Flower O' the Peach (1916) by W.A. Mackenzie

W.A. Mackenzie was a Scottish poet, journalist, illustrator, editor and writer who served in Belgium, France and Italy during the First World War, where he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in combat, but committed himself to humanitarian causes when the war ended – serving as Secretary-General of Save the Children International from 1920 to 1939. Mackenzie even acted as the Pope's representative on the British Save the Children Council. Not a bad resume at all. Just as important as Mackenzie's war record and humanitarian work, if not more so, was his contribution to the early, pre-Golden Age detective story of the early 20th century.

From 1903 to 1916, Mackenzie produced eight novels of crime, detection and mystery of which four feature Sir Nigel Lacaita, K.C.B., of Scotland Yard. This series comprises of The Drexel Dream (1904), His Majesty's Peacock (1904), The Black Butterfly (1907) and The Bite of the Leech (1914), while The Glittering Road (1903), In the House of the Eye (1907), The Red Star of Night (1911) and Flower O' the Peach (1916) appear to be non-series, standalone titles. All eight are obscure, out-of-print mysteries that even in the public domain (Mackenzie died in 1942) stubbornly remain obscure and out-of-print. Somewhat annoying as Mackenzie last novel has been on my wishlist ever since reading about in Robert Adey's introduction to Locked Room Murders (1991).

Adey made special note of Mackenzie's Flower O' the Peach on account of its memorable detective, "the rather common, aitch-dropping "Slow and Sure" Jackson," but also noted the book's connection to an untranslated, 19th century French short impossible crime story, "Le verrou" ("The Bolt," 18XX) – written by poet and author Armand Sylvestre. Well, my interest was piqued! Not merely because it's one of those tantalizingly obscure, out-of-print and reach locked room mysteries, which helps, but it's also one of those all too rare, World War I era mysteries. So was very surprised, and very pleased, when Serling Lake suddenly reprinted it back in February. I snapped up a copy faster than an old school pulp writer could crank out a short story.

Just one more thing, before getting to the story. I tried to find out if Mackenzie wrote Flower O' the Peach prior to the outbreak of WWI or between soldiering on the continent, but without result. I wondered as there's no mention of the war or allusions to a war anywhere in the story. On the contrary, Mackenzie wrote a piece of pure escapism blending crime, mystery and Ruritanian romance with all the flourishes of a French popular novel from the then turn-of-the-century ("we Britishers live on French literature today..."). So even though the story evidently takes place around the time it was published ("ain't you never h'ard of Flyin' Machines?"), it should be taken as an alternative cloud cuckoo 1916 where bad things do happen, but nothing as devastating as a global war. I wanted that cleared up as its status as a WWI era mystery was one of the reasons it attracted my attention. So... with that out of the way, let's get to the case at hand.

Flower O' the Peach begins on a pleasant, sunny May afternoon in Pall Mall as Sir Jacinth Coke ("K.C.B., K.C.V.O., etc, etc.") wanders into the Ambassadors' Club and spots an old friend, Baron Eskilstuna, who's former representative of the King of Gothland at the Court of Saint James. Baron Eskilstuna has come to London with a mission: to look for a wife. Not a wife for himself, but a wife for the youngest brother of the current King of Gothland, the Duke of Dalecarlia. A year previously, the Duke was in Brittany to visit Sainte Anne d'Auray when he saw the love of his life, but, before she vanished into the crowd, took a picture and has done everything within his power to put a name to that face as he intends to marry her – having already secured permission from his brother ("...the King is willing to permit a marriage"). That's not as easy a task as it would be today and the Duke finally commissioned Baron Eskilstuna to find her, but the Baron has about as much success as the Duke.

Sir Jacinth comes to the rescue as he recognizes the woman in the photograph. The woman is Brenda, daughter of his oldest friend Udo Dapifer, who can "show even better birth than your Duke." Udo Dapifer is currently staying at Dawling Hall and Sir Jacinth is prepared to introduce Baron Eskilstuna, but, while "the matchmakers were plotting and planning," Udo Dapifer died without knowing "a Prince of Blood Royal was seeking in marriage the hand of his beloved daughter." Shortly following Udo's death, his son and heir, Captain Godwin Dapifer is murdered in his bedroom "door bolted, window ditto." But the doctor dispels the possibility of suicide. So it's murder.

This is the point where Olaf, Prince of Gothland, Duke of Delacarlia enters the picture under the name of "Mr. Goodman" to place his services entirely at the disposal of Brenda ("I shall fight for her in this affair... and in the fighting I shall win her"). And, as Mr. Goodman, he mainly tries to get hold of a green, blood smeared ribbon and green dress belonging to Brenda rather than a proper detective in a country house whodunit investigating a locked room murder. But then again, that type of detective story was still very much in its infancy in 1916. So it really isn't worth mentioning the few other characters involved in this dance around the dress, ribbon and solution to murder, except the previously mentioned "Slow and Sure" Jackson.

