Above Suspicion (1922/23) by Robert Orr Chipperfield

Several years ago, I reviewed the "Otto Penzler's Locked Room Library" reprint edition of The Clue in the Air (1917) by Isabel Ostrander, a pre-Van Dinean pioneer of the American detective story, whose detective fiction can be described as premonitions of the coming Golden Age – lacking only in finesse. Nick Fuller said it perhaps best, "impressive because it is ahead of its time, disappointing because fair play is still in the future." A comment made in reference to Ostrander's second McCarty and Riordan novel, The 26 Clues (1919), but also perfectly describes and sums up The Clue in the Air. Ostrander could have easily become the mother of the American detective story, a good decade before the publication of S.S. van Dine's The Benson Murder Case (1926), had she been a bit clairvoyant on top being farsighted.

Ostrander died young, aged 40, in 1924 and only got to witness the early dawn of the Golden Age, but not the rise of Van Dine and his followers. That probably makes her one of those legitimate "what-if" case had her health not been so bad and had lived another twenty, thirty years. So, while being mostly a historical footnote and genre curiosity today, I was still incredibly curious about one of her last detective novels, Above Suspicion (1922/23), published only a few years before her death.

Above Suspicion was first serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly, as by "Robert Orr Chipperfield," between November 11 and December 16, 1922 and published as a complete novel the next year. Above Suspicion is listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) with a no-footprints impossibility. A no-footprints mystery, let alone a good one, were less common in the pre-1930s impossible crime genre. So why take a gamble on it? Adey's description of the impossible situation in combination with the book title and another scrap of information suggested a possible solution, but didn't want to thumb to the back of Locked Room Murders and potentially spoil a good, early and rare 1920s impossible crime novel – figuring it would turn up, somewhere, eventually. That happened last November.

Serling Lake reprinted Above Suspicion, under the Chipperfield name, as part of their "Impossible Crime Classics" series. I wasn't impressed with their first half dozen titles of mostly second-and third-rate pulp, like Joseph Gollomb's The Girl in the Fog (1923), but the selection began to improve with reprints of Elsa Barker, Henry Leverage and Charles Chadwick's The Moving House of Foscaldo (1925/26). At least, the reprints begin to get more interesting and the Chadwick reissue reeled me back in. So let's find out if Above Suspicion is another one of Ostrander's anachronistic genre curios or succeeds as an early, Golden Age detective novel.

Above Suspicion wastes no time by first introducing most of the main characters, setting the stage or even the mood, but begins with the discovery of the murder. Joseph Benkard, a Wall Street financier, is found dead next to a stone bench on the terrace of his sister's new, partially finished country house in Sunny Beach. Someone had struck him down from behind without leaving either a weapon or footprints on the recently sanded floor. It's unlikely the murderer smoothed out the tracks, because "the smoothin' out would show same as footprints" ("how'd he go?"). How this impossibility is laid out eliminates most of the routine and hack tricks for the no-footprints problem, but I'll get back to the impossible crime.

The problem of the footprints is only one, of three, standouts making Above Suspicion a noteworthy detective novel from the early 1920s. Other two are the detective and victim. Ostrander created one of the first blind detectives, Damon Gaunt, but here she introduces, what could be, one of the first working class detective, Geoff Peters – a stone mason working on finishing the house. A simple, down-to-earth man clad in dirty overalls and always seen mixing cement or puttering around. Contrary to tradition, Peters is a detective who tries not to stick his nose where it has no business being, "tain't any o' my business," but someone who's acutely aware of everything happening around him. Peters is the one who takes the initiative when the body is discovered by having the crime scene roped off and calls for the medical examiner. Doc Hood rates Peters highly as an amateur detective as helped the local police out on several murky murders ("you gave me some good ideas that helped a lot when Jim Hicks was found dead in the swamp and again when old Mrs. Beckley was murdered in her barn"). No idea if they're references to previous stories or merely apocryphal. Note that a policeman refers to Peters later in the story as that "hick Sherlock" from Sunny Beach.

