Locked and Loaded, Part 7: A Selection of Short Impossible Crime and Locked Room Mystery Stories

So lately, I noticed an unaccountable, unacceptable dearth in locked room and impossible crime reviews which needed immediate correction to bring this blog back to its previous acceptable conditions, standards and core values – only one way to do it. There are actually two ways to do it, but the reprint of Pierre Boileau's Six crimes sans assassin (Six Crimes Without a Murderer, 1939) is not out for another six months. I decided to do another "Locked and Loaded" instead.

In 2020, I posted the first part of the extremely irregular "Locked and Loaded" series and have now compiled seven of them covering locked room and impossible crime stories covering a period of 118 years stretching from 1905 to 2023. You can read my reviews, not in chronological order, in "Locked and Loaded" part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. So let's start on part 7.

Fredric Brown's "The Djinn Murder," originally published in the January, 1944, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, begins when Professor John E. Trent, teaching Psychology IV (Abnormal), is approached by Harvey Glosterman – who really needs a specialist in the occult. Glosterman's retired brother, John Glosterman, collects "objects connected with primitive superstitions" like "old idols, spirit gongs, juju masks, voodoo drums" and recently brought a djinn bottle home from his travels. An earthenware bottle, "Seal of Solomon on the wax," supposedly emprisoning a very powerful, dangerous demon named Eydhebhe. John Glosterman foolishly broke the seal on the bottle and promptly vanished into thin air. However, the impossibility is not Glosterman's disappearance, but how he continued to communicate with his brother through "spirit rappings" coming from the study. Trent believes Glosterman was cleverly disposed and catches his killer by replicating the rapping sounds.

Now, ghostly tapping and other disembodied sounds tend be minor stuff when it comes to impossible crime fiction. Usually little more than small plot-thread or side issue explained away with variations of the same answers pulled from the spiritual medium's bag of tricks, but Brown offered an entirely new solution to the problem. Or, at least, one that's new to me. Still very minor stuff as both an impossible crime and detective story, but a very entertaining, pulp-style mystery.

Anthony Boucher's "The Anomaly of the Empty Man," first published in the April, 1952, issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, tries to take a page from John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court (1937) by presenting a puzzle with a logical and supernatural solution. "The Anomaly of the Empty Man" is told by a man named Lamb, but not sure if this the Martin Lamb from Boucher's The Case of the Seven of Calvary (1937). Anyway, Inspector Abrahams calls Lamb to the apartment of James Stambaugh, collector of early operatic recordings and philanderer, who disappeared from the clothes he had been wearing ("...sucked dry of its fleshly tenant") – which is tighter impossibility than my description suggests ("...try slipping your foot out of a laced-up shoe and see if you can get that result"). What follows is a bit of a trip, but it boils down to Lamb being presented with two solutions to the problem. The supernatural solution comes from Dr. Verner believing the disappearance was caused by a haunted record from dead opera singer whom he believed carried The Death Wish ("men who knew her too well hungered no longer for life"). Inspector Abrahams found a much better, more convincing and really neat answer for how a man can be disappeared from inside his own suit of clothing. Needless to say, I prefer the inspector's solution over Dr. Verner's cursed record.

And no, the culprit was not a tall, green insect-like individual using his javelin-tipped tail as a sippy straw. If that had been Dr. Verner's alternative solution, I would have sided with him over Inspector Abrahams.

Joseph Commings "The Fraudulent Spirit" originally appeared in the September/October, 1960, issue of Mystery Digest (as by "Monte Craven") and reprinted in the anthology Wicked Spirits: Mysteries, Spine Chillers and Lost Tales of the Supernatural (2024). A few years before the story's opening, Mrs. Jasmine Leslie fell to her death from the outdoor terrace of her New York penthouse, twenty stories up, which the police dismissed as an unfortunate accident – because she had gardening gloves on and a a trowel was left on the terrace. Years later, Jasmine's widowed husband, Fergus Leslie, becomes engaged to Suzanne Dittner and falls under the spell of a spiritual medium, Mme. Olympe. She has done the usual routine with spirit writing appearing on the ceiling during a séance in a locked room, making objects drop out of thin air and claiming to have "greater levitation powers" than D.D. Home ("he floated in and outta upper windows of a house on Jermyn Street in London"). Mme. Olympe also needs money to start her own spiritualist movement and Leslie is willing to provide the funds, but only if she perform a truly convincing séance.

Suzanne Dittner turns to Lt. Barney Grant, of the NYPD, for help. Fortunately, Grant just so happens to have Senator Brooks U. Banner as a visitor. Banner is an old hand when it comes spiritual mediums and the fundamentally impossible, but, even better, Banner remembers Mme. Olympe when "she was dressed in a leopard-skin, leading a carnival parade on the biggest elephant at the Minnesota State Fair." So they attend the séance during which Jasmine's ghost appears on the terrace, disappears and reappears moments later on the terrace of the penthouse across the street! Not really an impossible situation involving levitation, but teleportation and not necessarily a bad one. Just a bit muddled in parts and that knocks it down a peg. "The Fraudulent Spirit" started out as a companion in miniature to Hake Talbot's Rim of the Pit (1944), but ended up being a kindred spirit of David Renwick's Jonathan Creek series (ROT13: yvxr gur hfr bs na haxabja nppbzcyvpr gb perngr gur vzcbffvoyr fvghngvba). So while not one for the best-of list, "The Fraudulent Spirit" should not fail to entertain fans of these type of impossible crime stories involving séances, fraudulent mediums and ghostly murders.