Jackson is the local jack-of-all-trade who does everything from digging graves, gardening and delivering milk bottles to selling insurances and now grabbing the opportunity to play a "rural Sherlock Holmes." Or, as he calls it, "clim' the greasy pole of mystery an' bring down the leg o' mutton of truth." Jackson gets ridiculed for trying to outsmart both the police and a killer, "you have made yourself ridiculous, Henry Jackson, by interfering in your blundering way with the affairs of your better," but it's Jackson who finds an explanation for the problem of the bolted door – which honestly left me in two minds. The locked room-trick belongs to one of the categories of basic tricks from John Dickson Carr's "Locked Room Lecture" from The Three Coffins (1935), but with a small, stylistic difference. Normally, this trick is considered crude and not terribly imaginative. A trick usually suggested as a simple, throwaway false-solution, but here the trick appeared as smooth as French silk. I suppose that part of the trick is what Mackenzie found so attractive in Armand Sylvestre's short story "The Bolt."

I'm not a fan of copy/pasting other people's work, but fair's fair, Mackenzie gave Sylvestre all the credit for this version of the trick in a story-within-a-story, of sorts, sequence. Jackson finds an old news paper report about a murder trial in France where the murderer used Sylvestre's idea to leave a body locked away behind a bolted door, but a copy of the book was found in the killer's room resulting in an arrest and trial. Mackenzie praises Sylvestre through this newspaper report and even included a translated paragraph from "The Bolt" demonstrating how to work the trick as smoothly as possible ("...gently, oh! so gently"). While not entirely new, it made Flower O' the Peach feel somewhat ahead of its time as a locked room mystery with a solution that comes across as far more sophisticated than was still customary for the time. I really appreciated Mackenzie gave Sylvestre his credit, because it would been very unlikely we would have ever known.

Finally, I should mention the unusual and memorable ending without spoiling too much. Fittingly, Mackenzie gave Flower O' the Peach a fairy tale-like ending, but, like most European fairy tales, it's not without grimness. Believe me, those last two pages are a trip! It can even be argued it's the only time the war shows its influence over the story, but with the happy ending the real world never got. Like I said, Flower O' the Peach is pure escapism.

So, other than the neat, if ultimately simple, locked room angle and the character of “Slow and Sure” Jackson, Mackenzie's Flower O' the Peach is closer to the mysterious flight of fancies of Gaston Leroux and Maurice Leblanc than the impossible crimes of Carr or the early detective stories of Sherlock Holmes. I can only recommend it, if you're in the mood for something light, off the beaten track on a lazy afternoon. I very much look forward what long forgotten, out-of-print treasure Serling Lake is going to reprint next.

The Foggy Past: C.M.B. vol. 11-12 by Motohiro Katou

The first story from Motohiro Katou's C.M.B. vol. 11, "Phaistos Disc," returns to the two part, two chapter format in which Mau Sugal, the black market broker, invites Sakaki Shinra and Nanase Tatsuki to her antique shop in Santorini, Greece – one of a dozen shops she has around the world. Sugal promised Shinra to show him parts of her collection of historical artifacts, but, when they arrive at the shop, there's a man waiting for them.

Bier Brust, of Europol, is "the head of the department that deals with stolen artifacts" and, sort of, plays the Jirokichi Sebastian to Sugal's Kaito KID. She just calls him a stalker. Brust is very surprised to see Shinra, holder of the C.M.B. rings, in the company of Sugal, but Shinra is even more surprise to spots "a first class artifact that's been undiscovered until now" among Sugal's inventory. A stamp from the Phaistos Disc! Sugal tells them the stamp has already been sold to Pan Sirius, younger, more outgoing brother of shipping magnate and family patriarch, Andreas Sirius. A family currently in turmoil as Andreas' mistress, Themis Treille, was nearly killed when her boat exploded and whispered rumors say his wife, Illias, tried to kill his mistress. So when Shinra and company accompany Sugal on her delivery of the stamp, they become embroiled in a murder investigation when Illias is shot aboard the family's private yacht with Pan standing over her with a gun. Pan claims he didn't shot her and Andreas was visiting Themis in a nearby hospital. What really happened?

Shinra compares the case to the failed attempts at deciphering the titular disc, because "quite possibly, this incident may not be solvable for the same reason." Shinra, of course, reveals the murderer in the second and concluding chapter showing the theme of the story and plan of the murderer dovetail, but take away historical trappings, the murderer is nothing more than a legendary, hall of fame idiot gambling (ROT13) ba n qnatrebhf oyhss – redeemed only by the motive. So, storywise, this is not a bad story at all with some fascinating sidelines on out-of-place artifacts, hoaxes, decoding ancient tablets and historical background details, but, plot-wise, not the best or terribly convincing.

