Murder at the End of the World (2022) by Akane Araki

I previously reviewed Ross Montgomery's The Murder at World's End (2025), a classically-styled, retro-Golden Age mystery, which is set against the backdrop of the Great Comet Scare of 1910 when Halley's Comet was making its pass by the Earth – believing the planet would pass through its poisonous tail. However, the apocalypse never happened and Montgomery exploited the historical panic to stage a locked room murder inside a grand mansion that was turned into a vintage doomsday bunker. Coincidentally, just when I finished writing the review, the perfect supplement arrived in the mail.

In July, Pushkin Vertigo released Akane Araki's Konoyo no hate no satsujin (Murder at the End of the World, 2022), translated by Jesse Kirkwood, which was awarded with the Edogawa Rampo Prize ("...Japan's most prestigious award for unpublished crime writers"). That award got her manuscript published. Araki's Murder at the End of the World is a completely different story from Montgomery's The Murder at World's End.

Murder at the End of the World begins normally enough as 23-year-old Haru is taking driving lessons from her instructor, of the Dazaifu Driving School, Isagawa, but something strange is going on with the world outside – deserted roads, empty streets and everything's unnervingly quiet. Haru tells Isagawa she's now living alone with her younger brother, because their mother run away early on and their father hanged himself two days ago. And that's before they come across dozens of bodies hanging from trees in the mountain forest. Not a mass suicide, but individual people who decided "dying wild" ("...carrying out the deed in some remote natural setting") was their best option given the circumstances. It turns out humanity has only three months left.

Four months previously, the Spaceguard Foundation held a press conference to announce asteroid 2021-NQ2 (a.k.a. Telos) is going to collide with Earth on March 7 and release "a kinetic energy equal to 45 billion megatons of TNT." The asteroid is expected to land in Aso District, Kumamoto Prefecture, south of Fukuoka. A doomsday broadcast that became known "Black Wednesday" resulting in global, large-scale riots in which "150 million people perished," but Japan and the whole Asia and Oceania got the brunt of it. There was a mass exodus that turned two regions of the world into a continent-sized ghost towns as everyone tried to get as far away from the projected impact site as possible. However, it was explained it didn't matter where you are in the world when the asteroid impacts ("...over 3 billion people would die in the initial shock wave... 5 billion who survived would then starve or freeze to death"). Haru's hometown, Dazaifu, is right in Fukuoka Prefecture. So why even bother taking driving lessons when the story of humanity is about to end? Haru has her own reasons, but Haru and Isagawa stumble across a real and very disturbing mystery.

The Dazaifu Driving School has an untouched, fully fueled fleet of forty-nine training cars. So they can pick and choose which car to take for their lessons without having to worry about fuel. But when they return for their next lesson, they find the body of a woman stuffed inside the boot of one of the training cars. She has been the victim of a brutal and savage knife attack! Isagawa is an ex-detective with an overdeveloped, sometimes dangerous sense of justice and is determined the find the killer of the woman, but where do you start when everything around you has collapsed and been practically deserted? Surprisingly, they find several police stations with a skeleton staff and learn there have been other murders. But the victims of those frenzied stabbings were two male high school students. Nothing was really done to investigate the murders on account of the problems the impending end of the world has caused.

The first-half of Murder at the End of the World is superb from the pre-apocalyptic aesthetics, existential dread and looming extinction to the problems arising from trying to carry out an investigation in a collapsed, depopulated society – like finding the link between the victims. Something that would have been routine before the Black Wednesday. This also count for the murderer. Why go on a killing spree near the end of the world? Why try covering up the murder by hiding the body in the boot of the car when a body beside the road would hardly be noticed, reported or acted upon? That being said, Murder at the End of the World is not a detective novel proper dealing with cleverly hidden murderers, impossible crimes, dying messages, clues and red herrings. Murder at the End of the World is ultimately a criminal character piece/crime novel telling the story of Haru coming to terms with the inevitable and Isagawa's uncompromising desire for justice, but also the stories of the survivors and small pockets of civilization they come across. The so-called holdouts who, for one reason or another, couldn't get out of the country.

So that's perhaps why I preferred the first-half to the second-half and ending, because it was building towards a more detective-esque possible solution. I thought I had at least gotten hold of part of the correct solution, but had to abandon that possibility at the halfway mark. That's where the book became a character-driven crime novel in a doomed world that has largely gone dark. A serial killer sub-plot was even introduced fairly late into the story. Not that the story became any less readable or captivating. I was hooked and actually wanted to know how it ended for the characters, before the asteroid arrived. So even without a detective-esque plot, Araki had my full attention with Murder at the End of the World from start to finish. It's at the finish where my only problem with the story turns up.