Jeffry Scott's "The Brick Overcoat," originally published in the December, 1990, issue of EQMM, slowly moves away from the recurring themes of the previous three short stories, but not entirely as one, of two, impossibilities whispered threats – coming from nowhere. Jenny is working on reviving the once derelict Malreward Theater, currently between productions, which has seen its fair share of tragedy over its hundred year history. But did it pick up a few ghosts along the way? Jenny confides in Detective-Sergeant Nick Flinders she has heard a disembodied voice whisper a chilling threat, "I'll make you a brick overcoat," when she was all alone in the empty, locked theater. Nick Flinders is a hardened skeptic ("half the theaters in England are supposed to be haunted"), but promises to investigate and begins to comb through the old theater, "an untidy labyrinth of grimy brick cells," for answers. Flinders finds an answer, but is it the correct answer? It's enough to reassure Jenny, but Flinders soon returns to the theater when his half-answer could be the key to another case. A case in which a package unaccountably disappeared from a locked room. While more of a modern crime story than a traditional, fair play mystery, "The Brick Overcoat" is not a bad story at all and appreciated its classical trimmings.

Simon Clark's "The Adventure of the Fallen Star" was originally written for Mike Ashley's The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (1997). I reviewed Clark's other Sherlock Holmes pastiche "The Climbing Man" (2015) back in 2021, which presented the Great Detective with a fresh corpse discovered inside a sealed, undisturbed 3000-year-old archaeological site – like it enough to track down this particular pastiche. Sherlock Holmes is asked a favor by Professor Charles Hardcastle, specialized in metallurgical sciences, who once helped him "lay to rest the matter of the golden bullet murders in King's Lynne." Professor Hardcastle is interested in "aerolites" (i.e. meteorites) and has a collection of them in his private laboratory at his home in Homestead. A particular meteorite had recently been taken from the locked laboratory and turned up again in his son's bedroom. Holmes is asked to look if there's something to the case, but, when he arrives with Watson, they find a half mad Hardcastle. The backstory of the meteorite reveals who's behind it all and why, but now how this person got through locked doors. And the answer to that question is a big meh.

Elizabeth Elwood's "The Chess Room," first published in the November/December, 2019, issue of EQMM, closes out this random selection on a high note. The first-half of the story introduces Chloe Helms, a cleaning lady, who works at the Hanover building owned by the wheelchair bound, octogenarian chess fanatic, Jacob Russell – who takes a liking to her. So "the Hanover grapevine buzzed with the rumor that she had become the latest threat to David's inheritance" and David, Jacob's son, is not amused ("the exact term he used was gold digger") causes nothing than misery for Chloe. This situation culminates with the pressure getting too much shooting himself inside his beloved chess room storing his collection of varied chess boards and pieces. Chloe was one of the people standing outside the door when the shot was heard and every other exit was either locked or under observation. The second-half takes a procedural approach to the locked room problem as Detective Constable Annie Blake and her team take charge. There's a part of the locked room-trick that hard, if not impossible, to anticipate, but loved the classically-styled twist.

So, all in all, not a spectacular haul, but not a thoroughly bad one either. When it comes to the locked rooms and impossible situations, only Boucher truly impressed and Brown scoring bonus points for originality. Elwood is a good, solid second. Commings' take on the miraculous levitation/transportation is fun, but too muddled to be really good. I enjoyed Scott's story more for its storytelling than its plotting and Clark's pastiche was meh. Let's hope that the next installment of randomly thrown together impossible crime stories uncovers a real gem, but next up is a classic locked room reprint.

The Ark (2022) by Haruo Yuki

When compiling and cobbling together "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries," I mulled over including a disaster-themed detective novel, but was not entirely sure whether disaster detectives counted as hybrid mysteries or not – decided not to include one. It only dilutes the concept if every detective story in which a mine explodes or a submarine is sunk with survivors aboard. Not to mention the knock-on effect of wartime novels suddenly qualifying as hybrid mysteries.

However, there are disaster detectives, rare as they are, in which the disaster is central to the story rushing along the plot. I suppose Ellery Queen's The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933) is a good, early example of the disaster detective hybrid and it's impossible to ignore Nevada Barr's Firestorm (1996). So this issue needed further probing and why I looked forward to two translations Pushkin Vertigo announced last year as forthcoming.

Akane Araki's Konoyo no hate no satsujin (Murder at the End of the World, 2022) takes place during humanity's last three months as a civilization ending meteor hurls towards our planet, which should be out around late July or early August. Haruo Yuki's Hakobune (The Ark, 2022), translated by Jim Rion, had been out for a few months now and merges the classically-styled, closed circle whodunit with a survival thriller – arrival of my copy coincided with an interesting review. Countdown John reviewed Yuki's The Ark right after it was published and observed, "I think this qualifies as a hybrid mystery, in this case a cross between a classic mystery and a disaster movie." Agreed! The Ark is exactly the kind of disaster detective/thriller that works as a hybrid mystery, but let's start at the beginning.

The Ark begins when a group of former students and members of their university's hiking club reunite two years after graduating. Firstly, there's Shuichi Koshino, a system engineer, who narrates the story. Shuichi brought along his smartly dressed cousin, Shotaro, who's going to be Ellery Queen-like detective and not the infallible version. Other friends from the old hiking club are Sayaka Nouchi, a yoga teacher, Hana Takatsu, an office worker, Yuya Nishimura, vaguely doing something with fashion, Ryuhei and Mai Itoyama. They got married shortly after graduating. Yuya has hiked in the area before and had discovered an underground building in the mountains. A three floor, subterranean steel structure into a huge cavern with the whole structure following "the shape of a naturally occurring cave" giving it the form of an ark ("...like in the Old Testament?"). The place has a murky past possibly involving militant groups, cults and criminals. Yuya suggests they go explore The Ark, but has trouble finding the entrance to the tunnel. So it quite late when they finally find the entrance and bump into a family of three, the Yazakis, who were out hunting mushrooms when they got lost. They have to camp for the night inside The Ark.

