.E.D. vol. 41, "Caff's Memories," is a substantial better, character-driven puzzle, but not the best the series has produced. Story begins with Touma visiting a federal prisoner, Caff Darby, in the United States on behalf of his wife. Lin Darby once was a successful fortune who brought her husband fame and fortune, "investor with God's Eye," who studied and wholly believed in her predictive powers ("Lin's predictions have come true 95% of the time"). But his financial windfalls brought him scrutiny from the authorities. And ended up in prison when Lin was wounded during a shooting. So what's Touma supposed to do? The story has an M. Night Shyamalan twist you can see coming the moment Touma slapped down the photograph of the old man on the table, but liked Touma's explanation why he thought Lin could predict the future.

So, yeah, I'm glad to finally have crossed this crossover off the list and continue with the Q.E.D. series, which has nine more volumes. I'll be interspersing them with reviews of C.M.B., until Shinra takes over from Touma on this blog. Rest assured, the reviews of C.M.B. will be interspersed with reviews of Q.E.D. iff. Stay tuned!

The Sealed Room Murder (1934) by James Ronald

I didn't expect the Moonstone Press reprint of James Ronald's The Sealed Room Murder (1934), originally as by "Michael Crombie," to be published before 2025, but Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024) dropped in December – which was a seasonally appropriate surprise. For me, anyway.

This volume comprises of Ronald's ultra rare, long out-of-print The Sealed Room Murder and the serialized novel The Secret of Hunters Keep (1931). The latter is a parody of the country house mystery, containing "enough secret passages and hidden doors to satisfy most readers for the rest of their lives," published in book form under the title The House of Horror. First I'll be taking a look at the former.

John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, reviewed The Sealed Room Murder in 2019 noting that from Ronald's seven "Michael Crombie" novels, only "a handful of copies of four titles turn up for sale at outrageous prices" with other three being "so absurdly rare that only one copy each is held in the British Library." So was really looking forward to this reprint, because The Sealed Room Murder was until recently among the rarest of locked room mysteries with promise and potential. However, it has to be mentioned the book title is a little misleading as the sealed room murder is tucked away in the last twenty, or so, pages. That said, The Sealed Room Murder is a blast and blazed through it in one sitting!

The Sealed Room Murder is pulp-style thriller presented as an inverted mystery playing on, and freshening up, the wicked uncle trope from a bygone era. Godfrey Winter, wicked uncle in a question, is "one of the three leading K.C.'s of the day" who "has saved more than one client who, in the hands of almost any other counsel, would have swung," but his passion for racehorses will keep him from a judge – not without reason. Winter's expenses on his hobby has become greater than his income at the bar and compelled his nephew, Eric Winter, to change his will. A short time later, Eric unexpectedly dies and the doctor is satisfied he died of typhoid fever, but his sister believed their uncle murdered him.

Patricia Winter is determined to upset Uncle Godfrey's perfect little murder. She spreads rumors in the village, writes letters to Scotland Yard and Eric's best friend, Alan Napier, who's on his voyage back to England when he receives her message. During his voyage, Alan befriended Larry Milner, a reporter for the Morning Echo, who turns sleuth to help bring Uncle Godfrey to heel. Hilariously, Milner decided to test a colleague's theory and introduces himself to the barrister by whispering "I know your secret" in his ear. And not without consequences!

After neatly disposing of his nephew, Winter finds himself on the constant defense from his niece, her friends and village gossip. Detective Sergeant Evans, of Scotland Yard, has even come down to the village to question the doctor and gossip mongers. So first tries to imprison Patricia, threaten her with an asylum and eventually makes a serious attempt to kill her, which only makes his position more precarious as now he also has to deal with a blackmailer among his servants ("er... no tricks, sir. I'll be armed"). However, while the suspicious incident and scandal mongering continue to pile on, they have nothing substantial to go on and Winter's standing gives him another layer of protection. Milner is dismissed from the Morning Echo after a complaint from the higher ups to his editor ("his esteemed Lordship was at school with Winter, or something"). So the fight against wicked Uncle Godfrey proves to be an uphill battle.