The second, one-chapter story is "HATSUGAMA Case" and begins Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara from Motohiro's Q.E.D. series making a brief cameo. They dropped by Shinra to wish him a happy New Year, but find he's out and wonder what he's doing. Shinra was asked by Tatsuki's grandfather to join a gathering with a few of his old high school friends for hatsugama, a tea ceremony to ring in the new year, because the friend hosting the ceremony, Kurmatsu, is a terrible snob and bragger. So he wanted Shinra to come along to outsmart him when it comes to tea ceremony trivia. Shinra is far more interested in the other items, but during the ceremony the tea cups disappears from its box and replaced with another item. So who replaced the cup, how and why? This story ended up reminding me of Isaac Asimov's Black Widower short stories with its fairly minor problem and explanation that hinge on a piece of trivia. However, if you happen to be aware of it, there's one scene that will probably bring it back to mind and help you spot the culprit and method. So, yes, a minor story, but a good and fun one.

The third and last, one-chapter story closing out this volume is "Marujime Neko" and is one of those human interest, or heart-shaped puzzles, Motohiro has done so expertly in the Q.E.D. series, but this might be the first one to work in this series. Shinra acts here like a cross between a spoiled brat and an extortionist, but not without a good reason. 

An elderly, recently widowed man, Hiraya Hideyoshi, who had all kind of bad things happen ever since his wife passed away. A stone was thrown throw a window, fire crackers thrown into the garden and eventually an accident happened. Shinra is prepared to help out with the case, but demands Hiraya Hideyoshi's statue called Marujime Neko, "said to be an early prototype of the Maneki Neko," better known as the Beckoning Cat. However, the Marujime Neko was a gift he bought for his wife on their honeymoon and "full of memories," but Shinra refuses to take no for an answer. So the series of strange incidents is only a small side issue, but with a clever piece of visual clueing and reasoning. What makes this story is why Shinra appeared to be so cruel towards an elderly, grieving widower by demanding such a sentimental item as payment. More than meets the eye indeed! Another relatively minor, but very good, story to end this volume on.

"Clay Seal" is the first, one-chapter, story opening C.M.B. vol. 12 and digs a little bit into Shinra's backstory. Shinra was raised by the previous holders of the C.M.B. rings when his mother passed away, acting as his three stepfathers, one of whom Ray Black – a professor as brilliant as he's reckless. Ray Black was called in as an expert by the Louvre when it was discovered clay tablets had someone been stolen from ancient Babylonian pots sealed shut for millennia. Somehow, "the clay seals that had not been opened for thousands of years were bypassed" and tablets stolen. And, to make the situation even more impossible, the seals were marked with a cylindrical stamp rolled over the clay seal. Only kings and other royalty possessed such stamps, which means once it's opened it can never be resealed to its original state. The main interest of the story naturally comes from Shinra and Black's backstory, but enjoyed the archaeological conundrum that reunited them and Shinra's solution how the tablets were taken from the sealed jars is very clever. A solid opener to this volume!

The second story, "An Old Woman and a Monkey," is another one-chapter story, but arguably the best short from these two volumes and a personal favorite. Shinra and Tatsuki are helping out Hinogure Toki, an elderly, sickly and frankly dying woman, clean out and tidying her home. During their work, Shinra and Tatsuki become concerned for the elderly woman, but not for health reasons. They overhear her grandson, Hayao, arguing with his wife Chika over his inheritance ("if you don't get any inheritance from her, I'm divorcing you”). They're not the only ones concerned over her money. Tatsuki eavesdrops on a heart to heart talk between Toki and her accountant, Umiyama Takeshi, who has embezzled her money and appears to be unable to return it ("...sicker I get, the less forgiving I will be... so please, keep that in mind"). So they advise her to lock her bedroom door during the night and Tatsuki even keeps guards in the hallway, which comes with a great floor plan of the situation. When they fail to wake her, they have call the police to have locked door broken open. Hinogure Toki is lying dead in bed, poisoned, while her pet baboon Hihimaru tries to wake her up. The door, and windows, are securely locked from the inside and Toki had not eaten during dinner. There was poison found in the water jug, but neither the jug nor the glass had her fingerprints on it. Hihimaru had nothing to do with either the method of poisoning or locked room-trick.

Like I said, this is a short, one-chapter story and the plot is not terribly complex, but sometimes, there's something to be said for straight forward simplicity – particularly when it has a glimmer of originality. The solutions to the who, why and especially how aren't cliched, or routine, offering a new, simple way to have someone end up poisoned behind a locked door and still make it appear like an impossible crime. A surprisingly tricky thing to do, but Katou did it effortlessly here as in "The Detective Novelist Murder Case" from Q.E.D. vol. 33. I also liked how the story ended with Shinra adopting Hihimaru after finding him being sad in Toki's empty bedroom. Yes, C.M.B. can be a whole lot weirder at times than its sibling series Q.E.D. Nonetheless, this story is (IMO) a series highlight!

C.M.B. vol. 12 ends ends with a longer, two-chapter story, "The Actress Sees a Ghost," which is much more of a psychological thriller with supernatural overtones than a detective story. The story takes place in Hong Kong where a man, Wang Qing Yun, fell to his death from rooftop into a garbage container. So his body was not found until collection day, three days later. A death filed as a suicide, however, the victim used to be the boyfriend of a rising actress, Zhang Qian Lian, who has been slowly unraveling and ruining her career in the process. For some time, she's being haunted by the unsettling, watery ghost of a man and the haunting provides the story with some of its best panels. For example, the ghost manifests itself at a fish market through a wall of fish aquariums! Shinra and Tatsuki become involved, but the hook of the story how "the person who successfully forced the real culprit to confess was an unexpected one." So a very well done story in that regard, but have nothing much else to say about it.