During the night, the mountain is rocked by an earthquake that set the barricade boulder rolling and blocking the exit. The earthquake also caused the trickle of water that had already claimed the bottom floor to increase. So they were trapped for the time being, because there's a way out that comes with a huge moral dilemma: the boulder can be moved, but it would trap the person working the winch to be trapped alone inside a small, cavern-like room – no guarantee the rest can return in time with help. Who has to be sacrificed? Before they can even think about it, one of them is found strangled to death in a storeroom! So now they not only have to deal with being trapped, while the water is slowly rising, but one of them unquestionably being a murderer. Even more baffling is why commit murder under these dire circumstances, especially after finding out they need a sacrifice to escape?

What they need to do is find the killer and force that person to make the sacrifice, because they're going to be hanged for murder anyway. Fortunately, the Ark has a working generator with a weeks worth of fuel giving them some time to find the murderer and that's my sole gripe with The Ark. A detective story can be too much driven by coincidence, but The Ark is the only detective story driven entirely by convenience. The situation inside the Ark would have played out completely different had their been no lights or a way to keep their smartphones charges. Not to mention the left over supplies and tools scattered across the numerous room or the old, outdated, but still working security camera system guarding the blocked entrance and exit. However, convenient as the situation may for the purpose of the plot, Haruo Yuki used those plot conveniences to their full potential to tell this story.

So with about a week until fuel runs out and the water reaches them, Shuichi and Shotaro set out to find the murderer, but the first murder is just a plain murder. The storeroom "had not been locked from the inside, no article of clothing was missing for unexplained reasons, nothing in the room had been inexplicably turned upside down" and "no dying message." Only the baffling question why the murderer picked this moment to strike. While the first murder was "almost disappointingly free of puzzles," the second murder is a typical, gruesome shin honkaku slaying. Every action to killer took to be "simply mystifying." Why stab and decapitate a corpse? What happened to the head? Why dispose of the victim's belonging? And why kill when being trapped underground? Merely a few of the puzzling questions surrounding this second and third, arguably even stranger murder.

Haruo Yuki delivered some devilish clever answers to those questions, like why cut off the head of the second victim, but even better is the role the character's smartphones played though out their ordeal. I mentioned in the past how much I dislike the claim how advances in forensic science and technology in generally had made the traditionally-plotted, Golden Age-style detective novel obsolete. An argument Isaac Asimov demolished in the granddaddy of hybrid mysteries, The Caves of Steel (1953/54), but The Ark provides several practical and ingenious examples for our time. If you ever wondered what the greats from the Golden Age could have done with today's technology, The Ark should give you a pretty good idea. Where the plot and story excels is when the time has come to put everything together as Shotaro reveals the murder through an Ellery Queen-style chain of reasoning and deductions by going over identifiable action and step the killer took from the first to third murder. But then it's time to get out.

Anyone somewhat familiar with Japanese authors penchant for dark, bleak endings and tragic twists can feel something coming in the epilogue. I expected something normal and mundane. Something like the survivors emerging from the Ark to discover the earthquakes were caused by an apocalyptic event like a nuclear war or an asteroid strike, but I didn't see that twist coming. A cruel, beautiful twist making for an unforgettable ending. Even more impressive, the revelation in the epilogue serves as the finishing touch of perfection as it revealed the crimes to have been truly unique to that place and harrowing week inside the Ark. There was no other time or place where the motive for these murder could have arising except among that group of people trapped inside. So, yes, I enjoyed this one very much.

Haruo Yuki's The Ark is simply a plot-technical marvel of the 21st century detective novel with a time-honored approach to the age-old question of whodunit? Highly recommended!

I plan to do "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Translations from Pushkin Vertigo" sometime in the future, but picking just ten is, fittingly enough, going to be a bloodbath.

The Darker the Night (1949) by Herbert Brean

There are a handful of dusty, timeworn tropes and cliches that make detective fans despair when they rear their ugly head in a mystery, novel or short story, published after 1920 – tropes and cliches that belong to that pre-Golden Age period. Namely, secret passageways, untraceable poisons, exotic animals and surprise twins. But nothing can make most of us cringe as hard as a detective story involving hypnosis and mesmerism. A trope and crutch of bad, third-rate pulp fiction rarely making for good detective fiction.

So this antipathy against mixing hypnotism and mesmerism with mystery and detection is probably why Herbert Brean's second Reynold Frame novel, The Darker the Night (1949), is rarely mentioned. And, until recently, almost never discussed or reviewed. Sure, it doesn't help it's sandwiched in between stuck Brean's most famous (Wilders Walk Away, 1948) and best (Hardly a Man is Now Alive, 1950) detective novels, but the edition currently easiest to find (Pocket Book) has the off-putting phrase "was a hypnotist controlling THE KILLER?" screaming across its cover. Not something to inspire confidence or curiosity in fans of vintage mysteries. Most of can cite examples from first-rate writers, like Clyde B. Clason or Carter Dickson, who tried to do something halfway decent with it and failing miserably. The Darker the Night is not that kind of mystery and needed to tidy up this series one day. So why not now?

Reynold Frame, a freelance photographer, writer and amateur detective, returned to New York from his adventures in Wilders Lane, Vermont, to await the arrival of his fiancee, Constance Wilders – who try to get married in the next novel. While perusing the newspaper, Frame spots the name of an old college flame, Lee Ballantyne. A one-paragraph story reporting the death of Douglas Ballantyne, a Cleveland attorney and ex-judge, who "jumped or fell to his death today from the 26th floor of the Barchester Hotel." Frame contacts Lee to see if there's anything he can do for her, but, shortly after their reunion, begins to suspect her uncle's death was due to a push rather than a dizzy spell on a dangerous balcony. Frame begins to investigate, what could be, murder involving friends and friends of friends.