Towards the end, an apparent suicide is discovered inside a room with the door locked, and bolted, from the inside and the only window securely fastened with a burglar-proof catch – a chimney barely wide enough to allow "the passage of a full-grown cat" ("...far less a man"). Solving this locked room-puzzle could be the final nail in Winter's coffin, but Milner is stumped and consults various mystery writers, a magician and eventually a model scale of the crime scene. There is, of course, only so much you can do with less than twenty pages to go, but appreciated the attempt and spirit in which it was done. I would have loved to have known the solutions proposed by his mystery writing friends. What about the solution to the locked room murder? Well, I wouldn't go as far as calling the locked room-trick routine. No keys turned with pliers, bolts drawn with strings or any shenanigans with the burglar-proof catch after the door was broken down, but you probably have seen the trick before.

But once again, Ronald's didn't allow himself much space to do something really good with the murder giving the book it's title. What surprised me the most about the impossible murder is the choice of victim. Considering the difficulty in gathering evidence against him and the scene in which Winter defended himself, it would have also been quite fitting if he had died in that locked room (SPOILER/ROT13: gur qeht nqqvpgrq ahefr pbhyq unir havagragvbanyyl fgnoorq uvz, juvyr ybbxvat sbe zbecuvar. Naq gur qbpgbe evttrq hc gur ybpxrq ebbz gb znxr vg nccrne yvxr fhvpvqr gb cebgrpg uvzfrys).

So wish more could have been done with the locked room, which is not unreasonable as its titled The Sealed Room Murder, but in every other regard, it's a first-rate pulp mystery. The story never drags or becomes dull as its twists and turn from one chapter to another without becoming a disconnected mess with the characters merely acting on the latest plot developments. James Ronald may be one of the better, traditionally-styled mystery writers to come out of the pulps. Not just as a storyteller, but also someone who had better eye for character than most of his fellow pulpeteers. I don't think The Sealed Room Murder is quite as good as Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938), but it's a good, solid third. Definitely worth a recommendation.

The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints (1945) by Ken Crossen

Kendell Foster Crossen was an American pulp writer of science-fiction, mysteries and a short stories during the 1940s before moving onto private eye and spy fiction in the '50s and '60s, which appeared under numerous different pennames – notably "M.E. Chaber," "Ken Crossen" and "Richard Foster." Just like other pulp writers covered on this blog, Crossen was a fan of impossible crime fiction and penned at least half a dozen of them.

Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) lists only four novels. Firstly, the two "Richard Foster" novels, The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) and The Invisible Man Murders (1945), featuring the Tibetan-American detective, Chin Kwang Kham. Secondly, two of four "Ken Crossen" novels starring Jason Jones and Necessary Smith, but know the Milo March novel Wanted: Dead Men (1965) should have been included in Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019). Crossen also penned an excellent science-fiction mystery hybrid short story, "The Closed Door" (1953). So who knows what more is buried in his catalog of obscure magazine fiction and out-of-print novels.

In 2020, Steeger Books started reprinting the Milo March series in addition to several volumes with the pulp adventures of the Green Lama, but Crossen's pulp mysteries, especially his impossible crime novel, annoyingly remain out-of-print. Like the subject of today's review.