So you get an amateur detective, clad in dirty overalls, snooping and eavesdropping between "doin' odd jobs round concrete and stucco." And, every now and then, puts on his Sunday suit and straw hat when needing to talk to people in town or at the bank. Pretty much the exact opposite of the American detectives who would start appearing over the following years like Philo Vance, Ellery Queen, Thatcher Colt and Nero Wolfe.

Joseph Benkard is not your typical, 1920s victim either. I mentioned in the past how bankers, financiers and stockbrokers took the torch from blackmailers as popular murder victims after the stock market crash of 1929, but Above Suspicion was a good eight years ahead of the curb – certainly in attitude. Benkard was known, not always for the right reasons, as "one of the most daring, brilliant speculators" and his past Wall Street shenanigans drives part of the plot. Having ruined more than one man and driven some of them to suicide, which has resulted in receiving threatening letters, twice a year, on the same dates. But there's also his domestic roguery involving trying to marry his niece to a shady friend/business enemy. And a young man who's very much opposed to those plans. Peters and Benkard perfectly complimented each other, as detective and victim, who elevated and added interest to what would otherwise have been a fairly routine investigation. That brings us to the surprising conclusion of Above Suspicion.

I mainly read this to see what Ostrander could do with the no-footprints scenario in 1922 without expecting too much from the who or why. I didn't even expect all that much from the no-footprints trick, because it was written in the early twenties. It's not a period when the locked room mystery and impossible crime blossomed. Just scratching that curiosity itch and crossing another locked room title from the impossible crime list. When I got to the penultimate chapter, it seemed like Above Suspicion was going to follow the pattern of The Clue in the Air and The 26 Clues. A detective story that in many ways feels ahead of its time, until it falls apart as a detective stories in the last chapter or chapters. Well, that didn't happen here!

In that penultimate chapter, the supposed murderer obligingly commits suicide and leaves behind a written confession, but the last, short chapter, "Geoff Minds His Own Business," Peters turns the official explanation into a false-solution – reveals an entirely different solution. A solution that comes with an entirely new take on how the murderer pulled off the footprints-trick, which is a far more involved trick than most of us would expect from 1922 mystery novel. I also thought it was a nice touch Ostrander used a real cliché of the detective story (ROT13: gur cevingr frpergnel qvq vg) as the story's false-solution. By the way, Adey wrote down the false-solution in Locked Room Murder, not the correct one given in the last chapter. This surprise solution comes with two caveats. Firstly, it can be debated how fairly clued the surprise solution really is. Secondly, the footprints-trick showed what story needed even more than clues was a floor plan and crime scene diagrams.

Smudges aside, Above Suspicion ended up being a better, more consistent and well-rounded detective novel than The Clue in the Air, helped by a memorable detective and original impossible crime. Not a flawless, perfectly polished detective novel, but a clear case of the pros outweighing the cons. So not just for genre scholars and impossible crime fiends!

Murder of a Matriarch (1936) by Hugh Austin

Hugh Austin, a true enigma, was a mystery writer about whom very little, or anything, is known and what's known doesn't always appear to be correct as he was an American, but according to his GADWiki he was British – complete with an incomplete bibliography. What can be said for certain is that Austin wrote nine detective novels featuring either his New York lawyer Wm Sultan or Lieutenant Peter Quint of the Homicide Bureau of the city of Hudson. And two, or three, standalone mystery novels.

They were well enough received at the time. Curt Evans, of The Passing Tramp, mentioned in his review of Austin's Murder of a Matriarch (1936) that Anthony Boucher called for the Peter Quint series to be reprinted in the 1960s, but "sadly no one has heeded that call even today." However, Coachwhip has reprinted the Wm Sultan novels, Drink the Green Water (1948) and The Milkmaid's Millions (1948), as a twofer and the non-series Death Has Seven Faces (1949). His six detective novels and locked room mysteries from the 1930s remain out-of-print. Robert Adey highlighted Austin's quartet of impossible crime novels ("all competent") in the introduction of Locked Room Murders (1991), under "More Golden Age Contributions," which uncharacteristically spoils the solution of Austin's The Upside Down Murders (1937). But then again, the impossibility in that one concerns the murderer's fingerprints that "do not match up to any of the suspects in a guarded area." So it could only have been one of two tricks. What's left to say about Hugh Austin is a matter of opinion.