There's the wealthy, likable widow, Margaret O'Hara, who's engaged to an ex-British army major, Varian Trevor. Eddie Nolan, hero of the World Series, Glance Keenly, a night club singer, socialite "Bix" Ramsay, soap opera writer Annie St. Ann, night club hypnotist Gary Price and his willing subject, Adele Swatcher. A small, close-knit group that makes up its own slice of night club scene and Frame's investigation takes place against "indefatigable buzz and murmur an clink of a New York cocktail party." This close-knit group is fascinated with hypnotism and being hypnotized by their friend Gary Price naturally raising some questions about Ballantyne's death. Even more so, when another person from this close-knit group falls out of a window.

Like I said, hypnosis in a detective story is a crimson red flag, but Brean raised the subject practically at the outset as a double reassurance. Hypnosis was not going to be used as a lazy, cop-out explanation and likely not much to do with how the murders were done, but more on that in a minute.

Beside the hypnotism angle, there's more to the deaths needing investigation like why Douglas Ballantyne asked Margaret O'Hara to postpone her engagement? Why has one of them gone missing? Why is Benny the Bump, an ex-mobster, trying to silence Frame? Benny the Bump turned out to be surprisingly fun character providing the book with one, of two, memorable sequences when Frame finds him. The other one comes when "playing detective" comes with consequences and Frame has to find a way to escape from Detective James Kilroy and Assistant D.A. Philip la Vella. If anything, The Darker the Night is another testament to Brean's talent as a storyteller ensuring you keep turning the pages. Only things occasionally slowing down the pace are the wonderful, often lengthy footnotes on subjects such as the rarity of defenestration, historical New York murders and ESP – even a recipe for spiedino romana. The footnotes are meant to be a nod to S.S. van Dine, but Brean made the odd, curious footnotes a quirk of his own.

That brings me to the plot of The Darker the Night. So, of course, neither the two victims or the murderer acted under the haze of an hypnotic spell. Brean may have been a better writer and storyteller than plotter, but neither was he third-rate who would seriously offer hypnosis as an explanation for how the murders were pulled off. However, while hypnosis was not the cause of the deaths, neither has it a good alternative explanation. Someone was pushed from a balcony and another one was hurled out of a window. So it comes down to whodunit and why, not how. It has been remarked "you could really tag anyone as the culprit with similar result," but have to disagree as that would ignore inventive motive tying and holding everything together.

The Darker the Night is very similar in that regard as the last of the Frame novels, The Clock Strikes Thirteen (1954). Neither fail to entertain or fascinate, but their thin-ish plots needed the characters, backdrop and situation to carry them to a full-fledged book. So a good, fun book, but definitely one falling into the category "for fans and completists only." If you're new to Brean's shamefully neglected detective fiction, I recommend giving Wilders Walks Away, Hardly a Man is Now Alive or the often overlooked The Traces of Brillhart (1960) a shot.

By the way, I'm near completing Brean myself. There's only the standalone novel Collar for the Killer (1957) and a dozen uncollected (hint, hint, C&L) short stories left to go.

Inspector De Klerck and Tears for Valentine (2026) by P. Dieudonné

Recently, E-Pulp published the 14th title in P. Dieudonné's Rotterdam Police series, Rechercheur De Klerck en tranen om Valentijn (Inspector De Klerck and Tears for Valentine, 2026), which has a different tread on its plot than previous entries – centering on a series of disappearances instead of murder. This series oscillates between the modern police procedural/crime fiction and the more traditionally-styled detective stories. Inspector De Klerck and Tears for Valentine squarely falls into the modern category, but the story is a bit of roller coaster with an unexpected, satisfying conclusion. I'm getting ahead of the story.

Inspector De Klerck and Tears for Valentine begins with a panicky phone call to the police. Dorette Vroom is frightened and scared that something has happened to her boyfriend, Bart Biervliet, who went out to confront the man who has been bothering his seven-year-old daughter. The last drop was a Valentine card send to the girl. Bart Biervliet "was determined to teach that pervert a lesson," taking along a hockey stick, but never returned and doesn't answer his call. Inspectors Lucien de Klerck and Ruben Klaver answer the call, only to find out the case is not as straightforward as it first appeared.

First of all, the man suspected of trying to contact Biervliet's daughter, Nico Pelsmaeker, appears to have nothing to do with what he has been accused of. So De Klerck wonders if the Valentine card was bait to lure Biervliet to a secluded place, but who and why? And what happened to the body? A possibility that begins to gain traction as Biervliet's complicated private and professional life begin to stir their investigation by throwing up complications, one after another, as the people involved either go on the run or disappear themselves – always under somewhat similar circumstances ("...lured away to a lonely place..."). What really adds interest to the story, considering how it started, is Biervliet's background as editor-in-chief of an opinion magazine, Vrij Onverveerd Vaderland (Free Undaunted Fatherland). More importantly, his past work and association with De Spanningsgids (Suspense Guide).

Dieudonné opened Inspector De Klerck and Tears for Valentine with a short preface thanking "the friendly people at the publisher who recounted their experiences with the darker sides of the book trade" and "allowed to make full use of their recorded experiences" for the book. If you have read my previous reviews of Dutch detective novels, classics and modern, you probably picked up on the fact that the Netherlands is a hostile place for not only traditionally-inclined detective fiction ("those sourpusses thought that detective novels should actually be thrillers"), but independent publisher and basically everything that's not proper crime fiction. For example, Dieudonné notes in the preface that you can't find his novels in the majority of bookstores in the country, "there are even provinces where practically no bookstore participates in the sale," wanted to explain why that is through this story. Oh, boy, did he ever!

