The Case of the Second Chance (1946) by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush's The Case of the Second Chance (1946), 31st entry in the Ludovic Travers series, is best described as an "in-between" novel for more reasons than one.

The Case of the Second Chance is a post-WWII detective novel, a time of austerity, social malaise and imperial decay, during which Bush was in the process of transforming the series by turning Travers from an amateur detective with police credentials into an independent private investigator – a process that started in The Case of the Murdered Major (1941). A move partially inspired by the rise of the American hardboiled detective and partially in genuine admiration for writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The Case of the Corner Cottage (1951) reportedly reads like a homage to Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (1930) and one of the reasons why Travers had been dubbed the "English Marlowe" during the fifties.

The Case of the Second Chance takes place over a three-year period beginning when Travers returns to London on a fourteen day leave from the army in October 1942. During this time, Travers still fulfilled his role as special consultant to Scotland Yard's Superintendent George Wharton, "considered sufficiently useful to act as George's factotum," but, upon his return, was "feeling regretful that there was nothing doing in the murder line." A dangerous thing to say or even think in a detective story, because the next morning Wharton calls him with the news that Charles Manfrey has been killed.

Charles Manfrey was a holdover of "the great days of the actor-manager" and "not too nice a character, so we've gathered," who handed out motives like they were business cards and counted plenty of enemies among his acquaintances. So more than enough potential suspects and motives to go around, but there are complications and peculiar features to the case. Why was Manfrey wearing a thin summer coat in a stone cold room and what happened to his other coat? Who was the man the cook and secretary overheard having "a fine old row" with Manfrey in his room? Why does every promising suspect turn out to have a watertight alibi? And that's not all. Travers observes to Wharton they're dealing with actors, "people used to acting and playing parts," who are unlikely "to make any slips." Prophetic words as the fourteen days come and go without an arrest or even an idea who could have delivered the fatal blow. So the investigation comes to an end and the Manfrey case is filed as unsolved.

The story picks up again three years later, in 1945, when the war has ended and Travers finds himself in-between jobs. Travers retired from his position as special consultant to go into the private detective business with Wharton, but Wharton won't be freed up until the end of the years and is spending time at Bill Ellice's Broad Street Detective Agency – a discreet, highly regarded agency they want to buy. Ellice has just been handed a blackmail job and is more than glad to have Travers' expert opinion on his prospective client and her story, but, after eavesdropping on the interview, it comes to light the client was someone who figured in the Manfrey murder case. Travers suddenly realized they were "handling dynamite." But decides to keep that information from Ellice, until he has satisfied "the itch to know just a little bit more." And carefully approach a second chance to bring Manfrey's killer to justice. Not before another murder adds one last complication to their investigation.

The Case of the Second Chance is fascinating, not only as a transitional novel, but as a snapshot of that years-long process with Travers going from still being a special consultant in 1942 to making his first, tentative steps as an independent investigator once the war had ended. Bush had began to trim down his plots ("we've broken better alibis than his") and Americanizing his storytelling in earnest. For example, Travers has a scrap and takes one on the chin from someone Wharton refers to as his "pugilistic friend" or one of the female characters frankly telling she could have had an acting career had she taken one of the "short cuts" ("...she hadn't been prepared to take them"). I can't imagine a line like that cropping up in one of Bush's mysteries from the 1920s or '30s. On the other hand, Travers speaks several times directly to the reader in a-challenge-to-the-reader or had-i-but-known manner ("maybe by now you've satisfied yourself that you really do know both how Manfrey was killed and the one who killed him"). That would have been suited for earlier novels like The Perfect Murder Case (1929), Dead Man Twice (1930) or The Case of the April Fools (1933).

So it rather regrettably and disappointing that such an interesting novel depicting the turbulent upheavals in both the world and the series itself had to settle for an exceptionally uninspired plot. Not that the plot is actually bad or ghostly thin, but the plots feels tired, labored and ultimately hoary with the ending, or the moment when all the plot-strands get pulled together left me unimpressed. A shame as The Case of the Second Chance has everything to craft a good, old-fashioned and first-rate detective novel, but finished as one of Bush's second-tier mysteries. I still think it's a shade better than other second-tier novels, such as The Case of the Seven Bells (1949) or The Case of the Fourth Detective (1951), which will no doubt please fans of Bush, Travers and Wharton. But if you're new to the series and looking for a good detective yarn, I recommend starting at an earlier or later point in the series. I consider The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936) and The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939) to be among Bush's Golden Age treasures and he rebounded in the fifties with novels like The Case of the Three Lost Letters (1954) and The Case of the Russian Cross (1957). More importantly, I recommend giving this still criminally underrated series a try. Even if this particular example doesn't make for a very convincing case.

Stuff of Legends: C.M.B. vol. 3-4 by Motohiro Katou

Yes, I know, I know. The plan was to have gotten well on the way towards Q.E.D. vol. 50 and the crossover with C.M.B. out of the way, which once again got sidetracked, but this time I have a scapegoat an excuse – namely the "New Locked Room Library." So you can blame Alexander for organizing that massive distraction. That was last year. I intend to pick up where I left off with last years reviews of C.M.B. vol. 1-2 and Q.E.D. vol. 39-40 with a review of C.M.B. vol. 3-4, before finally tackling the crossover event between these sibling series. I recommend taking a look at the review of the first two volumes, if you need a refresher what this series is about.

The first of two stories from Motohiro Katou's C.M.B. vol. 3, "Lost Relief," centers on the three rings, "C," "M," and "B," the three curators of the British Museum gifted to their 14-year-old apprentice, Sakaki Shinra. Whomever possesses one of the rings can count on plenty of funding and unfettered access to normally restricted archives for their research, archaeological digs or building up a collection or museum. So giving all three rings to one person, let alone a teenager, is unprecedented in the 200 year old tradition.

"Lost Relief" introduces a rival for the young museum curator and amateur detective in Shaw Bentley, head of research at the British Museum, who believes Professor Stan, Professor Ray and Professor Morris had no right to hand the rings over Shinra ("those rings have been demoted to a toy for some kid in the east"). So "the youngest researcher in history" is determined to pry one of the rings, but the only way to officially come into possession of a ring is if Shinra gifts him one. Shaw travels to Japan to visit Shinra at his hidden museum to propose a sporting challenge for one of his rings. A month ago, a ship was intercepted with a cargo of stolen historical artifacts, en route to a shady collector, which included a stone relief illustrating an Aztec sacrificial ceremony – except the part depicting the part of the altar has gone missing. Smugglers claimed it was complete, but when it arrived at the Japanese warehouse for inspection, the altar piece was missing.