The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints (1945), as by "Ken Crossen," is the second of only two novels, to my knowledge, starring Jason Jones and Necessary Smith – who first appeared together in The Case of the Curious Heel (1944). The book and particularly the two main characters read like a pulp-style send-up of Crossen's favorite mystery writers and fictional detectives. Detective Jason Jones, "fat beyond description," who has an agreement with the police department that they won't promote him as long as they hand him all the unusual cases. When he's not probing strange murder cases, Jones is growing geraniums in his rooftop hothouse. Smith calls him "the poor man's Nero Wolfe," but Jones can also be counted among Dr. Gideon Fell's literary relatives. Jones has a round, red face like Santa Claus that "rested comfortably upon three chins" and even launched into a locked room lecture of his own ("if Clayton Rawson, John Dickson Carr and H.H. Holmes can write long treatises on locked rooms, I guess I can say a few words on impossible situations"). The reason why Jones decides to do a poor man's version of Dr. Fell's locked room lecture is because this case presents the first time he came across a locked house mystery ("do you suppose it might start a whole new trend of methods in the impossible situation?").

The locked house in question a big, three-story private house in upper Manhattan belonging to a famous theatrical producer, Morris Block, who has set up a great and profitable racket. Block blackmails the best people in the theatrical world into working on his productions at "a reasonable salary," which guarantees money and success. But also a ton of enemies.

So it comes as no surprise to the guests when their backstabbing, blackmailing host is stabbed to death during a house party. Fortunately, the murderer left his bloody fingerprints all over the place and the police identity the prints as belonging to Max Thale. A publicity man, for the Mailer Studios out in Hollywood, who came to do publicity work for Block, but Thale has impossibly disappeared from the house when every door was guarded by policemen and the windows couldn't have been used as a exit without disturbing the snow on the outside ledge. There "a good four inches of snow on the ground all around the house without so much as a bird track in it." How could their prime suspect have vanished from the house?

Jason Jones is joined by Necessary Smith, a private investigator, who's hired by Thornton Rockwood, the drama critic of the Morning Star, to investigate the murder because everyone involved are Broadway people – intends to cover the case in his column. So wants someone on the inside of the investigation and promises a five-thousand dollar bonus, on top of his five-hundred dollar retainer, if he can beat the police to the solution. Unfortunately, that possible bone of contention between Jones and Smith is not developed to its full potential.

What follows, plot-wise, is fairly typical fare for a second-string, pulp-style mystery as more bodies and bloody hand prints turn up, which only proves the murderer is a prize idiot. More on that in a moment. The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints still has its moments. Firstly, Crossen indulges in a shameless, but forgivable, piece of self-promotion barely disguised as a plot-thread. One of the clues figuring in the story is a missing mystery novel, Richard Foster's The Laughing Buddha Murders, which is about to be published in the story with only a few advanced copies floating around. So they get to ask the suspects if they like detective stories and have they read The Laughing Buddha Murders. They even find someone, beside the murderer, who loves "the locked room mysteries of John Dickson Carr" and has read an advanced copy. And explains it's about "a Buddha, weighing a ton, which apparently vanished from a locked room." Vulcan Publications even gets in on the action! Secondly, the plot-thread of the missing mystery novel and its significant on the murders is not solved by Jones nor Smith, but by Smith's sharp secretary, Elsie Poll. She solves the whole problem from her office chair in the fine tradition of the great armchair detectives.

There are one, or two, other bits and pieces I enjoyed, but if you're looking for a good piece of impossible crime fiction with preferable a flicker of originality, The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints is not for you. The fingerprint-trick on which the murderer balanced his whole evil scheme was lifted from a Carr novel and Carr got the trick from Hans Gross' criminology handbook. And he was not the only one to use it. I strongly suspect Crossen learned the trick from Carr and think most readers will immediately recognize the trick, especially impossible crime fans, which also exposes how the Max Thale character vanished from the guarded house surrounded by virgin snow. I did like the idea behind the motive for the murder of Morris Block. That's one way to do crime, I suppose. :D But even as a pulp-style impossible crime novel, there's not much to recommend. Very much to my regret.

I liked The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints like a guilty pleasure. I know it's a second-string pulp and not even the best kind of second-string pulp. There's something infectious about Crossen fanboying over his favorite mystery writers, promoting one of his books inside one of his books and doing it without taking itself too seriously. It gives the story the kind of charm making you almost want to overlook the ramshackle, less than original, plotting and one of the dumbest murderer's I have come across in a while.