The character-driven crime novel is not my favorite type of crime fiction, but I'm not completely allergic to them when they have something good or interesting to offer in lieu of an intricate or simply good plot. Murder at the End of the World definitely found that hook with an asteroid hurling towards Earth, but (IMO) it should at least give the murderer a strong motive to kill under these circumstances. I thought the motive behind the murder to be weak, unconvincing and cheapened the characters and the story preceding it. I would have been happy enough if the murderer turned out to be cracked and was sacrificing people to heavens as an old world remedy to the asteroid. So that left me with mixed thoughts.

I guess you can compare Murder at the End of the World to the other disaster detective Pushkin Vertigo published earlier this year. For me, Haruo Yuki's Hakobune (The Ark, 2022) is the better, more satisfying of the two novels as The Ark is a fiendishly-plotted whodunit with a series of crimes that could have only arising from that situation. Murder at the End of the World is the better written novel with a bigger impact. The Ark only impacted the characters trapped inside that underground structure, while most of society has already collapsed months before page 1 of Murder at the End of the World. Araki very effectively showed the devastating effects of Black Wednesday by exploring the nearly deserted Dazaifu and the surrounding Fukuoka region. If only the motive had been better or slightly more convincing and I would have been happy with this departure from my regular detective fiction.

Araki's Murder at the End of the World is still a very good, hard to put down read. Basically doom scrolling for crime readers. If your taste is somewhat similar to mind, I recommend to adjust your expectations. Araki's Murder at the End of the World is an entirely different kind of "disaster detective" from Yuki's The Ark. The disaster is larger in scale, nothing short of apocalyptic, but not the plot. So this is one best read and enjoyed when you go along for the ride.

Note for the curious: the next review is not going to be of Stuart Turton's The Last Murder at the End of the World (2024). I wish I had thought and planned that far ahead. 

The Murder at World's End (2025) by Ross Montgomery

Last year, Ross Montgomery, a British author of more than twenty children's books, debuted with his first novel for adults, The Murder at World's End (2025), which is the first in a new series of historical, retro-Golden Age style detective novels – starring an unlikely detective duo. John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, recommended The Murder at World's End as a locked room mystery taking place during the arrival of Halley's Comet ("you'd enjoy that, I'm sure"). Well, you know how easily I can be persuaded with the promise of a good locked room mystery or impossible crime.

Before delving into Montgomery's The Murder at World's End, I want to take a brief detour into the past of the retro-Golden Age mystery novel. A past that was until recently not as deep or rich as the original Golden Age mysteries of the pre-1960s era. Until recently, that is.

The retro-Golden Age detective novels and series of today came out of the reprint renaissance that started in the early 2010s, but the so-called clever send-ups, reinterpretation and subversive takes that came before are a different story. Rarely did they turn out to be as clever or hilarious as promised. There were exceptions like a Charles Forsyte, John Sladek or even a curious, short-lived revival during the 1980s, but, more often than not, the retro-Golden Age mysteries of the post-WWII decades lazily trotted out cliches and tropes – presented as clever, hilarious or brilliantly subversive. More than one had a killer butler escaping the scene of the crime through a secret passage or tried to reinvent the wheel by having an unreliable narrator. Catherine Aird's The Stately Home Murder (1969) is perhaps the best-known of these horrendous country house send-ups and arguably reached its nadir Gilbert Adair's indigestible smug The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (2006). A first in a trilogy that I believe was presented as something of an event at the time, but seems to have been overtaken by history and already forgotten about.

Because what a difference a decade or two and flood of classic reprints can make! A renaissance that has been slowly turning into a revival with writers like Tom Mead, Gigi Pandian, Martin Edwards, Benjamin Stevenson and even a strong independent scene driven by names such as James Scott Byrnside and A. Carver. So the retro, Golden Age mysteries of today actually read like classically-styled detective fiction (e.g. J.S. Savage's The Mystery of Treefall Manor, 2023) instead of superficial imitations of Agatha Christie's work with all the depth of a game of Cluedo. That's something to be appreciative of considering nearly everything we got today was a pipe dream just 15, 16 years ago. Montgomery continues that trend with The Murder at World's End. So let's take a closer look at Montgomery's first stab at the classically-styled detective novel. And what he can do with the locked room mystery.

The Murder at World's End takes place in May, 1910, when Halley's Comet passed by Earth on its 75-year orbit of the Sun. And, on this specific fly-by, the Earth would be passing through the comet's tail and that ended up causing some panic when a spectrograph analysis detected cyanogen gas in the tail. Nothing civilization ending or even dangerous, but that didn't stop the headlines or some people from panicking ("people also lowered themselves into wells or sealed off their homes and papered over the keyholes..."). Montgomery used the comet panic of 1910 as the basis for his locked room mystery.