Shaw proposes that the first one to find the missing piece wins. If he finds it, Shinra has to give him one of the rings, but if Shinra finds it first, Shaw will give him a solid gold statue he found in Columbia for his museum. Shinra even sweetens the deal with a challenge of his own. In case the missing piece isn't found, but Shaw can deduce what's depicted on top of the altar, Shinra will accept defeat. This story is obviously intended to introduce the characters of Shaw Bentley and his bratty, personal chef, Linda, while filling in some of the details of Shinra's backstory. That being said, the problem of the missing relief piece is not half bad and, more importantly, perfectly solvable for the keen-eyed armchair detective. So a good, fun opener of the third volume.

By the way, Shaw called Shinra's museum "a warehouse of trash" that's "full of strange children's junk," which is not true, but also betrays a body without a romantic bone in it and perhaps even lacking a soul. I would love to climb a tree to get into Shinra's museum (it's only entrance/exit) to roam around all those displays with ancient artifacts or horsey-ride the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

The second story of this volume, "Modern Legend," is one of those strange, character-driven, human-shaped puzzle stories I have come to associate with Q.E.D. A story playing on Japanese urban legends like "Hanako-san of the Toilet" or "The Slit-Mouthed Woman."

Meiyuu Private High School becomes a hotbed for gruesome, terrifying urban legends about bodies being found in horrific circumstances ("a dead body found in the mountains... a body beaten by the branches of a willow... and a body buried in a bamboo grove..."). Shinra sets his classmate searching for the person behind the urban legends when he suggested the stories might have originated from one and the same person. This leads them to the crusty owner of a music store, his shed and talk about a bone-colored boat. But is he's hiding some horrific crime inside that shed? Meanwhile, Nanase Tatsuki, the Kana Mizuhara to Shinra's Sou Touma, learns more about Shinra's family and circumstances. And at the same time trying to civilize socialize him. Another good, fun little mystery with an interesting solution (ROT13: gung'f bar jnl gb fraq fbzrbar n zrffntr, V fhccbfr), but not as solvable (for western readers anyway) as the previous one with the spotlight being on Shinra's character and background. It was really sad seeing Shinra cleaning his museum, open its doors and waiting for visitors who never came. But a good story to close out this volume.

C.M.B. vol. 4 comprises of a single, long story, "Judean Fortune," which is best described as Dan Brown getting the shin honkaku treatment. A international despite has arisen from a potential discovery in the Roman Colosseum, Italy, which was called in by special investigator working on historical sites. A special investigator working for the not so catchy named Private Historical Site Investigation Company, run by Jamie Charles, who was hired by Israel to investigate certain claims regarding a mysteries treasure. Her investigator called in to report he had actually found the treasure, "a Judean treasure," but got himself killed in the ruins of the Colosseum under very mysterious, borderline impossible, circumstances – impaled through the chest with a trident. The place where he was murdered makes it incredibly difficult to effectively wield a trident as a murder weapon. Even if he was attacked from above. Not a full-blown locked room murder, but enough to make for an intriguing howdunit with a visually pleasing solution. The victim also left something that functions as a dying message regarding the treasure.

However, the case started a diplomatic incident between Italy, Israel, the Vatican and the Knights of Malta. So the British Museum is assigned with the investigation as a neutral, third party and they delegated the investigation to the keeper of the three CMB rings. Shinra nearly causes another international incident when he initially refuses the assignment, but agrees when he gets to bring Nanase Tatsuki along to Italy.

"Judean Fortune" basically is "Lost Relief" on a much bigger, grander scale and pretty fun adventure mystery with a couple of clever touches. Most notably, the solution to the quasi-impossible murder at the ruins which has a solution that's just perfect for the visual detective story. There's a second, quasi-impossible situation when they get attacked at night in the streets of Rome by an ax-wielding knight in armor, but, when the police investigates the site of the attack the next day, no strike marks from the ax are found on the walls. Neither are full-blown impossible crimes, but once again, they make for a couple of visually appealing howdunits. The historical plot-thread about the long-lost, hidden treasure has an answer of epic historical proportions with potential world destabilizing consequences. So it ends with (ROT13) gur jubyr guvat trggvat pbirerq onpx hc, but nothing to take away from this extremely fun, richly-plotted historical adventure mystery. Although it cannot be denied that the rich plot would have been more at home in a Ruritanian setting than one resembling the real world.

So have now read the first four volumes, but think I can see the most important difference between C.M.B. and Q.E.D. Katou used the shonen manga format in Q.E.D. as a vehicle for the detective story and the detective story as a vehicle for a shonen manga in C.M.B., if that makes any sense. Which is why Q.E.D. feels more grounded and realistic compared to C.M.B. with its less than realistic premise and a protagonist who's the personification of Peter Pan Syndrome. Sou Touma is just an introverted math genius and teenage detective. You remember the type from high school. But both series compliment each other splendidly. And fascinating how they both use their premises and medium to find new ways to tell a good, old-fashioned detective stories. So very much look forward to their big crossover story, finishing Q.E.D. and exploring C.M.B. further in the near future.

The Burning Court (1937) by John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court (1937), published during the Goldilocks years of the Golden Age, enjoys the status of a fan favorite and hailed by its champions as "a standalone tour-de-force" for its unconventional conclusion – ending with a gutsy, genre-defying twist. Carr reportedly claimed (Douglas G. Greene's The Man Who Explained Miracles, 1995) he wrote The Burning Court in response to "a critic who said that no really terrifying supernatural story could have an American setting" and delivered one of the strangest mystery novels of the decade. A strange mystery novel that, as said, has become something of a fan favorite, but the book also has its fair share of critics.

The critic comes down to that final, genre-defying twist. A twist not like other twists of the period that gets applauded by some for its daring brazenness, while others think it ruined a perfectly good detective novel. For example, Nick Fuller noted in his 2003 review how that twist filled "a highly logical and convincing solution" with "all manner of logical holes."

I didn't get to complain about the twisted epilogue, because The Burning Court as a whole failed to impress. Notably the atmosphere. However, I read a Dutch translation at the time, Het lijk in de crypte (The Corpse in the Crypt), and over the years began to suspect something might have been lost in translation – considering its popularity among fans. So decided to get a copy in English and give The Burning Court a retrial.