So The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints is not a great piece of impossible crime fiction, but it's at least entertaining and will be on the look out for The Case of the Curious Heel and the pair of Chin Kwang Kham locked room mysteries.

Note for the curious: Crossen references Nero Wolfe and John Dickson Carr in The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints. Funnily enough, the fingerprint-trick used here can be linked to both writers. I already mentioned Crossen likely got the idea from Carr, but there's an episode of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe radio show, "The Case of the Phantom Fingers" (1951), employing exactly the same trick. Considering how self-referential Crossen is, he might also have made a reference to one of his short stories, "The Case of the Fugitive Fingerprints," published in the June, 1941, issue of Double Detective – as by "Richard Foster." Jones makes a reference to a criminal in California who, years ago, had come up with a fingerprint-trick of his own.

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

Last year, I reviewed The Conjure-Man Dies (1932), "A Harlem Mystery," by African-American physician, radiologist and budding author, Rudolph Fisher, who died in 1934 at the age of 37 from abdominal cancer – assumed to have been caused by his x-ray experiments. Fisher's untimely death ended, what could have been, a fascinating detective series after only one novel.

The Conjure-Man Dies, as to be expected from a first try, is not without its flaws and particular the second-half betrays Fisher was new to the game. During the second-half, the characters, story and plot became increasingly more pulpy, culminating with a heavy-handed, labored ending and solution. So still an experienced writer trying to find his voice and footing in the genre, which would have made it interesting to see how he would developed and improved as a writer/plotter. Fisher was working on two sequels, one provisionally titled Thus Spake the Prophet, but the only glimpse we got of what could have been is a posthumously published short story.

"John Archer's Nose" was originally published in the January, 1935, issue of The Metropolitan, reprinted in Otto Penzler's Black Noir (2009) and included in the Collins Crime Club 2017 reprint of The Conjure-Man Dies – which reunites Detective Perry Dart and Dr. John Archer. I can already tell you I liked "John Archer's Nose" more than The Conjure-Man Dies.

Perry Dart, "weary of the foibles and follies of his Harlem," decides to drop in on his friend, Dr. John Archer, to provoke a good natured, friendly argument between pals. Dart begins with stating Harlemites are "the most superstitious idiots on the face of the earth," but, to his surprise and disbelieve, Archer agrees. Archer had an example in his medical practice of superstition, "of a very dark hue," which didn't end very well. And the day is not over yet. Dr. Archer is called to an apartment building where a young man, Sonny, has been stabbed. When they arrive, they find Sonny on his bed with the black-pearl handle of a knife sticking out of his chest and small, tightly-knit circle of suspects.

There's the victim's grieving mother, Ma Dewey, his sister, Petal, and his brother and sister-in-law, Ben and Letty. And their housemate, Red Brown ("all in the family, eh?"). Dart and Archer have to contend with a case throwing up multiple possibilities that include both an obvious and not so obvious solution. One "person is obviously guilty because everything points to him," while "another is obviously guilty because nothing points to him." And then there's the strange smell Archer noticed around the body. Dart and Archer eventually weed out, what appears to be, the least-likely-suspect and tragic motive from the cast of characters. Only to knock it down as a false-solution to reveal another well-hidden murderer and equally tragic motive. That's where the short story shows a noticeable improvement over the novel that was published two years previously.

One noted problem with The Conjure-Man Dies is that the solution comes out of nowhere. This is true of "John Archer's Nose," sort of, because the reader is not entirely left unprepared for the out-of-nowhere solution. In fact, I think most people will have a hunch from which direction the wind is blowing, but that leaves open the intriguing question how Fisher is going to make that leap... without horrendously crashing and burning. And he didn't! Fisher basically pulled a (SPOILER/ROT13) cynthr pbheg zheqref and just about made it work. So a small technical achievement, plot-wise, showing growing potential lamentably cut short. It would have been interesting to see if Fisher's plotting had improved or was simply better fitted for the short story format. Why does cancer have to ruin everything?