While not widely read today, some fanatics managed to dip into Austin's work from the thirties and appeared to have needed the first two books to find his footing in the genre. Nick Fuller abandoned It Couldn't Be Murder (1935) halfway through, because the style was "horribly clumsy, with short, jerky sentences alternating with bathetic purple prose" and Jason Half thought Murder in Triplicate (1935) delivered "a good plot and poor writing." Austin improved considerably on his third try judging from the general positive feedback on it. Curt Evans praised Murder of a Matriarch in the above mentioned review for its "lively characterization, pointed satire, a clever puzzle and credible police procedure." The book has also been mentioned on this blog a few times over the years, but more on that in a moment.

So the work of Austin, particularly his locked room mysteries, have been creeping up my wishlist for a while now and thought it would be a nice idea to ring in the New Year with a potentially long-lost, Golden Age classic from the 1930s – because it has been a while since I discussed a 1930s Golden Age locked room mystery. You have to go back exactly a year to last January.

Hugh Austin's Murder of a Matriarch takes place at the home of the titular matriarch, Mrs. Hortense Farcourt, who's a nasty, sanctimonious widow with "the confidence of seventy-one years of undenounced deceit." When her henpecked husband kicked the bucket, the family began to understand who had been pulling the purse strings tight behind the curtain. Her daughter, Clara Irving, now wants the money, clothes and social status that had been denied by having to live on the salary her father's company paid her husband, Dwight – who left a position at another company to come work for Farcourt Chemicals. Dwight never got his promised nor his wife all the things her mother had promised her ("...if it was in your power to give them"). They're not only one's who suffering under Mrs. Farcourt's stinginess and sadistic tendencies veiled with a nauseous air of feigned virtue. She has taken in her 20-year-old, orphaned grandniece, Nan Rogers, together with her ten years younger brother Jeddle "Jed" Rogers. Nan, of course, is put to work as a cheap, extra pair of hands around the house and Jed is just a 9-year-old boy who wants a puppy, but plays an important part in all that happens at the house.

So all of this still sounds fairly conventional, for a 1930s family whodunit, but the first-half is wholly dedicated to showing Mrs. Farcourt is not merely your typical family matriarch/patriarch who enjoy making their relatives dance like puppets on a purse-string. She's more than a genuinely despicable person. She's cruel in a way only a dumb, thoroughly selfish and self absorb person can be at the cost of everyone around them. Mrs. Farcourt is the reason why Murder of a Matriarch has been mentioned a couple of times on this blog over the years.

Last year, I cobbled together "The Hit List: Top 7 Most Murderable “Victims” in Detective Fiction" based on a discussion with Scott, a regular in the comments, about who would make the cut for a rogue's gallery of the most reprehensible, murderable villains-turned-victim. Scott regularly mentioned Mrs. Farcourt who's not unlike Mary Gregory (Anthony Wynne's The Silver Scale Mystery, 1931) and Miss Octavia Osborne (James Ronald's Murder in the Family, 1936). If I had read Murder of a Matriarch before making that list, Miss Octavia would have surrendered her spot to Mrs. Farcourt. However, what made Mrs. Farcourt a memorable character rather than another dime-a-dozen domestic tyrants is the character of her nine year old grandnephew, Jed. Just a lonely child without friends to play with and only his uncle, Hal Farcourt, as an ally who generally does what bored, nine year old kids did when they had no phones to play around with. That causes a lot of problems leading up to the murder, but what really made my blood boil were the scenes in which the old harridan tries to manipulate and mold Jed's behavior, even personality, by subjugating to the sugary, nauseating stories of Rose Girl and Billy Boy – writing to tell children how to be good boys and girls. Fortunately, these intolerable stories complete with personalized addition have no effect on Jed. Only one he enjoyed was Billy Boy and His Enemy, because Billy Boy got a teeth knocked clean out of his head.