If memory is not betraying me, I'll say right off the bat the translation was definitely the problem when it comes to the brooding, creepy atmosphere. Just the opening chapter alone is a case in point why Carr himself is a fan favorite as he was the only one who consistently wrote detective yarns that have very little to do with ordinary, everyday life, but crafted highly imaginative and fantastic tales of mystery, wonder and horror presented as fair play detective stories. I suppose you can describe Carr's best and most imaginative works like The Three Coffins (1935), The Arabian Nights Murder (1936), The Crooked Hinge (1938) and The Problem of the Green Capsule (1939) as grounded precursors to the The Twilight Zone (mostly) without the supernatural or extraterrestrial elements. Well, mostly without those elements. And often start out with a fantastic events or outlandish incidents mysterious enough that could sustain a detective story without anyone getting impossibly killed or disappeared. The Burning Court is a perfect example of Carr spinning a very unlikely, but intriguing, yarn and stringing the reader along on one of the most outre detective novels of the 1930s.

The Burning Court, set in 1929, takes place in the fictitious Pennsylvanian town of Crispen where Edward Stevens, of the publishing house Herald & Sons, has a cottage and headed that way to meet his wife, Marie. Stevens has brought along the manuscript of the new Gaudan Cross book. Cross is a hermit writer devoted to retelling the histories of famous murder cases or "unearthing picturesque crimes" with "a narrative vividness which was like that of an eye-witness." And his latest manuscript is dedicated to women poisoners ("...strong stuff") throughout history. So, on his way to the cottage, Stevens looks through the manuscript and is shocked to find an old photograph of his wife accompanying the sensationally-titled chapter "The Affair of the Non-dead Mistress" – photograph is captioned, "Marie D'Aubray: Guillotined for Murder, 1861." Marie D'Aubray is not only the spitting image of Marie Stevens, but she had an identical mole on her jaw and an identical-looking, antique bracelet on her left wrist "he had seen Marie wear a hundred times." Even her expression is uncannily like Marie Stevens.

Was the Marie who was guillotined over seventy years ago a relative of the present-day Marie? Maybe something weirder and unsettling? Stevens is not given much time to consider this extraordinary problem as their next door neighbor, Mark Despard, comes knocking with another problem and an even stranger request.

Old Miles Despard, "that stately reprobate," died two weeks ago from gastro-enteritis, "after reducing the lining of his stomach to a pulp with nearly forty years' high living," but there are some suspicious features to his not entirely unexpected passing. Firstly, the symptoms of arsenic poisoning resemble those of gastro-enteritis. Secondly, the cook, Mrs. Henderson, swears she saw a woman in "queer old-fashioned clothes" standing in Miles' bedroom on the day he died. Mrs. Henderson witnessed the woman handing Miles a cup, turning around and exited through "a door which does not exist." A door bricked up and paneled over for over two hundred years! That's not all. On that night, Mark and his wife, Lucy, went to a masquerade ball at St. Davids. Lucy was dressed as Madame de Montespan in a period clothing.

As noted above, Carr knew how to lay the groundwork for a detective story and this has been merely the prelude. Mark wants to secretly break open the crypt under cover of night and test the body of his uncle for arsenic poison, which is why he brought along a disgraced physician, Mr. Partington. Mark asks Stevens to help them open the crypt together with Mr. Henderson. A four-men job that took two hours and "making a racket fit to wake the dead," but, when they finally can enter the underground crypt, they discover the body of Miles Despard has somehow disappeared from what was supposed to be his final resting place.

What follows has to be one of the most intimate, tightly drawn mysteries Carr has written. Not because of the small pool of potential suspects or their movement being largely limited to a single location, but because the problems they're trying to untangle makes it feel like they're marooned from the rest of the world – like they piece of space-time broke-off from reality. After all, this is a detective story involving dead poisoners decapitated or burnt decades or even centuries ago on order of the Burning Court ("...established to deal with poisoning cases"), talks of the un-dead, witchcraft and satanism. A woman in period dressing making her exit through a phantom door and a dead man inexplicably vanishing from a burial vault closed with a stone slab, soil, gravel and a concrete-sealed pavement ("...which one witness is willing to swear has not been disturbed"). The disappearance, and reappearance, of a bottle of morphine tablets and several pieces of knotted string are fairly normal complications by comparison. But does it all hold up?

First of all, The Burning Court is unquestionably better than I remembered and the problem probably was the translation. However, I don't think The Burning Court is the best (locked room) mystery Carr wrote during this period. The detective portion of the story comes with one hell of a premise and a solid enough plot complimented by a very well done "physical explanation" ("...a thing of sizes and dimensions and stone walls..."). But the locked room trickery is not even the best part. Carr had already put together better, more original locked room mysteries at this point. What makes The Burning Court particularly enjoyable is Carr's often overlooked, maybe even misunderstood, talent to grab the utterly fantastic or otherworldly and whittle it back down to human proportions. Carr exaggerated in order to clarify and find it a very attractive approach to crafting a detective novel or locked room mystery. Like creating a canal system for wild, imaginative ideas to flow freely without swamping half the land/story. Just compare Carr's The Unicorn Murders (1935; as by "Carter Dickson") with John Rhode's Invisible Weapons (1938), which center on similar kind of impossible crimes regarding unseen murder weapons and murderers. Rhode delivered a solid locked room mystery, but I think everyone agrees The Unicorn Murders is the most attractive and memorable of the two.

So with that out of the way, I come to the controversial epilogue kicking open the door to another genre. The short and simple answer is that I didn't care for the twist, but not because I resent Carr trying to mix genres. Something he would go on to do with much more success in his historical time travel mysteries like The Devil in Velvet (1951) and Fire, Burn! (1957). You only have to look under the "Hybrid Mysteries" toe-tag to see my growing interest in this rare bird. My problem is that the shocking, genre-defying twist here is just that. A shocking twist for the sake of having a shocking twist, which is never good and Carr is no exception. Fortunately, Carr saved it for the epilogue. So you can take it or leave it. But it's a regrettably missed opportunity. If the supernatural element had been better integrated into the plot, the epilogue could created a very pleasing effect of seamlessly turning a perfectly rational detective story into waking nightmare. A reversal of what he normally does or a prose version of the old woman/young woman optical illusion. Is it a G.K. Chesterton-style detective story or M.R. James-like ghost yarn?

I didn't care about the twist-ending and opt to ignore it, because the rational detective novel preceding the epilogue with its fantastic premise, two impossibilities, bizarre clues and solution presents Carr at the top of his game. If not exactly a legitimate, Golden Age classic, The Burning Court is at least a deserved fan favorite.

A note for the curious: speaking of fan favorites... Hake Talbot style of detective fiction inextricably-linking him to Carr and often referenced Talbot's third, unpublished and lost novel on this blog. Having now reread The Burning Court, I wonder if The Affair of the Half-Witness was Talbot's take on the impossible exit of the woman in period dress witnessed by Mrs. Henderson. The book title could be a nod to the chapter titles ("each was called The Affair of the—Something") from Gaudan Cross' manuscript. Just a bit of fan speculation.