When they start digging into the shenanigans of De Spanningsgids, De Klerck and Klaver uncover everything ranging from bullying and gatekeeping to biased or malicious reviews. M.P.O. Books, better known to some of you as "Anne van Doorn," can tell you what a malicious review can do when you're an author with a small publisher. So that put a very different spin and tone on the story from where it started, but then everything began to dovetail in its final stretch and ending. Now, like I said, Inspector De Klerck and Tears for Valentine is very much from in the modern, not classical, tradition and most of you would probably sneer at the murderer's identity – which can be taken as a cheat. However, there was a hint, or two, for the observant reader to spot. Yes, I spotted it and figured out the identity of the extremely well-hidden culprit, but that's not what made the ending so satisfying. That goes to the solution revealing what ultimately happened to the men who went missing without a trace. De Klerck rightfully called it "a unique case."

My personal taste and bias, of course, favors more detective story-like titles such as 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 dode weldoener (Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist, 2025), but wouldn't want to have missed that ending for the world! Never knowing, exactly, what type of crime/detective next novel will turn out to be is part of the fun. It can be a straightforward politieroman like Rechercheur De Klerck en het duistere web (Inspector De Klerck and the Dark Web, 2022) or something much weirder like Rechercheur De Klerck en een dodelijk pact (Inspector De Klerck and a Deadly Pact, 2022). Whatever the next novel turns out to be, I'm looking forward to it.

Cross Marks the Spot (1933) by James Ronald

Last year, the Moonstone Press completed their ambitious, massive reprinting project of James Ronald's nearly forgotten, long out-of-print pulp and detective fiction spread out over a dozen volumes – which started with Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023). A volume collecting Ronald's earliest endeavors as a writer and included the once obscure, sought after novel Six Were to Die (1932), but Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938) from vol. 2 and 4 proved to be the true highlights from this run of reprints. A run that closed out with the publication of Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 12: She Got What She Asked For (2025).

The last time I visited Ronald's pulpy brand of detective fiction was more than a year ago when reviewing The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) and The Sealed Room Murder (1934) from Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024). So high time I returned to Ronald and decided to go with Cross Marks the Spot (1933) collected in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 6: Cross Marks the Spot (2024).

Cross Marks the Spot is the first, of two, novel-length novels featuring Ronald's best realized, regrettably short-lived series detective, Julian Mendoza, who's an ex-adventurer turned ace reporter for the Morning World – becoming known the Bloodhound of Fleet Street. Mendoza also appeared in five (short) novels that appeared in The Thriller Library series and a rewrite of Cross Marks the Spot under the title The Frightened Girl (as by "Michael Crombie"). The first chapter here gives an excellent introduction of Mendoza while neatly setting up the plot.

Mendoza has lived the life of a "reckless adventurer" since he was a youth, until a near fatal encounter with a lion left one of his legs "a pitiful scarred and shrunken limb," which forced him to return to London. Restless as ever, Mendoza decided to be come crime reporter ("criminals are merely men with the instincts of animals") and hunt down murderers for the Morning World despite his handicap ("in a civilized city half a man is as good as a whole one"). When the story opens, Mendoza has become restless again and goes out in streets looking for a good story. And what he gets hold of turns out to be next morning's headline. Mendoza spots a young, beautiful, but obvious frightened, woman fleeing the Dorian Building. A building of luxurious apartments where the famous movie magnate, Jacob Singerman, who had an appointment with the frightened woman that went disastrous.

Shortly after this scene, Hyman Singerman arrives at Dorian House to discover his brother's body with a bullet hole in his head. Mendoza worms himself into the case by impersonating a Scotland Yard detective and goes over the scene, before the official police has even arrived. Mendoza discovers the frightened woman is an aspiring movie actress, Cicely Foster, but, when he tracks her down, she says she had only hit him when became physical ("...there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for me if I would be nice to him"). If she didn't shot Singerman, who did and how? As it must have been done within the short window of time between Cicely Foster's hasty exit and Hyman Singerman's arrival. Just in time as the police finally catches up Mendoza, but convinces Inspector Howells to work on the case alongside him. That brings him to Jacob and Hyman Singermans' Colossal Film Company.

Now it has been commented upon in the past how classic British mysteries taking place at film studios rarely tend to be good detective stories, even from normally top-tier mystery authors like Edmund Crispin (Frequent Hearses, 1940) or Carter Dickson (And So to Murder, 1950). One reason given is too much focus on the background and mise-en-scène than story and plot. That's not the case as Ronald opted for a series of short, sharp scenes that show the plain, ugly woodwork behind the scenes of the movie studio business covering everything from struggling, poverty stricken actors to the higher ups at the studio and the power they wield over everyone below them – providing another plot-thread that could have been its own novel. Colossal Film Company is currently paying through their nose to produce a film directed by the mad scientist of the movie industry, Gustav von Blom, who can spend thousands of pounds to make a foot of film. Von Blom is also a typical, temperamental and abusive artist who's notoriously difficult to work with.

The movie Von Blom is shooting involves an internal triangle, but found the emotions and passion of the cast lacking in realism. So fired the whole cast and started from scratch by engaging two actors and an actress, Russell Clayton, Philip Dressler and Norma Lavery, who are involved in a real-life love triangle. Von Blom contracted them separately and only told them a day before rehearsals. They, of course, refuse to take part in, what's essentially, an emotional snuff movie, but they already signed the contracts ("...murder will be done before it's finished"). Add to this Von Blom rooms at Dorian House and has a motive, an attempted murder of a studio employee and Mendoza demonstrating what a one-legged man can do in an ass kicking when he knows his jiu jitsu, Cross Marks the Spot never bores for a second. More importantly, the plot holds up a lot better than the second Mendoza novel, Death Croons the Blues (1934), which fell apart with its ridiculous solution. Fortunately, the solution here held together even when parts of Ronald's pulp roots came to the surface. Not a bad conclusion either. Perhaps not quite as good, overall, as Murder in the Family and They Can't Hang Me, but a good, solid and well-deserved third place. Recommended as a good, fun and fast-paced mystery novel with pulp tendencies and great introduction to James Ronald and one of his best, too short lived detectives.