So, on a whole, vol. 12 is overall better than vol. 11, but both volumes show Motohiro Katou is starting to get the hang of these one-chapter stories as they get better, and better, from "HATSUGAMA Case" and "Marujime Neko" to "Clay Seal" – culminating with "An Old Woman and a Monkey." Look forward to the next two volumes!

The Frankenstein Factory (1975) by Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch was the King of Short Stories, the Man of a Thousand Tales of Mystery and Detection, but, during his five decade run, Hoch also wrote a handful of novel-length mysteries like The Shattered Raven (1969), The Blue Movie Murders (1973) and a three-novel series of science-fiction hybrid mysteries – generally known as the "Computer Cops" series. You read that right. They're the back tracing Cyber Police you were warned about!

Carl Crader and Earl Jazine work for the Computer Investigation Bureau, headquartered at the World Trade Center in New York, whose "investigations sometimes spill over into what might generally be called crimes of the new technology" in the 21st century. So the C.I.B. are the "experts on computers, lasers, holograms, cryosurgery" and "new technology" handling "crimes the regular police forces aren't equipped for." Crader is the head of the C.I.B. ("...reports directly to the President") and Jazine is his field agent. They appeared in only three novels, The Transvection Machine (1971), The Fellowship of the Hand (1973) and The Frankenstein Factory (1975).

This time, I've a good excuse/reason (take your pick) to unchronologically start at the end of the series. The Frankenstein Factory had been recommended several times over the years for its qualities as both a science-fiction mystery and clever pastiche of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (1939). That and the first two novels appear to be more science-fiction thrillers than science-fiction mysteries. The Frankenstein Factory seemed the safest choice and perhaps a candidate for that future followup to "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries."

First of all, I skipped the first two novels making it a bit confusing when, exactly, The Frankenstein Factory is supposed to take place. The first chapter refers to "these early years of the twenty-first century," but, early on in the story, there were several hints the story could take place during the 2010s or even early 2020s – based on a reference to the fading memories of "the renewed moon flights of the late 1990s." And the age of one of the characters who took part in one of those return missions. But it became a lot clearer during the second-half and home stretch that it takes place roughly twenty-five years after the mid-to late 1970s. So probably somewhere around 2004, give or take a year. It could also be a bit later based on a references to that "seventy-year-old mystery novel by the British writer Agatha Christie," but that would still place the story within the 2000s. Now with that out of the way, let's take a look at the story.

The Frankenstein Factory begins with Earl Jazine traveling by hovercraft to Horseshoe Island, somewhere off the coast of Baja California, under the guise of medical photographer. Jazine has come to the island to film and document an experimental operation.

Dr. Lawrence Hobbes is the head of International Cryogenics Institute who freeze and store people's bodies "against a future time when they could be revived," but this goes hand-in-hand with their research into operating techniques at low temperatures. So underneath the research facility is also a cold storage vault with frozen bodies inside sealed cylinders. Dr. Hobbes is ready to take the next step and revive a young man who died of a brain tumor in the 1970s, but the tumor did a lot of damage to the body and other organs. So needs several organ transplants, brain included, before they can reanimate him. Dr. Hobbes assembled a crack medical team to carry out this secret and experimental operation. Dr. Freddy O'Connor, a brain surgeon, who had great success with brain transplants in animals. Dr. Eric MacKenzie, "only military surgeon to set foot on the moon thus far," and Philip Whalen assist him. This team is rounded out by Tony Cooper, a bone specialist, and Vera Morgan, a research chemist, who only arrived the day before Jazine. There are two more people on the island, the elderly Miss Emily Watson whose money has made the whole operation possible and a maid/cook, Hilda. And, well, there's the patient, or "shell body," who they call Frank.

The operation is a success, "we have heartbeat and pulse," but, while Frank is sleeping and recovering in the operating room, things begin to happen on the island. Miss Watson goes missing from her bedroom, leaving only a smear of blood behind, but she, or her body, is not found following a thorough search of the buildings and island – she had vanished from the island. However, this is not an impossible disappearance as has been suggested elsewhere. Miss Watson simply disappeared, but not impossibly, as the murderer could have thrown her body into the sea or buried it somewhere. That's not the solution to the disappearance, but it's not an impossible crime. Just a somewhat baffling disappearance, considering the circumstances and apparent lack of motive. But then the murder strikes a second time!