Entering the Ring: "The Man Who Boxed Forever" (2001) by Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch's "The Man Who Boxed Forever" was written for Otto Penzler's Murder on the Ropes (2001), an anthology of original boxing mysteries, bringing together some heavyweights of the American crime-and detective fiction ("...provide knock-out combinations for your reading pleasure") – which wouldn't be complete without the champion of the short detective story. This short story is practically tailored for Hoch's oldest series-detective, Simon Ark.

Simon Ark is not only an elderly man, apparently somewhere in his sixties, but claims "to have been a Coptic priest in first-century Egypt" wandering "the earth ever since in search of evil, hoping for a confrontation someday with Satan himself." Until that day arrives, Ark's quest for evil uncovers all kind of dirty deeds forcing him to act as a detective. Even his longtime, nameless narrator "had to admit that he hadn't changed much in those forty years" he knew Ark.

"The Man Who Boxed Forever" finds the two at the Barbican Arena, in London, to watch the sold out heavyweight championship fight between Desmond "Dragon" Moore and Clayt Sprague. There they bump into a sports writer, Roger Russell, who asks if Ark is there to investigate the rumors about Dragon Moore ("the age thing, you know"). And asks them to come the next day to Leather's Gym to show them some clippings. But when they arrive at the gym, they find Russell's body lying in the middle of a boxing ring. Russell is bare to the waist, "boxing gloves were laced onto each of his hands" and punched into eternity with a studded leather hand covering ("a cestus from ancient Rome"). So a sparring match gone wrong or a clever murder? That's not all.

Before his murder, Russell was obsessing over Desmond "Dragon" Moore, "a Creole from New Orleans," who has no official records of where and when he was born, but bits and pieces of information, culled from various online archives, implies the boxer has been around for a very long time – covering a nearly 200 year period. There's an account of a wrestling match involving someone called the "Masked Dragon" ("...he also boxed without his mask as Desmond Moore" in 1939 and 1892 report on a bout in New Orleans between Dragon Moore and Reefer Foxx ("one of the first to be fought since bare-knuckle fights were outlawed"). It comes with a nineteenth century photograph depicting the spitting image of the modern-day Dragon Moore with the caption, "the Creole Dragon Moore, one of the first to fight with gloves under the new rules." Even stranger, the Dragon Moore in the old photograph and the current Dragon Moore have identical, dragon-shaped birthmarks on their left cheek. Dragon Moore brags to Ark he remembers the Battle of New Orleans and the Roman gladiators. So what's going on?

Like I said, "The Man Who Boxed Forever" is tailored for a detective like Simon Ark and loved the brief scene in which he's asked if he ever heard of someone living over a hundred and twenty years. So it's unfortunate the plot turned out to be a little uneven in its execution.

The apparent immortality of the man who boxed forever, seemingly backed up by historical records, is the most intriguing aspect of the story, but the answer is very prosaic. Fitting enough for both the story and modern, classically-styled detective stories in general (ROT13: hfvat gur vagrearg gb ohvyq hc gur zlgu bs na vzzbegny obkre naq pnfuvat va ba vg jura “Nzrevpna zngpuznxref jbhyq unir bssrerq ovt chefrf gb yher Qentba onpx npebff gur bprna sbe n svtug”). But when presented as a classically-styled, you expect/hope a little bit more ingenuity to be applied to such a fascinating premise. Fortunately, Hoch brought some of his customary ingenuity, craftsmanship and a practiced hand to the murder – reason why the murder was committed in that particular way is genuinely clever. It just didn't have the room to be truly effective as half the attention went to a centenarian prize fighter.

"The Man Who Boxed Forever" is still a good, fun effort from Hoch with one of his most creative premises, but the execution feels uneven and dropping one of the two plot-threads would probably have made for a better, tighter detective story. Like I said, it's still a fun, good enough short story that reminded me The Judges of Hades (1971) and The Quests of Simon Ark (1975) are still somewhere on the big pile.

The Labyrinth House Murders (1988) by Yukito Ayatsuji

Last year was great for fans of the Japanese honkaku and shin honkaku mysteries with new translations of Akimitsu Takagi's Noumen satsujin jiken (The Noh Mask Murder, 1949), Seishi Yokomizo's Akuma no temari uta (The Little Sparrow Murders, 1957/59) and MORI Hiroshi's Tsumetai mishitsu to hakase tachi (Doctors in the Isolated Room, 1996), but looked forward the most to Meirokan no satsujin (The Labyrinth House Murders, 1988) – written by Yukito Ayatsuji and translated by Ho-Ling Wong. From the occasional reviews over the years ("awesome meta-mystery") to the fascinating, labyrinthine floor plan of the titular house Ho-Ling blogged about in "The Quest of the Missing Map." Fast forward to today and this fabled detective novel is finally available in English courtesy of Pushkin Vertigo.

So immediately pounced on it the moment The Labyrinth House Murders became available for pre-order and only wish I had reread Ayatsuji's epoch-making debut first. The Labyrinth House Murders is a thematic sequel, of sorts, on the first two Shimada Kiyoshi novels, Jukkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987) and Suishakan no satsujin (The Mill House Murders, 1988), weaving compelling stories and plots around alternating narratives. The Decagon House Murders plays out in two different places, while The Mill House Murders has two narratives set a year apart. The Labyrinth House Murders has a very meta-ish story-within-a-story structure. So, basically, you're getting two The Labyrinth House Murders for the price of one!

The story begins with Shimada receiving an advanced copy of Shishiya Kadomi's The Labyrinth House Murders, "An Original Honkaku Murder Mystery! The Truth Behind the Labyrinth House Murder Case Finally Revealed," which finally promises to expose the truth of the real-life murder case at the Labyrinth House – "famous for its complex underground maze." The author claims the right to tell the story as Shishiya Kadomi was one of those present, but not under the penname of the book and presents it from the start as a mini-puzzle ("so which of the characters is Shishiya Kadomi?"). So the main body of the book is Shishiya Kadomi's The Labyrinth House Murders book-ended by Shimada starting to read the book in the prologue and meeting the author in the epilogue to cast a new light on the case.

Shishiya Kadomi's The Labyrinth House Murders tells the story of the 60th birthday party of legendary mystery writer, Miyagaki Yōtarō, who persisted in writing traditionally-plotted, fair play mysteries when "the wave of social detective novels took over the world of Japanese mystery fiction." Miyagaki is more than just a mystery writer. He's a mystery fan who dedicated his entire life to the detective story and through his magazine, Reverie, looked for new blood to carry on the genre.