The Hit List: 10 More Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated

In 2023, I posted "The Hit List: Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated" going down a list of ten classic, or classically-styled, non-English detective novels from four different continents written in six different languages – not just French and Japanese titles. It would be very easy to compile a wishlist comprising of mostly Japanese and French mystery novels. All I need to do is link to Ho-Ling Wong's blog and John Pugmire's "A Locked Room Library." That would have been too easy. I think I scraped together a decently varied, alluring selection of potentially first-rate detective fiction waiting to be ferried across the language barrier.

That list was originally intended as a follow-up to the 2022 blog-post "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted," but decided it worked better as an ordered top 10 list and wanted to do a part 2. I needed more than can be found online or in certain reference works and asked for suggestions to be left in the comments. My blog is visited by detective fanatics from across the world and figured if even my country produce writers like Cor Docter, Ton Vervoort, M.P.O. Books and P. Dieudonné, surely other countries must have some gems practically unknown outside their borders. The harvest was not great and gave up on the idea of doing a follow-up, until a minor miracle occurred.

Pushkin Vertigo is publishing a long-awaited translation of Pierre Boileau's Six crimes sans assassin (Six Crimes Without a Murderer, 1939), which was one of my two or three premium picks alongside Rafeal Bernal's Un muerto en la tumba (A Dead Man in the Tomb, 1946) and Hajime Tsukatou's John Dickson Carr no saishuu teiri (John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem, 2020). Boileau's Six Crimes Without a Murderer was also one of the least likely titles on the list to get translated, because that snooty French upstart of a locked room extravaganza has resisted getting translated since the 1940s – even producing a lost manuscript. At the end of Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991), there's the often overlooked section "Foreign-Language Books." It has a lengthy note for Six Crimes Without a Murderer. A translation was advertised in 1949 by Sampson Low as forthcoming, however, "the publishers themselves disappeared about that time and all efforts to trace a proof" or "a draft of the translation, or the translator, one Eric Sutton, have proved entirely unrewarding." The late John Pugmire, of Locked Room International, tried to get a translation published, but the current copyright holder refused to work small, independent or print-on-demand publishers. Pushkin Vertigo came true and caught the one that kept getting away for nearly eighth years.

So decided to take another look at that follow-up, dug around a bit and finally managed to gather enough to do another list without leaning entirely on French and Japanese titles with a smattering of Dutch mysteries. I tried to have the list not entirely dominated by locked room mysteries and impossible crimes, but somehow, they tend to be easier to find. So they have, as usually, a strong presence, but marvel at my impartiality.

Le testament de Basil Crookes (The Testament of Basil Crookes, 1930) by Pierre Véry

The obvious pick here would have been Pierre Véry's vaunted impossible crime novel, Les quatre vipères (The Four Vipers, 1934), but, to keep up appearances, I went with The Testament of Basil Crookes – "a pastiche of the English detective novel." The Testament of Basil Crookes is Véry's debut and appears to be a madcap chase mystery in which an unpublished manuscript, tossed from one train onto another train, is the key to securing a large inheritance. A madcap race with a three year time limit during which genre conventions are turned upside down. Véry's first stab at the detective story not only sounds like a fun, tongue-in-cheek mystery, anticipating Leo Bruce and Edmund Crispin, but one of those early meta-fictional mysteries that started to appear around this time. And that type of mystery is now appreciated more than ever before.

L'antro dei filosofi (The Philosophers' Den, 1942) by Giorgio Scerbanenco

Giorgio Scerbanenco is one of the writers Igor Longo wrote about in his short essay "The Italian Detective Story" from the English translation of Franco Vailati's Il mistero dell'idrovolante (The Flying Boat Mystery, 1935). Scerbanenco belonged to the Van Dine-Queen School and even had an American series-detective, Arthur Jelling, who's "a Reeder-like archivist in the Boston Police Department." Longo highlighted The Philosophers' Den, "a very moody and bleak murder story in a very Queenesque eccentric family, possibly related to the Hatters of the Tragedy of Y," in which he praised Scerbanenco's effective use of "the Queenesque negative clue." The Philosophers' Den apparently is not the only notable Jelling case in addition to "a very famous Noir series with unfrocked and disbarred surgeon Duca Lamberti" written during the 1960s. And, of course, four of the Lamberti novels have been translated into English.

Diferentes razones tiene la muerte (Death Has Different Reasons, 1947) by María Elvira Bermúdez

María Elvira Bermúdez was according to Latin American Mystery Writers: An A to Z Guide (2004) "one of the founders of the Mexican detective story" and "one of the most innovative practitioners of the genre in Mexico," while also making a name as "one of its most perceptive critics." Death Has Different Reasons was "the most ambitious detective up to that time in Mexico" introducing her series-detective, Armando H. Zozaya, who's "modeled after the American sleuth Ellery Queen." Zozaya's solves his first case, a double murder, by sticking to conventions and traditions of the fair play, Golden Age-style detective novels. If that's not enticing enough for publishers, Bermúdez was "one of the most prolific female detective fiction author in the Spanish-speaking world" and "for 50 years a unique voice in Spanish-American detective fiction and criticism."