Lord Stockingham-Welt, the Viscount of World's End and founder of the Cometary Cataclysm Society, believes the world is going to end when the planet passes through the comet's tail ("your government has hidden the truth from you!") – turned Tithe Hall into a doomsday bunker. Tithe Hall stands on a remote tidal island, World's End, somewhere in Cornwall. Even without being turned into a temporary fallout shelter, Tithe Hall is an odd place designed by the Viscount's late father who believed "servants and masters should be kept apart." So the house is a rabbit warren of servants' staircases and "butler's mirrors" allowing "staff to check around corners, so they don't run into Lord Stockingham-Welt unexpectedly." By the way, the book has a gorgeous cross section giving a doll's house view of Tithe Hall.

The Viscount has invited a small group of people to Tithe Hall to weather the End of Days and emerge to rebuild the world. Among those "lucky few" are Edwin Welt, MP, who has an eye on the family fortune. Jolyon Welt, Rear Admiral, who's a red faced, bleary eyed drunk. Lettice Welt is there with her 7-year-old grandson, Gilbert, who's an orphan. The Viscount also invited another founding member of the CCS, Professor Wolff Müller of the Klatsch Institute in Hamburg, who's there to record the day with his camera for posterity. That only leaves the two detectives of the new series, Stephen Pike and Miss Decima Stockingham.

Stephen Pike, innocently convicted for a crime he didn't commit, is now a free and reformed man who has been send to Tithe Hall to work as an under footman, but ends up looking after Miss Decima – who the family has locked away in the old nursery. Miss Decima is the Viscount's octogenarian great-aunt and an absolute terror who curses like sailor's parrot ("never heard language like it, not from a lady or otherwise") and burned through the entire female staff. Stephen is tasked with keeping her company and comfortable, while everyone else busy to "completely seal the house, making it impermeable to the poisonous gases" ("tomorrow, we will rise to a changed world"). However, the next morning they have to break down the door to the Viscount's study when he doesn't answer their knocking. They discovered the Viscount sitting behind his desk, between oxygen tanks, shot through the eye with a crossbow bolt! The room was not merely locked from the inside, but boarded up, keyholes sealed with candle wax and every gap plugged with cotton wadding. A murder in a practically hermetically sealed room and the person who discovered the murder is an ex-convict who only arrived the previous day.

A predicament that gets even worse for Stephen when Inspector James Jarvis, of Scotland Yard, arrives on the scene. Jarvis has to be thickest cop to appear on the printed page since Lestrade. However, that prize goof grew on me after a while with his ludicrous, ill thought out false-solutions that get shot down, one after another, by Miss Decima and eventually Stephen. Chapter 45 is a Jarvis highlight and one for the scrapbooks! Miss Decima concludes she's "the only person in the house clever enough to solve the mystery" enlists Stephen as her Watson ("...you shall push my bath chair"). She also needs Stephen to investigate her "relatives, eavesdrop on conversations, threaten suspects, lie to the police, and maybe break a few fingers," but all joking aside, they end up making a formidable detective duo. A detective pair tailored for the conventions and rules of the upstairs/downstairs domestic situation of the British upper class at the time. Stephen has one foot in the servants' quarters ruled over by the head butler, Mr. Stokes, while Miss Decima has broken free from her confinement to torture her relatives. It made for an interesting dynamic between the two lead characters and the various puzzles the plot presents, but also a good way to setup the series and establish the lead characters without the plot taking a backseat. So the characters and newly established partnership of Stephen and Miss Decima that made the story rattle along at a brisk pace.

Montgomery wrote a very readable mystery novel and guess having written books for children and younger readers in general helped in writing The Murder at World's End. A detective novel also involves putting together a plot that holds up.

The plot of The Murder at World's End holds up for the most part, however, some rough edges and patches that are to be expected from someone playing the Grandest Game in the World. Such as the red herrings (ROT13: yvxr gur qrnq svfu) outnumbering the scant, sparsely-planted clues or that even without an intricate web of clues it's possible to make a pretty good, educated guess in which direction the solution is eventually going to head. Simply because the story and plot demanded such sort of murderer with that kind of motive. Not as bad, but still should be mentioned, is the explanation to the locked room problem. The locked room-trick is, what do you call it, a bit patchy as it reworks several old locked room dodges. Admittedly, the locked room-trick added a new wrinkle on those old dodges, especially the second-half of the trick, but the whole setup of locking and sealing everyone in their rooms demanded something more ambitious or original from the method. It's still fine as long as you don't expect John Dickson Carr-like fireworks or shin honkaku levels of meta-trickery.