This time, they find the body and the killer stops trying to hide future victims. Even worse, the group finds they have been cut off from the mainland and marooned on the island until new supplies arrive by hovercraft. Jazine takes charge until then, but body count continues to rise as survivors, suspects and supplies dwindle. All the while, the rapidly dwindling survivors become suspicious and frightened of Frank apparently still sleeping in the operating room ("Hell, I'd much rather believe that Frank down there did it than consider the possibility that I'm sitting at a table with a murderer"). So did they create a modern-day Frankenstein's monster or is there a human hand behind it all?

Before getting to the plot, the science-fiction elements deserve a mention. It goes without saying Hoch's depiction of the early 2000s in 1975 is very different from what actually happened. For one, the World Trade Center is still standing, but the most obvious difference is absence of the internet and cell phones despite characters remarking how "everything's miniaturized these days" and "almost everything's done by machine." Jazine explains late in the story the C.I.B. tackles mostly "computer frauds" such as "stock-market rigging, insurance swindles, even some gimmicking of the race-track computers," but no crimes related to, what could be called, an internet – which does not detract from the novel at all. Just interesting to compare Hoch's vision of the early 2000s to what actually happened. Hoch's version of the early 2000s appears to be a lot calmer than our early 2000s, but hints through out the story makes it clear the world outside the green, sunny island has some dystopian characteristics. Some countries promote suicide among the elderly, while other countries want to ship their criminals and surplus population to colonies on Venus ("...Venus colony is still a good many years away"). Somehow, someway, they took laser guns away from Americans shortly after their introduction in the mid '90s and cities are covered in a thick, hazy layer of ozone purifiers sprayed from helicopters. On the up side, there are the advances in medicine and plans to construct searails to span the oceans. So that's something.

The science-fiction of this hybrid science-fiction mystery, beside the cryogenic and reanimation, functions mostly as story dressing. However, it gives The Frankenstein Factory a retro-futuristic, alternate history quality that's fun to speculate about. My take is that the humans in this universe tend to be slightly more pragmatic or utilitarian, tick less sociable, which is why there more interested in Venus colonies, searails and reversing death than an internet or smart phones. Not wholly unimportant, it gave what would otherwise have been an average "trapped on an island with a killer" mystery a distinct character of its own. Not that The Frankenstein Factory is a bad whodunit. You can leave it to Hoch to pen a fair play mystery involving experimental surgery, a reanimated corpse and laser guns. It's just that without a science-fiction trappings, The Frankenstein Factory would have come across as a pale imitation of Christie's And Then There Were None.

So it's unfortunate Hoch never really integrated those science-fiction components with the story's detective plot, because that would have made The Frankenstein Factory something more than this strange, zany send-up of Christie. Hoch wrote a good, old-fashioned murder mystery and a tale of science-fiction horror taking place simultaneously with the same cast of characters. That's why I kept second guessing myself even when only two suspects remained, because expected the science-fiction elements would some part or role to play in the solution. I had reasons to believe Frank was not the first person to have been reanimated, which needed to be kept under wraps for the outside world (perhaps that person was a murderer like was suggested of the brain donor). I had one name in mind (ROT13: "...vg tnir ure gur ybbx bs n lbhat tvey sebz gur 1970f") as that person being revealed as both a reanimated person and the killer would give the story a double, morbid twist for the prize of one. No such genre crossing twists, or solution, as Hoch only roamed around the borders and never crossed the line into full-blown hybrid mystery territory. That's a missed opportunity.

The Frankenstein Factory is unlikely to secure a place on my list of best and favorite hybrid mysteries, because the bar for hybrid mysteries has been set astronomically high, but long-time Hoch fans should take note of this rare, novel-length mystery from his hands. Hoch's The Frankenstein Factory is intriguing and not unrewarding mystery as long as you don't expect a classic like Christie's And Then There Were None or Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (1953/54).

Murder in the Tomb (1937) by Lucian Austin Osgood

Over the years, I picked up a curious collection of so-called genre curiosities, alternative classics and a couple of neglected gems along the trail of obscure, largely forgotten and out-of-print detective novels, but sometimes you find one hiding in plain sight – sporting a surprisingly up-to-date print status. Subject of today's review has been back in print for the past ten years and nobody has reviewed or even mentioned it. Not even an acknowledgment of its existence.

Back in 2016, Coachwhip reprinted Lucian Austin Osgood's Murder in the Tomb (1937) and going by the plot description on the back, you can't be blamed for assuming the book is a historical mystery with a Golden Age setting ("...by a newcomer in the field... set in the city of Minneapolis during the summer of 1932"). Murder in the Tomb was originally published in 1937 and Osgood, an American professor of English, had bigger ambitions than his one piece of now forgotten detective fiction suggests.

Murder in the Tomb was published by Unique Mystery Novels of Columbus, Mississippi, which appears to have been their first and only publication. However, the introduction, of the Coachwhip edition, mentions the back cover of the original edition announced Osgood's The Ghost of Dr. Arnette and Death by Candle Light as forthcoming. It also listed I Wish You Glad Tomorrow and Heloise by one Robert Grayle ("...a complete mystery"). So it's possible Unique Mystery Novels "may very well have been a self-publishing venture by Osgood." If it was a self-publishing project, I guess not enough copies of Murder in the Tomb were moved to make printing The Ghost of Dr. Arnette, Death by Candle Light and the two Grayle novels financial viable – adding four titles to that already too long list of lost detective fiction. The introduction unfortunately doesn't mention how Osgood's Murder in the Tomb came to their attention or how they got hold of a copy to reprint, because not many copies appear to have been in circulation. Whatever lead to its reprinting, Osgood produced a mystery novel that can certainly be called unique for its time.