A morte no envelope (Death in an Envelope, 1957) by Lopes Coelho

This entry also comes from Latin American Mystery Writers. According to that insightful guide, Lopes Coelho was a driving force in the creation of "a uniquely Brazilian brand of detective fiction" by creating the first truly Brazilian detective character, Doctor Leite, whose cases filled three collections of short stories – published between 1957 and '68. The stories are classic whodunits and other type of puzzle stories, "solved by applying principles of logic and deductive reasoning," including two locked room mysteries, "A morte no envelope" ("Death in an Envelope") and "Só o crime estava na biblioteca" ("Only Crime Was in the Library"). So more than enough reasons to want a translation of at least the first collection.

Ălkistan (The Eel Cage, 1967) by Jan Ekström

When it comes to crime fiction, Sweden is known for their dark, dreary police procedural, psychological thrillers and cold, character-driven noir fiction. There's an exception to nearly everything and one of the exceptions here was Jan Ekström, "the Swedish John Dickson Carr," who wrote several locked room mysteries. Ekström's best known impossible crime novel, Ättestupan (Deadly Reunion, 1975), received an English translation decades ago, but nothing else outside of a short story in an obscure anthology. Adey's Locked Room Murders, under "Foreign-Language Books," lists several titles like The Eel Cage. From what I've been able to gather, The Eel Cage is Ekström's best regarded detective novel taking place in a small, rural fishing village where a body inexplicably turns up inside a jealously guarded eel chest, locked from the inside, but the key is found in the victim's pocket! Can you blame me for being intrigued?

Kyuukon no misshitsu (The Locked Room of the Suitors, 1978) by Sasazawa Saho

Like I said above, it would be really easy to fill out a list with just titles Ho-Ling has reviewed over the years. Just one list would not even scratch the surface of my honkaku and shin honkaku wishlist, but some titles stand out more than others. Sasazawa Saho's The Locked Room of the Suitors has for some reason always intrigued me. It was reportedly nearly forgotten about, until Alice Arisugawa included The Locked Room of the Suitors in An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998 examining forty impossible crime novels from across the world. The plot concerns a double murder, plus dying message, behind the padlocked door of an old storage cellar. Ho-Ling says in his review, "the locked room mystery and the build-up towards the solution are quite good" with "both the fake murder theory and the final solution are built on clever clues." More importantly, "the locked room mystery itself is also quite memorable."

Mord & orkidéer (Murder & Orchids, 1996) by Bertil Falk

Back in February, I reviewed Bertil Falk's collection of short stories Mind-boggling Mysteries of a Missionary (2010) and mentioned he had authored two novel-length, untranslated detective novels beginning with Den maskerade ligachefen (The Masked Gangleader, 1954) – written and published when he was twenty years old. Murder & Orchids followed four decades later and appears to be a better, maturer novel combining the formal detective story with the travel thriller to create a tricky plot turning accepted cliches and conventions on its head. So very much a mystery in the spirit of the first entry on this list.

 

Jinrojo no kyofu (The Terror of Werewolf Castle, 1996/98) by Nikaido Reito

I mentioned Nikaido Reito's The Terror of Werewolf Castle in "Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated" as not having very good odds at ever getting translated. The Terror of Werewolf Castle is, as Ho-Ling pointed out, "a monument in Japanese detective writing," comprising of four separate books averaging around 700 pages each. So it's not very realistic to expect a publisher today to translate a four volume, 2800 page behemoth, but on the other hand, we're paying customers with a The Terror of Werewolf Castle-shaped gap on our shelves. So, you know, chop, chop!

Le voyageur du passé (The Traveler from the Past, 2012) by Paul Halter

The death of John Pugmire in 2024 ended both Locked Room International and his regular Paul Halter translations, which consisted at his passing of nearly twenty novels, several short story collections and a few uncollected short stories. Tom Mead is currently doing fresh translations of previously published Halter translations, but nothing new so far. There are still quite a few untranslated Paul Halter titles on my wishlist like Le crime de Dédale (The Crime of Daedalus, 1997), Le douze crimes d'Hercule (The Twelve Crimes of Hercules, 2001) and Le tigre borgne (The One-Eyed Tiger, 2004), but The Traveler from the Past intrigued me ever since reading Patrick Ohl's 2012 review. A young man who went missing in 1905 turns up in 1955 without having aged a day, only to be tragically killed in a subway accident. But his identity appears to check out. What follows is no less impossible! Patrick described the book as "utterly fantastic" and "chillingly bizarre" with a plot that springs "a genuine surprise in the dénouement." Fingers crossed Mead eventually turns his hands to the Halter novels Pugmire didn't get to translate with The Traveler from the Past being at the top of that pile.

Het Delfts blauw mysterie (The Delft Blue Mystery, 2023) by “Anne van Doorn” (a.k.a. M.P.O. Books)

This is the first entry in the New York Cop series by "Anne van Doorn," open penname of M.P.O. Books, which follows Detectives Krell and Merrilee Hopper, of the 16th Precinct, whose first recorded case involves an impossible murder on the seventy-second floor of a high-rise tower on West 33rd Street – committed when the building was swaying in a storm. You can view this series as an homage to other New York detective writers and series like Van Dine, Queen and Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, but flavored like a Dutch politieroman (police novel). The sequel is titled Het legpuzzel mysterie (The Jigsaw Puzzle Mystery, 2026) and scheduled for release later this year. And here's the kicker... The Delft Blue Mystery has already been translated into English complete with blurbs from David Dean and Tom Mead, but holding up its publication is the search for a literary agent and publisher in the United States. No news on that front, yet, but you can at least look forward to my review of The Jigsaw Puzzle Mystery when it gets released.