You have to read for yourself to get an idea how malicious and damaging a person Mrs. Harcourt really is, but, to give a clear example, the first cracks in the sibling bond between Nan and Jed already appear under the stress. That sibling bond, of two orphans, is the one thing bridging that ten year gap between them. So damaging or even destroying it is just evil. And then two incidents happened that bring the police into the house.

Mrs. Farcourt nearly trips down a flight of stairs over one of her canes and her poor, long-suffering cat, mockingly named My Comfort, is poisoned. She believes these were attempts to murder her and calls the police, demanding the "head of the murder department," throwing such a row they eventually dispatch Lieutenant Peter Quint to see who's getting murdered. And even to Mrs. Farcourt surprise, Quint appears to take the case seriously. I think the readers who have taken a great dislike to Mrs. Farcourt will enjoy the scene in which Quint effortlessly gets her to reveal her true face without realizing it ("...she considered herself as inscrutable as the night, as deep as the sea"). Quint and his colleague have to return the house that same night when Mrs. Farcourt is shot dead while sitting in her chair at the window.

Murder of a Matriarch comes with an Ellery Queen-style "Challenge to the Reader," but the story following the long, eagerly anticipated shooting Gr'aunty Hortence is in the mold of an early police procedural. Quint naturally has a whole police department and laboratory at his back, but they take care of the routine police work in the background or off-page. So the investigation is mostly of Quint and Sergeant Hendricks questioning everyone at the house, while noting there were more motives than alibis going around. One character I forgot to mention is Mrs. Farcourt older, doddering brother, Willie Jeddle, who let's everyone (including the police) know he hated his sister ("she wasn't any more human than a leech") and "were act of human kindness to wish her dead." Plenty of motives and not enough alibis to pick apart is not the only complication. A problem arises from the murder weapon and ballistics. There's still that impossible crime that landed it a place in Adey's Locked Room Murders.

It's always a tricky thing to pull off a satisfying locked room murder or other impossible crime when the book is nearing its conclusion, because a good one generally needs time and consideration. So when an impossible crime is introduced late into a story, they tend to be minor and routine affairs. The locked room situations from James Ronald's Sealed Room Murder (1934) and Jonathan Latimer's Murder at the Madhouse (1935), but Murder of a Matriarch proved to be an exception to the rule. Austin deserves credit for how the locked room came as a result from everything preceded: a poisoning with prussic acid inside a watched kitchen and no trace of the poison to be found inside. I really liked Quint's false-solution preceding the correct one. This time, the false-solution didn't outshine the correct one. Although I had been playing with a similar idea for the locked room-trick, I preferred the much more practical correct solution. The false-solution was fun and clever in parts, but a bit pulpy and barely credible. So perfectly suited to throw out as a false-solution!

So, yes, I enjoyed my introduction to this obscure, unjustly forgotten Golden Age mystery writer. Murder of a Matriarch is perhaps not quite as crisply plotted as the best known mysteries from his better remembered contemporaries, but Austin played the Grandest Game with a lot of heart and respect. Most impressively, the story and plot largely concerned the actions of a convincingly, well-drawn nine year old boy who could have been written by Gladys Mitchell – only mystery writer who knew how to portray normal children. Jed Rogers would not have been out-of-place in a Mitchell novel and is the MVP of Murder of a Matriarch. A reprint is deserved and long overdue!

Well, that's the first of the year. Happy (belated) 2026 everyone!

People vs. Withers and Malone (1963) by Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice

You know, I love a good detective trope as much as the next person and my enduring, tediously documented obsession with the locked room mystery has been called a "cause for concern," but they say that because they don't realize there's a trope even more potent than the impossible crime – a trope rarer than musgravite. The classic of literary guilty pleasures, the crossover. While not as rare in other fields of fiction, there have been very few genuine crossovers in detective fiction over its nearly two-hundred year run.

H.C. Bailey allowed his two series detectives, Reggie Fortune and Joshua Clunk, to make occasional cameos in each others cases, but never truly worked with, or against, each other. A panel of famous detective characters appear in Brian Flynn's The Case of the Painted Ladies (1940) to help out Anthony Bathurst, but their appearance is more in the way of a cameo than a crossover. Same goes for William Clerihew from H. Warner Allen's Mr. Clerihew, Wine Merchant (1933) briefly popping up in E.C. Bentley's Trent's Own Case (1936) to advise Philip Trent. So one of the first true and truly effective crossovers is probably Patrick Quentin's Black Widow (1952) pitting the innocently framed Peter Duluth against the tenacious Lt. Trant from Death and the Maiden (1939).