I hardly know where to begin, knowing where it ends and how it got there. The story is told by Winston West, currently in the employ of Howard Ralston, who recently returned from accompanying his boss abroad to Ralston's home, called Windermere, on Park Avenue. Windermere is the twin of the house next door, Fontainebleau, connected through a porte-cochere "above which was a glassed-in hallway that permitted easy communication" between the two houses. Ralston's next door neighbor and owner of Fontainebleau is his business partner, M. Henri Cornier ("...owned an entire city block"). Cornier is the reason for their trip abroad. Ralston had told Cornier about his intention to collect three prizes, a Borgia poison ring, a Chinese vengeance dagger and the mummy of Serapion ("...terrible founder of the still more terrible Brothers of Karnak"). Three rare, near impossible to obtain, potentially dangerous items to possess. Cornier scoffs at Ralston's plan leading to a fifty thousand dollar wager between the two.

Several months later, Ralston and West return with the ring, dagger and mummy, but those "three menaces" were not obtained fairly and trouble begins knocking at their door.

Firstly, the Chinese vengeance dagger belongs to the Scarlet Dragons, "an organization said to still function in China," who have been sending notes pressing for the return of the dagger or suffer the consequences. Secondly, the surviving Brothers of Karnak expressed similar wishes and death threats regarding their stolen mummy. Although their threats have a supernatural flavor ("...summon the ka out of that mummy to punish you with horrible death"). Thirdly, Ralston "borrowed" the Borgia ring from the Duke of Vedena by swapping it with a replica during a visit. A replica made by his new protege and skilled artificer, Pietro Martini, who has also become a member of the Windermere household – complete with a mention in his mentor's will. Duke of Vedena and a Lucretia Lansing, an agent for antiquarians, turned up at Windermere to demand the return of the ring, but without much success. Than there's the domestic troubles and tension. Ralston is engaged to the much younger daughter of his late friend, Mildred Manning, who has fallen in love with Ralston's son, Paul. More than enough to set the stage for murder!

So far, Murder in the Tomb sounds fairly conventional even with pulp material already cluttering the early stages of the story and plot, but then murder happens. And things start to get really weird.

Ralston's collection, including the three menaces, is locked away in a secure, high tech room referred to as "the tomb." A push of the button can hermetically seal the room with solid steel sheets sliding down to cover every door and window. During the night, while the house is rocked by a thunderstorm, Ralston goes to the tomb to challenge the curse of the mummy, but West has also gone to the tomb. What he witnesses can be at first taken as a nightmare scene or hallucination, "the lid of the mummy case swung slowly outward" and "stiffly old Serapion stepped forth" shooting "a ghostly green ray straight at Ralston's heart" from "a fleshless finger." The confusing doesn't end there, but it ends with a dying Ralston, vengeance dagger sticking out of his back, and unconscious West lying on the floor. When he regains consciousness, West is told Ralston's body and the mummy vanished from the tomb!

Well, the impossibilities, or locked room problems, aren't as clearly stated or half as obvious as my description suggests. Osgood and Murder in the Tomb have this weird love/hate relationship with the cliches and tropes of the detective story and pulp thrillers, simultaneously embracing them and trying to keep them at arm length. Osgood tends to talk, or write, around them and that doesn't always make for the clearest way to tell and plot a detective story. For example, the tomb and the twin houses have several secret passages and hidden doorways that aren't as secret or hidden as they should be, but the problem of timing and opportunity remains (I think). So the only true impossibility standing is old Serapion acting like a prop from a 1980s science-fiction flick coming back to life (I think). But more on him in a moment.

The investigation into this murder, disappearing corpses and hallucination witnesses is as unusual as the crimes themselves parred excellently with two relatively grounded detectives. Detective Hal Denny and Ben Bailey revel in the role of dumb, flatfooted cop and clever, cunning amateur with Bailey even being called a “college sleuth” by one of the characters – which is an interesting phrase to use in a 1930s mystery novel. A high school detective or college sleuth is something that has become synonymous in my mind with the Japanese detective story. Denny and Bailey playing rival detectives is arguably the best part of the book as they're not always playing nice which gives their rivalry a bite.

The bizarre twists, out-of-nowhere turns and other complications keep them busy enough like a mass poisoning incident when someone decides to sling various kinds of poison around the place. One of the people left incapacitated is behind a bolted door and its discovery is setup as another locked room crime, but that ended as soon as the door was broken down. Like I said, the whole story has this really weird love/hate relationship with its tropes.