So, all in all, "John Archer's Nose" is a tighter, better written and plotted detective story than the novel-length The Conjure-Man Dies and well worth seeking out.

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

J.S. Savage debuted two years ago with The Mystery of Treefall Manor (2023), a historical locked room mystery, which introduced his two series-characters, Inspector Graves and Constable Carver – an experienced, older detective and his young protege. A debut full of a promise and an outstanding homage to the great detective stories and writers of yesteryear. I wasn't as enthusiastic about the debut of Savage's contemporary mystery series, Sun, Sea and Murder (2024), introducing the ex-Secret Service agent Penny Haylestone, but I'm confident the next one will improve on the first. I already enjoy the idea of Savage alternating between a historical and contemporary series of locked room mysteries and impossible crimes.

That brings us to the second entry in the Graves and Carver series, The Riddle of the Ravens (2024), which is set in November 1926 during the run-up to Guy Fawkes Night.

Graves and Carver are sent to the Tower of London on a not quite routine assignment. Peter Standford, Constable of the Tower of London, turned to Scotland Yard when three of the six ravens died. All three ravens died over the span of a week under mysterious circumstances. There's an old legend "which says that if there are no ravens at the Tower of London, the kingdom will fall," but the ravens also happen to be the property of the King. Graves and Carver have to find out if someone's targeting the feathered custodians of the Tower.

When they arrive, Graves and Carver find the closed community residing within the high, thick walls and battlements of the Tower "practically a ghost town" as everyone else is up in Scotland to attend a funeral – leaving behind a small, tidy and tight-knit group of people. Firstly, there's Peter Standford, his devoted wife Joyce and their rebellious daughter, Emma. Dr. Colin Gibson, Tower doctor, who's an amateur historian greatly interested in the Tower's history and the hidden treasure of John Barkstead ("this is no bedtime fairytale, gentlemen"). Nurse Bess Trent assists him at the hospital block. Sergeant Madan Gurung, a Gurkha, is their only patient recovering from the lingering effects of scarlet fever. Further more, there's the Tower's schoolteacher, Anna Bower, and the one-armed Ravenmaster, Len Kittle. In addition to three Beefeaters (Yeoman Warders), James Burroughs, Bob Cooper and Philip Davies. So, "if there is foul play going on," the mostly deserted Tower provides Graves and Carver with neat, trimmed down list of potential suspects.

Before they can give the riddle of the ravens their full attention, Warder James Burroughs is shot and killed, while tied to a chair, at the Tower's firing range. So the two detectives have to extend their stay at the Tower to hunt for a murderer who gone from killing ravens to shooting warders. More bodies, cadavers, clues and red herrings will litter the grounds of the Tower of London before they're done. Another murder brings an impossible element to the case, but I'll get back to the plot in a moment. There are a few other things other than the puzzle.

Except for the morning briefing at Scotland Yard, The Riddle of the Ravens entirely takes place within the walls of the Tower ("...holding them prisoner") with it ancient traditions and a bloody, thousand year history "where queens and spies were executed, where a king was murdered and princes disappeared" – "where treasure is still buried, hidden to this day." So the book read like a "modern" rendition of one of Paul Doherty's historical locked room mystery novels like The House of the Red Slayer (1992), which also takes place at the Tower of London in December, 1377. I personally enjoyed that unintended effect. Needless to say, the historical setting, color and atmosphere was not wasted on The Riddle of the Ravens. Something I can always appreciate. What's perhaps more important than my personal enjoyment, storywise, is how the classic detectives were subtly updated for this retro-GAD series. Savage evidently wants Graves and Carver to have some depth and backstory, which carefully intertwined into the story when and where it was needed or mattered. So no needlessly long mini-biographies taking big chunks out of the story to dwell on the character's depressing back stories. I really like Graves is actually mentoring the younger, green-as-grass Carver to become the best detective he can be. That might prove an interesting investment into the future of the series. Back to the plot.