So, on his 60th birthday, Miyagaki, invites ten people to his underground, labyrinthine lair to celebrate. A group comprising of Miyagaki's long-time editor, Utayama Hideyuki, and his pregnant wife, Keiko. Four promising mystery writers, Kiyomura Junichi, Suzaki Shōsuke, Funaoka Madoka and Hayashi Tomoo, who made their debut in Miyagaki's magazine. A well-known mystery critic, Samejima Tomoo, the housekeeper Fumie and, of course, Shimada. Shimada's is drawn to Labyrinth House because it was designed by that eccentric architect, Nakamura Seiji, who "had built a few curious building" like the Decagon House and Mill House – which all had seen their fair share of bloodshed and tragedy ("would the Labyrinth House be next?"). Labyrinth House is practically designed to court tragedy. A small, low stone building, "like a massive crag of rock," which is just the entrance to a massive, underground labyrinth with rooms clustered around them. All the rooms bare names of characters from Greek mythology. This veritable Minotaur's labyrinth has one entrance/exit in the reception room (Ariadne), brilliantly positioned right next to the kitchen. Nakamura Seiji, you genius, you!

When everyone has arrived, they're informed a tragedy has already happened before they arrived. The terminally-ill Miyagaki took his own life and left behind a curious testament on a cassette tape.

Miyagaki invited the four mystery writers because they're his favorites who got their starts in Reverie, but urges them to not assume he has been fully satisfied with their accomplishments. So poses a challenge to the four writers: over the next five days, they have to write a short story in which Labyrinth House is the setting, the characters in the story are the people gathered at the house and "every author must be the victim in their own story." There are three judges, Utayama, Samejima and Shimada, who have to pick the best story with the winner becoming heir to half of Miyagaki's fortune. And pretty much his successor. But if even one person refuses to participate, the contest is canceled and the testament void.

Not that leaving the underground house is an option as they soon find themselves trapped, or locked, inside the house. Before too long, the nearly decapitated body of one of the mystery writers is found in the drawing room (Minotaur). A murder that turns out to be copy of the murder described in the opening pages of the victim's short story, which becomes a pattern as the bodies pile on during their entrapment in Labyrinth House. And as to be expected from "an original honkaku murder mystery," even a fictitious one, succeeding victims leave behind a dying message or get themselves killed in a locked room. However, you shouldn't read it as "The Classic Japanese Locked Room Mystery" promised on the cover as it simply is not that kind of detective novel. The dying message, locked room and every other trope function here as smaller cogs and wheels in a larger plot, except, of course, the meta-narrative – which is the key to the story. Impressively, Ayatsuji uses the story's only genuine flaw to its advantage. Shishiya Kadomi's in-story novelization of the Labyrinth House murder case is fairly solvable. You can reach the in-story solution, or a big chunk of it, simply by asking a very simple and obvious question the characters stubbornly refuse to ask themselves. So the in-story novel reads and feels like a good, fun, but slightly imperfect, shin honkaku mystery.

In most cases, The Labyrinth House Murders would have been another example of the false-solution, flawed as it may be, outshining the correct solution. The slightly less impressive, but correct, solution has some elements that would have cheapened a detective novel of lesser quality. For example, the (ROT13) fbhepr bs gur oybbq gur zheqrere unq gb pbire hc jvgu gur qrpncvgngvba comes across as a bit cheap and banal (uneqyl jbegu gur jbex gung jrag vagb bofphevat gur zheqrere'f traqre) or the locked room-trick being the kind of shenanigans I normally frown upon. I simply worked on the assumption, a very incorrect assumption, the first victim was nearly decapitated because an ax was needed to break down into a locked room later. And destroying evidence in the process that the door was gimmicked to appear locked. Nevertheless, it served as a rock solid foundation for the correct solution to stand on making the false-solution one of the two biggest accomplishments of Ayatsuji and The Labyrinth House Murders. A fantastic use of the false-solution showing once again Ayatsuji is closer to Ellery Queen than John Dickson Carr. The second thing the book does very well is being a meta-mystery with the final meta-twist as the proverbial cherry on top!

So, yes, I tremendously enjoyed The Labyrinth House Murders. I'm not sure if I would rank it above The Decagon House Murders or The Mill House Murders, purely as traditional fair play mysteries, but as a fun, smart meta-mystery it's first-rate. Something very different from those two previous novels that at the same time feels like a logical next step in the series. Very much look forward to see what Ayatsuji is going to do next with his signature dueling narratives. Pushkin Vertigo has announced that the next translation in the "Bizarre House Mysteries" series is going to be Tokeikan no satsujin (The Clock Mansion Murders, 1991), which means they're skipping Ningyōkan no satsujin (The Doll Mansion Murders, 1989) for now. I don't mind. The Clock Mansion Murders sounds like another treat for detective fans. Anyway, 2025 is off to a good start!

Who Killed the Curate? (1944) by Joan Coggin

Joan Coggin was a British writer of light, comedic mysteries and half a dozen of girls' school novels, published under the pseudonym "Joanna Lloyd," but she's best remembered for her four mysteries starring Lady Lupin Hastings (née Lorrimer) – a former socialite who became a vicar's wife. The late Tom and Enid Schantz, of Rue Morgue Press, reprinted the series in the early 2000s and the big reason why this once obscure, short-lived series is remembered today. Following the Rue Morgue Press reprints, Coggin and Lady Lupin "featured as favorite reading of characters" in the works of Katherine Hall Page (The Body in the Lighthouse, 2003) and Carolyn Hart (Murder Walks the Plank, 2004).

When I discovered the Rue Morgue Press, I was more interested in their reprints of Glyn Carr, Clyde B. Clason, Stuart Palmer and Kelley Roos. So, for one reason or another, I put Coggin together with their reprints of Catherine Aird, Manning Coles and the Littles aside as not of immediate interest. I missed out on Coggin's first return to print, but, twenty years after the Rue Morgue Press republished the final Lady Lupin mystery, the series got picked up by Galileo Publishing.

Last year, Galileo reprinted the first title in the series, Who Killed the Curate? (1944), which is subtitled "A Christmas Mystery" and introduces Lady Lupin Lorrimer as a London socialite dreading that evening's twenty-first birthday party of a friend – because at dinner she's going to sit next to a clergyman ("whatever did one talk about to clergymen?"). She agrees with her boyfriend/fiance to push off early to the Crimson Canary, but when she meets the clergyman, Andrew Hastings, she falls in love. Before anyone knows it, they're married and Lady Lupin is off to the small seaside town of Glanville to start anew as the vicar's wife.