So, as you probably gathered, I started to become a little bit skeptical during the second-half, but the unusual treatment of its tropes gave me hope. I hoped Murder in the Tomb would turn out to be one of those detective novels where you started to wonder how the author was going to pull it all together, only to show at the end everything had gone according to plan. You know, the Ton Vervoort approach to writing and plotting detective fiction. It was either going to be a so-called alternative classic or fall to pieces at the end. Yes, regrettably, Murder in the Tomb fell to pieces in a glorious, almost incomprehensible and, to be honest, impressive mess.

I'm not sure how everything happened, because how incredibly convoluted the solution turned out to be, but several things stood out. Firstly, Osgood employed an unusual, horrendously botched take on (SPOILER/ROT13) gur oveyfgbar tnzovg va juvpu gur cerfhzrq ivpgvz jnf fgvyy gur ivpgvz ybpxrq njnl va n uvqqra ebbz. Secondly, the (ROT13) ahzore bs crbcyr jub raqrq hc orvat vafvqr gur urezrgvpnyyl frnyrq gbzo ng gur gvzr bs gur zheqre. Jr fzvex ng zlfgrevrf sebz gjragvrf sbe univat pevzr fprarf erfrzoyvat n ohfl gubebhtusner, ohg guvf jnf whfg havagraqrq pbzrql. Thirdly, Bailey casually explaining the mummy attack in the tomb (ROT13: “Whfg n ebobg, gung'f nyy”).

So, yeah, the story shot itself to pieces at the end, but the mess honestly is impressive to behold. There was promise and some potential during the opening stages offering several directions Osgood could have taken into. After a few rounds the block, Osgood choose to just drive the whole thing off a cliff.

What more can I say? Osgood seems to have had good intentions, wanting to create a genuinely unique, baffling mystery novel, but sadly lacked the skills or talent to execute an ambitiously imagined plot like this one. In a perfect world, Osgood's Murder in a Tomb would have ended being a companion piece to Hake Talbot and Theodore Roscoe's impossible crime fiction and getting compared to John Dickson Carr and Paul Halter, but we're not in that world. So we have to do with this genre curiosity. Not recommended, unless you have an interest in obscure or alternative mysteries.

The Double Turn (1956) by Carol Carnac

Last year, the British Library Crime Classics reprinted E.C.R. Lorac's Murder As a Fine Art (1953), published as by "Carol Carnac," which proved to be an excellent accessory to their run of Lorac reprints with an unusual plot and memorable impossible crime – bringing brutalism to the fine art of murder. So was pleased when they announced a reprint of the Carol Carnac title, The Double Turn (1956), that has been a longtime resident on my wishlist.

The Double Turn, also published as The Late Miss Trimmings, begins when Jocelyn Truby takes his niece, Susan Truby, and her friend Peter Raven to an exhibition of Victorian era paintings in the long gallery of Verulam House. They're admiring a huge canvas by one of the period greats, Adrian Delafield, "shown in the Academy of 1898." Susan is impressed with the grandeur and age of the painting ("gosh, that was last century"), while Jocelyn tells them the Great Victorian is still alive. As they're discussing Delafield, they are joined by a young man, Roy Braithwaite, who's Delafield's grandson and pitched in the conversation when he overheard them.

Adrian Delafield, now practically an invalid, lives at "Firenze" in St. John's Wood where he's looked after by an old maid and religious maniac, Miss Trimmings, who's "the power in the house" acting like its "ménagère and major-domo," but she takes good care of both the house and its owner – as she's absolutely devoted to Delafield. Delafield's only surviving daughter and Roy's aunt, Virgilia, lives in his old, detached studio and allowed the situation, because she didn't want to deprive her father of Miss Trimmings after depending on her for more than thirty years. Virgilia kept an eye on Miss Trimmings to make sure things don't go off the rails again like last time. Miss Trimmings had kept Delafield locked away to such an extent people thought he had died. Roy invites Jocelyn, Susan and Peter to visit Firenze to see the paintings in Delafield's former studio, meet the family and Miss Trimmings.

During their visit, there's an incident that in a Victorian-era novel of sensation would have been described as a portent of evil. A week later, the doctor comes by to see Delafield, but finds the house locked up, dead bolted from the inside and suspiciously quiet.

When they break their way into the house, they find part of the recently plastered ceiling had come down and the body of Miss Trimming lying at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway ("...her head was twisted on her neck..."). A tray with broken pieces of crockery and glass lay near the body. Adrian Delafield is discovered lying unconscious on the stairs of the second floor landing. So the local policeman in charge works on the assumption the crash of the falling ceiling caused Miss Trimmings to trip down the stairs and Delafield "heard her fall and tried to reach her." But why is the plasterer who worked on the ceiling nowhere to be found. That's one of the details drawing Inspectors Rivers and Lancing, of Scotland Yard, into the case. And, to be honest, they really had no reason to interfere in what looked like a normal, everyday domestic accident. It unquestionably made for a better detective story that they did.