The Riddle of the Ravens is, as to be expected even after only two previous novels, an impossible crime and centers on the murder weapon: how can the gun have been used when Graves and Carver observed it hanging on the wall at the time it fired the fatal shots? A murder weapon under lock and key or observation is a rarity of the impossible crime with a pleasingly elaborate solution to match, but the impossibility is not central focus of the investigation. Just another part of an increasingly complicated puzzle for Graves and Carver. There are "many people with secrets" that need to be pried loose, movements to be tracked, alibis to be scrutinized, motives to be found and a piece of doggerel to be deciphered. And not to be forgotten the riddle of the dead ravens. Best of all, Savage appears to be determined to restore the fair play principles of the Golden Age detective story and planted a fair amount of clues among the red herrings and potential suspects. Sometimes the clues were a little too subtle, but that's really looking for faults where none exist. It's just nice to see properly clued, cleverly plotted detective fiction being written and published again.

Savage's The Riddle of the Ravens is a pleasingly elaborate, well-constructed and fairly clued detective novel representing another step towards that second Golden Age. It's coming! So look forward to the third title in the series, which, if I correctly interpreted the foreshadowing, is going to be set during Christmas, but expect the second Penny Haylestone novel to be next. Until then, The Riddle of the Ravens comes recommended as a solid retro-GAD novel.

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

Mignon G. Eberhart was an American mystery writer whose life and career covered the better part of the previous century, publishing her first novel in 1929 and last one in 1988, before retiring and passing away in 1996 – aged 97. So she can be counted with Michael Innes and Aster Berkhof as the last and longest lived of the Golden Age mystery writers.

During her long, lucrative career, Eberhart became one of the top selling American crime writers and reportedly the first to be labeled "America's Agatha Christie." However, Eberhart was a very different kind of novelist closely linked to Mary Roberts Rinehart and the often dismissed "Had-I-But-Known" School of romantic mystery, domestic suspense and creepily atmospheric backdrops. Rinehart and her followers don't particularly interest me, but also think they're too easily dismissed as they've produced some first-rate detective fiction. For example, Mabel Seeley's The Listening House (1938), Anita Blackmon's Murder à la Richelieu (1938) and the works of Dorothy Cameron Disney and Lenore Glen Offord. Fine specimens of the American detective story.

Eberhart mostly wrote standalone mysteries and suspense novels, but she started her career with two series-characters, Nurse Sarah Keate and policeman Lance O'Leary – who appeared together in seven novels. These earlier works reportedly are true detective novels with their characters, plots and storytelling enhanced by an eerie mood and creeping atmosphere of doom. And the occasional impossible crime also helped putting the series on my radar.

The Mystery of Hunting's End (1930), listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991), is an obvious choice, but it's From This Dark Stairway (1931) that has been on my wishlist for ages. John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, reviewed it years ago and identified it as "one of the uncommon examples of a Golden Age detective novel in the murderer's name is not revealed until the final sentence," which "is well worth seeking out for that tour de force bit of mystery writing alone." From This Dark Stairway somehow never got further than being jotted down on that big, messy pile on known as my wishlist, until last year, when it got reprinted by MysteriousPress/Open Road. So on the big pile it went!