A note of warning here for readers who prefer their detective stories to get on with it, because Who Killed the Curate? is going to severely test your patience.

It's not unusual for mystery writers to indulge their literary craving by taking their time to get to the murder in order to introduce the characters, flesh out their personalities and setting the stage for the crime. Ngaio Marsh made that approach her own as many of her detective novels can be read as a pair of interconnected novellas with the first-half building up the murder and the investigation covering the second-half. But usually that first-half still has a hint of what's coming. I can't remember ever having read a mystery novel in which the first-half reads nothing like it's supposed to setup a whodunit. The first-half of Who Killed the Curate? basically reads like a comedic novel of manners with the entirely clueless, scatterbrained Lady Lupin trying to grapple with her new duties as the vicar's wife, "what with the Guides and the Mothers' Union and the Sunday School." Or a woman coming to her to confess she has been seduced and is expecting a baby ("...whatever else the life of a clergyman's wife is, it isn't dull").

So you have to wait until the second-half, roughly speaking, for ten pounds of the Hastings' household money to go missing shortly followed by the fatal poisoning of Andrew's curate, Charles Young, but was murder, suicide or something else ("well, if it was the fish, we'll probably all go"). The police eventually find their likely-unlikely suspect and Lady Lupin "longed for a chance to show her friendship" is maneuvered by circumstances and position as the vicar's wife, who receives privileged information into the role of amateur sleuth – assisted by her London friends who arrived to celebrate Christmas. But even then, it feels like the detective story had to be drawn from this character novel of manners like blood from a stone. For example, the details of the murder itself are gradually revealed through out the second-half right up to the final quarter of the story. Coggin was a funny writer with an eye for character and dialogue, but it began to wear thin to the point where I stopped caring who killed the damn curate. Good thing, too, as the answer to the question is nothing special or particular memorable. Only thing the story managed to do making me wonder what sulphur cake tastes like.

I don't know if the problem is Coggin using this first novel to flesh out her cast of regular characters and their relationships or that this series just isn't for me. Either way, I'm very sorry to have to end this year's run of Christmas mystery reviews, and the year in general, on a downer. However, the first review of January is going to be banger! Happy New Year and hope to see you all back in 2025!

Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2024

 

Last year, I started "Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2024" with remembering Rupert Heath, of Dean Street Press, who suddenly passed away earlier in the year and now have begin with acknowledging the passing of John Pugmire – who died in March of this year. John Pugmire and Locked Room International not only helped popularizing translations of non-English detective fiction, but instrumental in rejuvenating and reviving the locked room mystery novel. The locked room novel, not short stories, had been in a deep rut for over half a century, until Pugmire's 2006 translation of Paul Halter's La nuit du loup (The Night of the Wolf, 2000) was published.

I noted in "The Locked Room Mystery & Impossible Crime Story in the 21st Century" it was the first tremor of a massive shift and a decade later the reprint renaissance, translation wave and an honest to god locked room revival were in full swing! Pugmire left an indelible mark on the genre and, more, importantly revived his beloved locked room mysteries by broadening its horizon and bringing in a score of new fans. So he'll be missed, but will be with us locked room fans in spirit for many decades to come.

While LRI closed down, Dean Street Press reopened its doors for business and has began reissuing the courtroom mysteries by Sara Woods. A mystery writer whom Curt Evans called "a major figure in what I call the Silver Age of detective fiction." I'll be sampling one, or two, of those reprints next year. There's more exciting reprints, translations and brand new detective novels coming next year.

This year, British Library Crime Classics is reprinting Carter Dickson's The Ten Teacups (1937), Anthony Berkeley's Not to Be Taken (1938), Christianna Brand's Cat and Mouse (1950), Carol Carnac's Murder as a Fine Art (1953), Fiona Sinclair's Scandalize My Name (1960) and publishing an anthology, "a jam-packed travel case of short mysteries," entitled Midsummer Mysteries (2025) – edited by Martin Edwards. Otto Penzler's American Mystery Classics is going to reprint the rare, long out-of-print Obelists en Route (1934) by C. Daly King. Rufus King's Murder by the Clock (1929) is also returning to print. There are, of course, the translations. Pushkin Vertigo is diversifying their output of Japanese mysteries with translations of Seishi Yokomizo's Kuroneko tei jiken (The Murder at the Black Cat Cafe, 1947), Yukito Ayatsuji's Tokeikan no satsujin (The Clock Mansion Murders, 1991), Yasuhiko Nishizawa's Nanakai shinda otoko (The Man Who Died Seven Times, 1995), Taku Ashibe's Oomarike satsujin jiken (Murders in the House of Omari, 2021) and two novels by horror Youtuber "Uketsu." The BBB is currently serializing MORI Hiroshi's Warawanai sugakusha (Mathematical Goodbye, 1996 and complete edition will likely be out before spring. On top of a ton new titles.

So enough to look forward to in 2025, but 2024 needs to be tidied up first. First of all, I compiled a couple of lists this year under the collective title "The Hit List." The most recent one is "Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories," but also did "Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction That Have Been Lost to History," "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" and "Top 10 Best Translations & Reprints from Locked Room International." I also rambled about "The Locked Room Mystery & Impossible Crime Novel in the 1980s" as a prelude to the previously mentioned piece about the 21st century impossible crime novel. So with that out of the way, all that's left to do is wish you all a Merry Christmas and best wishes for next year! Now let's get to the best and worst detective fiction read in 2024.

THE BEST DETECTIVE NOVELS:

The Tragedy at Freyne (1927) by Anthony Gilbert

A promising debut and a better than average, 1920s manor house mystery novel concerning the mysterious poisoning of Sir Simon Chandon solved by a young, rising politician, Scott Egerton.

The Creeping Jenny Mystery (1929) by Brian Flynn

This is a lighthearted, lightly plotted and written 1920s romp that reads like a fond farewell to the Twenties with its country house setting, stolen jewels and cast of bantering Bright Young Things. Flynn's doing a bit of webwork plotting gave it a hint of what was in store for the detective story in the decade ahead.

Murder Yet to Come (1929/30) by Isabel Briggs Myers

A rival of Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery (1929) for the first prize in a writing competition and both, interestingly enough, pay homage to the doyen of the American detective story, S.S. van Dine. The Van Dinean treatment considerably freshened up the turn-of-the-century tropes Myers paraded out in this entertaining locked room mystery, which makes it a pity her second detective novel bombed so bad it torpedoed her mystery writing career.