The Snake of Luvercy (1926/27) by Maurice Renard

John Pugmire passed away in 2024 and his death not only meant the end of Locked Room International, but also ended the steady stream of translations of Paul Halter and other, often obscure, French mystery writers – none of whom would have gotten translated without him. Just the translation of Michel Herbert and Eugène Wyl's La maison interdite (The Forbidden House, 1932) alone is as big a contribution to the genre as introducing Halter to a global audience. So, when it comes to translations of French (locked room) mystery novels, not much has been published for the past two years.

Tom Mead translated Pierre Véry's Les veillées de la Tour Pointue (The Secret of the Pointed Tower, 1937) for Crippen & Landru and currently is doing some fresh translations of previously published Paul Halter novels. So was considering to finally give Émile Gaboriau a shot or revisit Gaston Leroux's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1907) when I got fantastic news. Pushkin Vertigo is going to publish a long wished for and overdue translation of Pierre Boileau's Six crimes sans assassin (Six Crimes Without a Murderer, 1939) in November! I guess the people at Pushkin Vertigo have read "The Hit List: Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated." Maybe a translation of Rafeal Bernal's Un muerto en la tumba (A Dead Man in the Tomb, 1946) next year?

Earlier this year, Serling Lake reprinted Maurice Renard's ? Lui ? Histoire d'un mystère (Him? The Story of a Mystery, 1926/27), which appeared in English under the title The Snake of Luvercy – translated by Florence Crewe-Jones and published by E.P. Dutton & Co in 1930. Renard is best remembered today as one of the pioneering French science-fiction writers, even creating his own subgenre dubbed "Scientific Marvel Fiction," but Renard also tried his hands at detective fiction. John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, is a fan who called The Snake of Luvercy "an excellent, fast paced thriller" containing "a murder in a locked bathroom with a bizarre solution involving a baroque murder means." John also praised Renard's Les mains d'Orlac (The Hands of Orlac, 1920) for being "a brilliantly fashioned detective novel wherein a series of impossible crimes are made to appear to be the work of supernatural agencies and a spectral being." So picked up the recent reprint of The Snake of Luvercy and hunting for a copy of The Hands of Orlac, because that's what John Pugmire would have wanted.

In 1926, The Snake of Luvercy was serialized in L'Intransigeant and published as a novel the following year. So a typical French roman-feuilleton full with sensational twists, turns and spins. You can say the story as a flexible as the titular snake driven entirely by a small, tightly-knit cast of characters.

Firstly, there are Miss Gilberta Laval and her dashing fiancé, Jean Mareuil, who's a rich dilettante who collects antique keys and old lamps. This match made in heaven spells trouble for Gilberta's aunt and cousin, Mme. de Prasse and her only son, Lionel. Mme. de Prasse plan had been for Lionel to marry Gilberta, secure the family fortune and cover up a slight financial irregularity ("...well, your gambling debts, Lionel, you know..."). Mme. de Prasse is Gilberta's legal guardian, but refreshingly, she doesn't hold the same power over her ward like her American and British counterparts ("armed with the Code, she could get rid of me and demand an accounting of her affairs..."). So they have to keep up appearances while plotting and carefully making their moves, which means acting as detectives, shadowing and poking around Jean Mareuil's private affairs hoping to find scandal and skeleton – anything to break them up. They enlist the help of the Lavals ex-butler, Aubry, who has a score to settle with Gilberta for sacking him.

While on shadowing duty, Aubry and Lionel discover a secret that could be a potential engagement breaker. Jean Mareuil moonlights as a snake charmer, Charlot the Adder, who's is an entertainment act in the dark cabarets of the Parisian underworld. But are they dealing with a double identity or dual personality? There's also a locked room murder lurking in the background of the story.

Five years ago, Guy Laval, an explorer, brought back "a number of rare serpents" from Central Africa to their home, Luvercy, but one of the deadly snakes escaped and found its way into Jeanne Laval's "almost hermetically closed" bedroom. The open windows were shuttered, however, each shutter is "pierced with a little heart-shaped opening cut in the wood for ventilation" big enough for a viper to slither through. Jeanne Laval was bitten while asleep and died. The guilt of having caused this accident killed her husband and left their daughter an orphan in the hands of her aunt, but could it have been murder? But who did it and how? The snake that killed Jeanne was never found leaving a Gilberta traumatized determined to never return to Luvercy. Getting her to return to Luvercy to confront the past becomes an ever increasing important plot point towards the end.

The Snake of Luvercy is what can be expected from a pulp-style, roman-feuilleton in the spirit of Gaston Leroux, Maurice Leblanc and a dash of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So hardly an orthodox, traditionally-plotted and clued detective novel, but credit where credit's due, the story is better written and handled than expected going by the first-half. The murderer is surprisingly well-hidden with enough nudges and hints to make a fairly educated guess, while the locked room-trick is not as open to educated guesswork. However, the method to create the locked room perfectly fitted the story's pulpy, sensationalist aesthetics and put to excellent use to help reveal, and dispose, of that murderer. I suspect that scene was also meant as a sly wink to a very famous short detective story involving a murderous snake. So, while not exactly what I'm looking for when hunting for impossible crime classics, neither left it me disappointed. On the contrary, I admired how Renard handled and controlled a story involving dual identities, an impossible snake bite and snake charmers without resorting to second-and third-rate cliches and tropes like a long-lost twin, secret passages or strange poisons. You know, unlike some writers at the time.

So, in closing, Renard simply wrote a tremendously entertaining, fast-paced flight of fancy done in the unmistakable, reality-be-damned Gallic style from Leroux's era. If you enjoyed the quality, pulp-style (locked room) mysteries by James Ronald, Noël Vindry and Alexis Gensoul and Charles Grenier, The Snake of Luvercy should be right up your alley. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward with curiosity what Serling Lake is going reprint next.