The backdrop of From This Dark Stairway is Melady Memorial Hospital during "the worst of a few days of extreme heat in July" and begins following a day of stifling humidity, which filled the beds with heat stroke and putting nurses on edge – only things are about to get worse. And a lot stranger. Peter Melady, head of the Melady Drug Company, grandson of the hospital's founder and chairman of its board, is currently a patient of Dr. Leo Harrigan. Melady is scheduled for surgery and they've been trying to get his weak heart in shape for the operation, but, after years of friendship, Melady and Dr. Harrigan unaccountably became "the most determined of enemies." So why would Melady allow Dr. Harrigan to operate on him? That's the situation when Dr. Harrigan decides to go ahead with the surgery earlier than intended and wheels Melady on a gurney into the elevator to the operating theater. Somewhere along the way, the elevator gets stuck. And when it gets back to work, Nurse Keate finds an empty gurney and the body of Dr. Harrigan with an amputation knife in his chest!

So, apparently, Melady had killed Dr. Harrigan and made himself scarce, however, it was "physically impossible" for the frail, sickly Melady to have stabbed the bigger, heavier and more powerful Dr. Harrigan. But his disappearance also presents something of an impossibility. The hospital is locked for the night, "not much chance of an outsider getting into the hospital," but also keeps everyone inside. When the place is searched, Melady is not found anywhere. That's not the only puzzling aspect of, what the newspapers would call, the "Mad Mystery at Melady Memorial."

Melady was a collector of objects of art and had ask for a Chinese snuff bottle from his collection to be brought to his bedside ("something pretty to look at"), but the antique bottle is stolen following the murderer. Another puzzling aspect is the whereabouts of the formula for a new anesthetic, Slæpan, which Melady was about to market. Than there's the lump of chewing gum found on Dr. Harrigan's sleeve, possible fingerprints wiped from the knife handle and a surprising set of fingerprints found on the light bulb inside the elevator. Not to mention a surprising number of viable suspects wandering around the night-locked hospital. Melady and Dr. Harrigan have respectively their daughter, Dione, and wife, Ina, as fellow patients in the same hospital wing with Dione's husband, Court, wandering between rooms. And so much more!

From This Dark Stairway has a plot and setup that would been perfect for a Dell mapback edition. From the hospital setting that would have made for a splendid map on the back cover to the "What this MYSTERY is about" (an impossible disappearance, a stolen snuff bottle, a missing formula...) and "Wouldn't You Like to Know..." (why there wouldn't have been a murder if the patient in the charity ward hadn't died or why O'Leary thought the solution is "a plain as the nose on your face"). So despite its Had-I-But-Known trappings, Eberhart delivered a detective novel very much in the tradition of her then emerging contemporaries of the American Golden Age mystery, especially close to Ellery Queen's The French Powder Mystery (1930) and The Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931). The French Powder Mystery is one of the first detective stories to not reveal the murderer's name until the final sentence of the book and The Dutch Shoe Mystery takes place in a hospital, but there's also the thorough search of the crime scene and, when O'Leary makes his belated entry, rapidly leads the hapless Sergeant Lamb and Nurse Keate to the only correct solution and a very well hidden murderer.

So not necessarily a detective story pulling a grand surprise or a mind blowing trick, like Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, but bringing order and logic to a complicated tangle of apparently illogical incidents – revealing the only person who could have done it. And it does it very well. Well, mostly. If there's anything to complain about, plot-wise, it's that the motive is a bit impenetrable and next to impossible to arrive at the murderer's identity from the direction of motive, but other than that, it stands as a fine example of the American detective story from the early 1930s.

However, I would be amiss if I were only to highlight the plot and ignored Eberhart's excellently handling of the hospital setting and atmosphere. From This Dark Stairway takes place during Nurse Keate's various night shifts during an oppressive, sweltering heat wave with flies buzzing around desk lamps, thuds of late June bugs against the windows screens and the police ransacking the place for clues, while "the routine of caring for the sick" continued as usual. Even better is how the conclusion to case comes as a big storm is about to break to chase away the oppressive heat. It created a true moment of relief for the characters followed by O'Leary unraveling of the whole knotted, tangled affair with the name of the murderer being the final punctuation to the book. Bravo! Very much worth a look for fans of Golden Age detective fiction.