After the 1950s, Edward D. Hoch pooled some of his many series detectives on special occasions. Dr. Sam Hawthorne meets Ben Snow in "The Problem of the Haunted Tepee" (1990) and Captain Leopold crosses paths with Nick Velvet in "The Theft of Leopold's Badge" (1991). A writer who made serious work of crossovers in the (modern) crime-and detective story is Bill Pronzini. Pronzini's Nameless Detective has teamed up with Marcia Muller's Sharon McComb in Double (1984) and the short story "Cache and Carry" (1988), but their best crossover is Beyond the Grave (1986) in which Elena Oliverez from Muller's The Tree of Death (1983) comes across a historical mystery from 1894 involving Carpenter and Quincannon – the turn-of-the-century San Francisco gumshoes. Even before that, Pronzini's Nameless Detective found himself working alongside Collin Wilcox's Lt. Frank Hastings (Twospot, 1978). There are, of course, the missed opportunities. Carter Dickson and John Rhode's Fatal Decent (1939) not being a crossover between H.M. and Dr. Priestley or Rex Stout and Ian Fleming discussing the idea of James Bond, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin having a meetup that never happened ("Bond would have gotten all the girls").

So, while there have been few real crossovers, those few have been generally good, but even then, they're hardly known as crossover classics. In fact, the only work really known and celebrated for its quality as a crossover is a collection of half a dozen short stories, Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice's People vs. Withers and Malone (1963).

Stuart Palmer and "Craig Rice," a penname of Georgiana Randolph, were not only friends, but two of the brightest lights of the American detective story. Palmer debuted Miss Hildegarde Withers, "schoolteacher by profession and meddlesome old snoop by avocation," who made her first appearance in The Penguin Pool Murder (1932) giving the whole concept of spinster sleuth a bit more bite – which made her my favorite. Rice, the Queen of the Screwball Mystery, was said to have been "virtually the only woman writer of the distinctively American type of mystery, the tough, hard-boiled school that combines hard drink, hilarity, and homicide." She created my favorite shady lawyer, John J. Malone, who always right in the middle of some boozy, madcap antics, heavy drinking and solving crimes ("...usually by pure accident while chasing through saloons after some young woman..."). I take these two over Miss Marple and Perry Mason anytime!

Nobody remembers, exactly, who came up with the idea to pair the prim spinsters with the messy Chicago attorney. Rice thought it was Palmer. Palmer believed it was the editor "Ellery Queen." Queen named Palmer. Whoever came up with the idea, Palmer and Rice collaborated through correspondence on four stories that appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, but the last two stories were posthumous collaborations published after Rice's untimely death in 1957. Palmer wrote and parsed the last two stories together from "some Craigean scrap or Ricean fragment" in their letters and notes. Their partnership proved to be what you want and hope a crossover to be (i.e. not just a gimmick). While in a way different mystery writers with opposite characters as detectives, Palmer and Rice's style and plotting techniques proved to be far from incompatible with Malone and Withers playing off each other like Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin at their best.

I first read this collection, years ago, in a Dutch translation (badly) titled Een advocaat en kwade zaken (A Lawyer and an Evil Business), but always wanted to reread it in English. So why not take a look at these six madcap capers during these final days of the year.