The Double Turn is listed in Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991), but, as other reviewers have pointed out, Lorac was not John Dickson Carr who would turned the locked up, bolted house the hinge that made the plot move – somehow found a way (ROT13) gb znxr gur byq cnvagre gur xvyyre. A possibility I was trying to work into an armchair theory myself. Lorac focused on the enigmatic duo of Miss Trimmings and Adrian Delafield. Miss Trimmings' identity can be verified for sure as she made a surprisingly thorough job in blotting out her past. Not even a snippet, or two, left over from a destroyed paper trail. At the same time, questions are raised about Delafield's identity as most of his family is either dead or hadn't seem him for decades before they reunited. So part of the plot also turns on the age-old question of identity complicated by the fact "family histories are generally on the squalid side," which here is no exception. Even the family yarn how Miss Trimmings got Delafield out of France when the Nazis invaded is blurry. Rivers and Lancing still have to consider the problem of the missing plasterer and the possibility of miser's fortune stowed away somewhere, but they inevitably return to the problem of the locked house.

First of all, while the locked house itself is not given the same attention as the well-drawn characters, their domestic circumstances and potential motives, a possible (false) solution is briefly explored. A solution discounted as the killer would have had to cross the plaster debris without leaving footprints. The actual locked room-trick is not exactly routine, but neither is it blistering original. However, the somewhat unusual scene of the crime helped to prop it up and ended up doing the trick most satisfyingly. I preferred it to the lame armchair solution I had pieced together. More importantly, the trick revealed the murderer who was surprisingly well hidden among this small cast of characters lacking any of the obvious or least-likely-suspects making The Double Turn Lorac's most accomplished, well-clued whodunits. Particular (HUGE SPOILER/ROT13) gur pyhr uvqqra va gur tbqqnza obbx gvgyr vgfrys is the kind of clueing usually expected from Lorac's better remembered, often more highly regarded contemporaries. Only, tiny smudge that needs mentioning is how Rivers could have (SPOILERS/ROT13) ceriragrq gjb, znlor guerr qrnguf unq ur tvira gur ceboyrz bs gur ybpxrq ubhfr uvf shyy nggragvba rneyvre ba va gur fgbel. Not that it detracted too much from this otherwise excellent detective novel. Just something I couldn't help noticing and nitpick about.

So, I know I lavished praise on the previous two Lorac's reviewed on here, calling both Death of an Author (1935) and Murder as a Fine Art my favorite Lorac reprints to date, but The Double Turn is now my favorite Lorac reprint to date! Not exactly what I expected after all these years, but well worth the long wait. A highly recommended highlight from the twilight years of the detective story's Golden Age. Fingers crossed Lorac's frustratingly rare, out-of-print Murder in St. John's Wood (1934) is next to be reprinted.

Note for the curious: if you're curious about my lame armchair theory, I figured (ROT13) fvapr gur byq cnvagre'f zvaq jnf tbvat “tntn” ng gvzrf, ur pbhyq tvira gur byq, unys oyvaq znvq n fpner ol chyyvat n cenax ba ure jvgubhg arrqvat gb yrnir uvf orq. Fbzrguvat ur pbhyq oneryl qb naljnl. Sbe rknzcyr, jung vs ur sbhaq n ovt fcvqre penjyvat ba uvf orq furrg, pnhtug vg naq uvq vafvqr n ancxva ba gur genl. Jura fur jrag qbjafgnvef jvgu gur genl, gur fcvqre penjyrq ba ure unaq tvivat ure sevtug naq penfuvat qbja gur fgnvef. Gur byq cnvagre urneq jung unccrarq, gevrq gb trg gb ure naq sryy qbja n syvtug bs fgnvef uvzfrys. Fbzrguvat nybat gubfr yvarf, orpnhfr V nffhzrq gur ybpxrq ubhfr jnf n erq ureevat naq gur erny vzcbffvovyvgl vf ubj n arne vainyvq onfvpnyyl pbasvarq gb uvf orqebbz pbhyq pnhfrq ure gb snyy qbja gur fgnvef. Ohg vg jbhyq unir plpyrq gur fgbel onpx gb vgf fgnegvat cbvag, v.r. n ubzr nppvqrag jvgubhg n ybpxrq ebbz zlfgrel. Fb tbbq guvat zl fbyhgvba pbhyqa'g unir orra zber jebat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ark (2022) by Haruo Yuki

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Darker the Night (1949) by Herbert Brean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My personal taste and bias, of course, favors more detective story-like titles such as Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020), Rechercheur De Klerck en moord in scène (Inspector De Klerck and Murder on the Scene, 2021) and Rechercheur De Klerck en de dode weldoener (Inspector De Klerck and the Dead Philanthropist, 2025), but wouldn't want to have missed that ending for the world! Never knowing, exactly, what type of crime/detective next novel will turn out to be is part of the fun. It can be a straightforward politieroman like Rechercheur De Klerck en het duistere web (Inspector De Klerck and the Dark Web, 2022) or something much weirder like Rechercheur De Klerck en een dodelijk pact (Inspector De Klerck and a Deadly Pact, 2022). Whatever the next novel turns out to be, I'm looking forward to it.