The Red Widow Murders (1935) by Carter Dickson (a reread)

The third recorded case of Sir Henry Merrivale is a classic take on the room-that-kills scenario bringing to Old Man to Mantling House and the notorious Widow's Room, which had claimed a handful of victims over the century – before getting permanently sealed. Widow's Room remained sealed for more than half a century, but only a few hours passed between the unsealing and the room claiming a fresh victim. A vintage H.M. and a fantastic Golden Age detective novel.

Death of an Author (1935) by E.C.R. Lorac

My favorite Lorac reprint to date! An excellent detective novel and a perfect example how you turn an ultimately simple situation into a dark, maze-like structure simply by playing an elaborate game of Guess Who? I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for reprints of Murder in St. John's Wood (1934) and her "Carol Carnac" novels Murder As a Fine Art (1953) and The Double Turn (1956).

Murder in the Family (1936) by James Ronald

A surprising, unexpectedly good (superb even) and deeply human, character-driven crime novel from a writer better known for his thrillers, gangster stories and pulp-style (locked room) mysteries. It can even be read as criticism of the detective story treating murder as a parlor game, but it was all done so well, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Never let it be said I only care about plot-mechanics.

They Can't Hang Me (1938) by James Ronald

Arguably, the definitive pulp-style locked room mystery. The kind of pulp-style locked room mystery John Russell Fearn and Gerald Verner made their own, but Ronald nailed it to near perfection. Simply the best treatment of the house under siege by an apparently near omnipotent murderer who seems to have the run of the place. The best of the pulps!

The Footprints on the Ceiling (1939) by Clayton Rawson (a reread)

Rawson is remembered today for Death from a Top Hat (1938), but it's classic status has not aged very well and, upon rereading The Footprints on the Ceiling, found it to be a superior detective novel. A bizarre, tightly packed mystery novel taking place on a small river island with a helter-skelter plot that had no right to work, but it did, which makes it one of the best tricks Rawson played on his readers.

Green for Danger (1944) by Christianna Brand (a reread)

The most well-known, widely celebrated British World War II mystery novels taking place in a military hospital during the Blitz with the death of a patient on the operating table bringing Inspector Cockrill to the scene. Even though Death of Jezebel (1948) has toppled it as the definitive Brand novel, Green for Danger still lives up to its reputation. One of the best pure whodunits of the 1940s!

Shadowed Sunlight (1945) by Christianna Brand

A short-ish novel, originally serialized in Woman, but never reprinted in book form and the story was, sort of, forgotten about – until it appeared in Bodies from the Library 4 (2021). An admittedly minor, but solid, mystery novel about an impossible poisoning aboard a pleasure yacht deserving of its own edition.

Nomen satsujin jiken (The Noh Mask Murder, 1949) by Akimitsu Takagi

The translation wave has brought us not only some gems of today's premiere Japanese mystery writers, but also previously inaccessible, Golden Age detective fiction. This classic Japanese locked room mystery involves the impossible murder of the family patriarch involving the titular mask with a 200-year-old curse attached to it.

The Footprints of Satan (1950) by Norman Berrow (a reread)

Berrow's most impressive contribution to the locked room mystery and impossible crime story partially based on the reported 1855 incident of the Devon hoof-marks. Berrow used the story of the devil's hoof-marks to turn the already tricky problem of impossible-footprints-in-the-snow into an Olympic winter sport!

The Case of the Burnt Bohemian (1953) by Christopher Bush

An excellent mystery concerning the murder of a reclusive, completely unknown artist and a fine example of Bush finding his footing again in the 1950s with one the last appearances of the great Superintendent George Wharton, before Bush decided to phase him out of the series.

Riddle of a Lady (1956) by Anthony Gilbert

This is a late-period Golden Age mystery novel and all the more interesting for it as it offers a glimpse of what the plot-driven detective story could have been like in the age of the character-driven crime and thriller novels. Gilbert basically polished, what's ultimately, a sordid crime story into a detective story by presenting it as an ambiguous inverted mystery. Arthur Crook being Arthur Crook always helps. Not to the police. Certainly not them, but his clients and readers are always happy to see him make an appearance.

Akuma no temari uta (The Little Sparrow Murders, 1957/59) by Seishi Yokomizo

A solidly-plotted, lavishly-spun whodunit bringing Japan's most iconic detective figure, Kosuke Kindaichi, to the small, remote mountain village of Onikobe. A two-decade old, unsolved murder hangs like a dark cloud over its inhabitants and fresh murders are committed not long after Kindaichi's arrival – bizarrely patterned after the lyrics of temari song. So an Agatha Christie-style nursery rhyme mystery and perhaps the most accessible translations for readers who find the usual honkaku-style mysteries a bit strong with its chopped up bodies, eccentric architecture and multiple impossible crimes, unbreakable alibis and dying messages.

Tsumetai nisshitsu to hakase tachi (Doctors in the Isolated Room, 1996) by MORI Hiroshi

Maybe a little too technical and specialized for some, especially since the characterization is not great, but found this story about a double murder in the low-temperature laboratory of a Polar research facility to be better than Hiroshi's famous and celebrated Subete ga F ni naru (Everything Turns to F: The Perfect Insider, 1996). Yes, I can be an annoying contrarian at times.

Hoshifuri sansou no satsujin (Murders in the Mountain Lodges Beneath the Shooting Stars, 1996) by Jun Kurachi

Contrary to what most readers have come to expect from shin honkaku mysteries, Murders in the Mountain Lodges Beneath the Shooting Stars is a non-impossible crime without the usual trappings – like strange architecture, corpse-puzzles and locked room murders. I called it a no-gimmicks-needed, simon-pure jigsaw detective novel in the classical mold that's a must-read for fans of Ellery Queen and Alice Arisugawa.

 

Rurijou satsujin jiken (The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders, 2002) by Takekuni Kitayama

Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin (Death Among the Undead, 2017), a locked room mystery infested with zombies, has popularized the hybrid mystery among Japanese writers, but the form has been explored and experimented before. The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders is a particular fine example in which reincarnation ties the main characters together over a 700 year period. So a novel structured like an interconnected short story collections stretching from 13th century France to 1980s Japan. The locked room murder at the Library at the End of the World is the impossible crime story on steroids!

Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) by Kie Houjou

Kie Houjou can now be counted among my favorite mystery writers on the strength of her first and third hybrid mystery in the Ryuuzen Clan series. The Time Traveler's Hourglass, first in the series, is a brilliantly plotted time travel mystery, but even more distinguishing is that the characters have heart and the story a soul. It allowed for an ending that would have died a death in the hands of a less talented writer.

 

Mortmain Hall (2020) by Martin Edwards

Another intricate, webwork-plotted and classically-styled detective novel masquarading as retro-pulp from the Nestor of the Golden Age Renaissance. So the nature of the plot doesn't allow much room for discussion or being described, but the next two titles in the series, Sepulchre Street (2023) and Hemlock Bay (2024), are on the big pile for next year.

Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022) by Kie Houjou

Arguably, my favorite detective novel read this year and the third novel in the Ryuuzen Clan series, which brings Kamo Touma to closed circle event to test a new virtual reality mystery game. And to say he gets an immersive gaming experience would be an understatement. I believe Delicious Death for Detective could very well end up becoming the iconic detective novel of the 21st century like Christie's And Then There Were None (1939).

 

Bunraku Noir (2023) by K.O. Enigma

A self-published "murder mystery for the modern, online age" from "the Ellery Queen of the Vtuber Era" and is a clever, genre-savvy genre parody and better than most would expect from a fan written web release.

 

Gospel of V (2023) by H.M. Faust

A thoroughly bizarre, but pleasing, highlight from the budding independent scene and locked room revival. The book is a challenge to describe or properly summarize. For example, the story has a disconnected, but thematically consistent intermission, "The Jesus Christ Murder Case," retelling the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as unexpectedly good locked room mystery. There's logic to all the madness. Sure, the logic of a mad dream, but still... I loved it!

77 North (2023) by D.L. Marshall

The third and apparently final entry in John Tyler series of action packed mystery thrillers packed with locked room murders and impossible crimes. This time, Tyler is dropped in the Arctic circle to retrieve a bioweapons expert from a Cold War era facility, a "hotel," where the KGB with ESP, astral projections and telekinesis – someone died under impossible circumstances in the nuclear bunker. Hopefully, 77 North is not the last we have seen of Tyler and the impossible crimes he encounters in all those remote, dangerous places.

The Mystery of Treefall Manor (2023) by J.S. Savage

A genuine retro-GAD locked room mystery, introducing Inspector Graves and Constable Carver, hitting all the familiar notes, but there's nothing stock or time-worn about the excellent solution. A homage to the Golden Age mystery novel that would have actually been quite at home in the 1920s or '30s. I was less enamored with Savage's second, modern-set locked room mystery, Sun, Sea and Murder (2024), but look forward to the second Graves and Carver novel, The Riddle of the Ravens (2024).

Rechercheur De Klerck en de status in moord (Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder, 2024) by P. Dieudonné

A good, old school detective novel presented as a typical, Dutch police novel in which the combination of old world problems and solutions result in complicated murder case with multiple victims. Better than the previous, double-sized Rechercheur De Klerck en de sluier van de dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Veil of Death, 2024)!

The Dry Diver Drownings (2024) by A. Carver

A detective's coming-of-age, of sorts, in which Alex Corby is invited to the shoot of a crossover episode for two horror web series at an abandoned building, but without her great-aunt Cornelia. Alex is pretty much on her own when the subject of the two web series, Dry Diver, apparently stirs to live and begins picking people off in locked and watched room. Not the locked room spectacle of novels, but still an excellent, classically-styled contemporary whodunit. And love the idea of a creepypasta character coming to live who can dive through locked doors and solid walls as though they're made of water.

Cabaret Macabre (2024) by Tom Mead

A locked room mystery with a pair of skillfully-handled impossible murder, notably the body on the lake providing the story with an original two-pronged impossibility, but they're only one part of web work plot of "byzantine complexity." The best of the Joseph Spector novels, so far!

THE BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS AND SHORT STORIES

Short Story Collections:

The Communicating Door and Other Stories (1923) by Wadsworth Camp

Les veillées de la Tour Pointue (The Secret of the Pointed Tower, 1937) by Pierre Véry

13 to the Gallows (2008) by John Dickson Carr and Val Gielgud (a reread)

The Casebook of Jonas P. Jonas and Other Mysteries (2012) by E.X. Ferrars

The Killer Everyone Knew and Other Captain Leopold Stories (2023) by Edward D. Hoch

Golden Age Whodunits (2024) edited by Otto Penzler

Short Stories:

"The Talking Stone" (1955) by Isaac Asimov (a reread)

"Greenshaw Folly" (1956) by Agatha Christie

"Murder Behind Schedule" (1963) by Lawrence G. Blochman

"Cardula and the Locked Rooms" (1982) by Jack Ritchie

"The Sweating Statue" (1985) by Edward D. Hoch

"The Murder in Room 1010" (1987) by Edward D. Hoch

"Murder in the Urth Degree" (1989) by Edward Wellen

"The Theft of Leopold's Badge" (1991) by Edward D. Hoch (reviewed together with "The Murder in Room 1010")

"The Adventure of the Glass Room" (2002) by Philip J. Carraher

"Kanojo ga Patience wo korosu hazu ga nai" ("She Wouldn't Kill Patience," 2002) by Ooyama Seiichiro

"Knockin' On Locked Door" (2014) by Aosaki Yugo

"De schilder die de waarheid liefhad" ("The Painter Who Loved the Truth," 2019) by M.P.O. Books" (reviewed together with "Murder Behind Schedule")

"Jack Magg's Jaw" (2022) by Tom Mead (reviewed together with "Murder Behind Schedule")

"Eggnog and the Cylinder" (2023) by Miogacu (reviewed together with "Cardula")

“The Silent Steps of Murder" (2023) by James Scott Byrnside (reviewed together with "Murder Behind Schedule")

THE WORST OF DETECTIVE NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES:

The Girl in the Fog (1923) by Joseph Gollomb

A badly written, poorly plotted, unforgivably dull and ludicrous pulp-style mystery with a villain named Pete Ennis. Sometimes it's not difficult to understand how some writers completely disappeared into obscurity, because that's where they belong.

Who Goes Hang? (1958) by Stanley Hyland

Started out strong and promising, hobbled along to a splendid, midway twist before going to pieces, but enjoyed putting together my own solution.

The Crossword Mystery (1979) by Robert G. Gillespie

One of those attempts to incorporate classical tropes, locked rooms, dying messages and secret codes, into a modern crime novel, but not a very successful one. Phillips Lore made a much more valiant effort a year later with Murder Behind Closed Doors (1980). 

 

Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) by Natsuhiko Kyogoku

Nobody is a bigger fan and supporter of the shin honkaku mystery than I am, please ignore Ho-Ling and everyone else around here who can read Japanese, but even I can admit they produce a stinker every now and then. This is one of them. A historically important work for the second wave of shin honkaku mystery writers and a fascinating contrast with other seminal, second wave novel, Hiroshi's The Perfect Insider – which is blend of scientific mystery and futurism. The Summer of the Ubume, on the other hand, blends folklore with the supernatural, but it was a boring drag to read. And the ending was simply infuriating!