"Once Upon a Train," originally titled "Loco Motive," first appeared in the October, 1950, issue of EQMM and finds John J. Malone celebrating the "miraculous acquittal" of his client, Stephen Larsen. A machine politician who had been caught with his hand in the municipal till and Malone is now waiting for him to settle his much needed fee ("...two months' back office rent..."), but Larsen has boarded the Super-Century for New York ("next stop Paris or Rio"). Malone is in hot pursuit and boards the train, however, there's no trace of Larsen or the beautiful redhead he spotted. He meets someone else, a tall, angular woman "who somehow suggested a fairly well-dressed scarecrow" with a floral hat resembling "a well-kept grave," Miss Hildegarde Withers – where off to the races! Their first meeting aboard the Super-Century train is a crossover worthy event that keeps getting better when a body turns up in Miss Withers' compartment. Malone and Miss Withers are the wrong detectives to try such a stunt on, because they immediately start tempering with evidence by moving the body back and forth between their compartments to delay discovery. Not only is "Once Upon a Train" a very entertaining story, putting two detectives from different series on the same page, but the plot is solid with a solution answering the question why the body was undressed and where the money (including Malone's fee) was hidden on the train. So a fantastic story all around!

"Cherchez la Frame" was originally published in the June, 1951, issue of EQMM and brings Malone and his secretary, Maggie, to Beverley Hills, California, on a discreet assignment. Joe Vastrelli hired Malone to track down his estranged ex-wife, Nina, who had abandoned him to become an actress and wanted to know if she wanted him back. Malone, "a pushover for a sentimental story," accepted and took the opportunity to meet back up with Miss Withers, but Maggie has to keep his date and confides in Miss Withers her worry Malone is getting himself into trouble. Not without a reason. Malone finds Nina's body in the bedroom of his bungalow hotel with his own, distinctively hand painted, necktie knotted tightly around her neck. Like I said before, Malone and Withers are the wrong detectives to try a frame job on. This time, the killer did a better job than the previous murderer ("a lovely, hand-painted frame") and it looks like Malone is in serious trouble towards the end ("...I'm licked"). That being said, Malone and Withers carry this story as the murderer, motive and method are obvious from the start. So not as good as the first, but still a thoroughly entertaining story mixing mayhem with murder.

"Autopsy and Eva" was first published in the August, 1954, issue of EQMM and opens with Malone ready to embark for Honolulu on holiday, "just collected a fat fee," but Miss Withers drops by to spoil the fun – announcing "we're thoroughly mixed up in another murder case." Miss Withers goes on to explain about the Ryan murder case in which an army colonel returning from Korea was found killed in his bedroom. So it's assumed the returning Ryan found his wife, Eva, together with her loves, got overpowered and shot with his own service pistol. Miss Withers has her doubts and done some sleuthing on herself, which seems to have borne fruit. Now she wants Malone to present when hearing the people who responded on her ad requesting information. Of course, one of them practically ends up dead on Malone's doorstep. Miss Withers casually informs Malone she's been harboring the fugitive Eva Ryan in her spare bedroom for the past four days. So this another entertaining outing for the two disaster creating murder magnets, but, once again, Malone and Withers carry the story.

"Rift in the Loot," originally published in the April, 1955, issue of EQMM, is not a detective story, but one of those thriller-ish gangster stories from the pulp magazine of previous decades. Malone and Withers get roped in to retrieve the hidden loot from a deadly robbery, which appears to be easy enough, but complications and corpses abound. Fun but minor stuff.

"Withers and Malone, Brain-Stormers," first published in the February, 1959, issue of EQMM, is the first, of two, Withers and Malone stories Palmer wrote following the Rice's untimely death in 1957. Malone again finds himself in deeper hole than the previous time. Nancy Jorgens had a secret relationship with Paul Bedford, of the canned-beef Bedfords, who got her pregnant and told her to go see some shady doctor. So she turned to Malone to bring a paternity suit against Bedford, but Bedford fought back veraciously and brought in a whole parade of men who "swore they had enjoyed the favors of my fair client." Fortunately, this resulted in a hung jury, but, while Malone was moving for a new trial, Nancy got arrested for forging Paul Bedford's name a $25,000 check. She claims the check came in the mail and thought it legit, but the D.A. is out for blood. And even Malone is the target. Even worse, Nancy skipped town and Malone turns Miss Withers telling her, "we've got to find Bedford before Nancy finds him." So, more or less, standard fare for this crossover series, but the ending elevates it a bit closer to the first story. Malone finds himself in court as a fellow conspirator, but uses his Perry Mason-like courtroom theatrics and wizardry to conclude the case during their bail hearing. These last two stories are a bit longer than the first four, but Palmer put them to good use here!

"Withers and Malone, Crime-Busters," originally published in the November, 1963, issue of EQMM, finds Malone in an even more trouble than the last time. Malone always boasts that he never lost a client, but his latest client was sentenced to death. Walter "Junior" Coleman, playboy socialite, stood accused of killing his secret girlfriend, Jeanine, outside Le Jazz Hot with his car and received a life sentence at the first trial. Malone got him a new trial and a death sentence, but Malone himself is in potential legal trouble and potentially faces bribery charges. That's not even considering the devastating prize-tag attached to it, a bribed witness who has bailed and Junior already sitting in the condemned cell – entirely resigned to his fate. And a potential clue, or lead, lost in the foggy mist of a legendary hangover. Miss Withers came as soon as she heard the bad news ("welcome to the wake"), but they first dig themselves even deeper into trouble before they start digging themselves out again. A highlight of the story is when Malone ends up in the hospital, one leg raised high in traction, and Miss Withers has to disguise herself as a nurse to speak with him. So another fun, incredibly entertaining story to close out the story, marred only by a rather obvious murderer spoiling an interesting take on an age-old motive with legal complications.

I think "Withers and Malone, Brain-Stormers" and "Withers and Malone, Crime-Busters" probably would have made for a great novel and punctuation to the collaboration had they been merged together. Two cases simultaneously exploding in Malone's face with Miss Withers coming to the rescue (Welcome to the Wake would have been a good title).

So, all in all, Palmer and Rice's People vs. Withers and Malone is best described as the detective story's equivalent of an amusement park ride and probably best read as an episodic novel rather than a short story collection. I think only "Once Upon a Train" can stand on its own as a detective story with the first meeting between the two Malone and Withers making it a very special short story indeed. Malone and Withers carry the remaining stories from start to finish and they're the reason to read this unique team up between two detectives from different writers. There you have my rare recommendations purely on the strength of character. A Christmas miracle only a few days late!

Notes for the curious: People vs. Withers and Malone is not the only crossover in Palmer and Rice's work, which even extends to the detective fiction by Anthony Boucher and Denis Green. Firstly, Malone has an off-page cameo in Palmer's Miss Withers Regrets (1947) and briefly appears in the 1946 episode "The Double Diamond" from Boucher and Green's radio serial The Casebook of Gregory Hood. Gregory Hood is also linked to the Sister Ursula series through the Derringer Society from Boucher's Rocket to the Morgue (1942) and the Gregory Hood episode "The Derringer Society" (1946). Note that the Thrilling Detective Website mentions an untitled, 1948 crossover episode in which Hood appears alongside Sam Spade from the radio show The Adventures of Sam Spade. I don't remember if Fergus O'Breen or Nick Noble were ever alluded to/made cameos in the Hood or Sister Ursula series, but their inclusion would be the finishing touch to this extended pocket universe of detectives.

Anyway, I don't know if this going to be the last one of the year or one more gets squeezed in, but if this is the last one, I wish you all a happy new year and best wishes for 2026!

Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2025

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

Another year, another list.

THE BEST DETECTIVE NOVELS:

Golden Age:

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

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

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

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

Top Storey Murder (1931) by Anthony Berkeley

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

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

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

Fear Stalks the Village (1932) by Ethel Lina White

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

Obelists en Route (1934) by C. Daly King

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

The Sealed Room Murder (1934) by James Ronald

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

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

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

Dance of Death (1938) by Helen McCloy

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

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

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

Such Bright Disguises (1941) by Brian Flynn

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

Reunion with Murder (1941) by Timothy Fuller

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moderns:

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

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

Black Lake Manor (2022) by Guy Morpuss

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

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

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

Last One to Leave (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henna e (Strange Pictures, 2022) by Uketsu

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

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

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

THE BEST SHORT STORIES AND SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS:

Golden Age:

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

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

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

Moderns:

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

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

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

Short Story Collections:

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

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

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

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

THE WORST DETECTIVE NOVELS:

Novels:

Give Me Death (1934) by Isabel Briggs Myers

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

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

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

The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) by Richard Foster

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