So even though Montgomery's The Murder at World's End is still rough around the edges, I tremendously enjoyed as an auspicious debut of both a promising mystery writer and new series. I never judge a promising looking debut too harshly for its imperfections, because all they usually need is some time and experience. After all, Carr and Christie need time and experience before they could produce classics like The Three Coffins (1935) and Murder in the Orient Express (1934). They're the whetstone of talent and good detective fiction. So very much look forward to Montgomery's second Stephen Pike and Miss Decima Stockingham mystery novel, The Shadows of Kensington Gore (2026), which should be out in October.

By the way, on a final note, I have the perfect follow-up for The Murder at World's End. So stay tuned.

The Death of a Worldly Woman (1948) by A.B. Cunningham

A.B. Cunningham was an American teacher, professor of English and the author of over twenty detective novels featuring the backwoods Sherlock, Jess Roden, who's the sheriff of Deerlick, Kentucky – a county with a shockingly high bodycount. Cunningham's Sheriff Jess Roden series belong to the American school of regional mysteries with writers like Todd Downing and Eunice Mays Boyd. So each book in the series is basically a slice of locally flavored, small-town Americana and country noir.

Cunningham's appeared to have enjoyed some popularity and success with his Sheriff Roden mysteries during the 1940s. Anthony Boucher was a fan ("Cunningham's studies in Americana are unique in the mystery field") who praised "the solid reality of Cunningham's backwoods setting" and "Roden's uniquely effective sleuthing." However, the series has been out-of-print since the end of the 1950s and has regrettably remained out-of-print through out the reprint renaissance of the past ten years. I liked Cunningham's The Strange Death of Manny Square (1941) and Death Haunts the Dark Lane (1948), but it was not until recently I came across another one of Cummingham's mystery novels. In fact, I got my hands on one, of two, Sheriff Roden novels listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991). More on that in a moment.

The Death of a Worldly Woman (1948) is the 15th title in the series placing Sheriff Roden, the best detective in the Kentucky Mountains, in a fish-out-water situation.

The backdrop of The Death of a Worldly Woman is the young, bustling city of Norton, situated along the bank of the Green River, which normally doesn't take notice of a short newspaper report about "a woman dying from an overdose of sleeping powders" – until the primarily police investigation made them "sit up and take notice." Miss Dimple Guest, two-time divorcee and leading figure of the Norton smart set, died in her bedroom at Riverside Apartments of an apparent overdose. A bottle of sleeping powders was found on the bedside table. So all the policeman in charge, Myron Tyner, has to do is find out whether she took the overdose by accident or on purpose. Only for evidence to quickly point towards murder.

First of all, the cause of death was not an overdose of sleeping powders, but a classic case of cyanide poisoning. And, considering, how peaceful the scene appeared it obviously had to have been staged. So murder and Chief Polk decides to call in their specialist from the mountainous backwoods across the river, Sheriff Jess Roden, who's clearly out of his element on the streets of Norton and the carpeted hallways of the Riverside Apartments. Fortunately, the small pool of potential suspects were contained to the Riverside Apartments (“she was poisoned in her apartment after the house was locked for the night”). So the sheriff and chief have about nine people to consider. Kirk Leach, a young bachelor, Mrs. Blaze, a widow, the Haneys, Garry Wade and his mother occupying the first and second floor. The basement is occupied by the caretaker and her daughter, Stellie and Fay Mankin. They share their basement room with Stellie's brother-in-law/uncle, Vic Mankin, who even in today's fiction would standout as a Hall of Fame creep.

Like I said, Sheriff Roden is somewhat out of his element even though his (core) methods, or principles, don't differ all that much from most fictitious detectives. Sheriff Roden at one point explains to Chief Polk that "unless the murderer is a madman, he has planned his crime with the same sort of mind you and I have." So what he does is "examine the little group of out of which the victim was taken," because within that closed circle, someone had motive and opportunity – only difference is how the sheriff tackles these problems. Sheriff Roden is not your regular amateur sleuth or city cop and can understand how his character alone garnered Cunningham a fanbase during the 1940s. Even in an atypical novel like this one.

The Death of a Worldly Woman is essentially a Van Dinean-style detective novel, not a Kentucky flavored regional mystery, which is why the backwoods Sherlock's usual approach initially fail. Bumping into proverbial brick walls, getting thrown down the steps of the Riverside Apartments and finding himself in some uncomfortably tight corners. I found one scene rather emasculating when Sheriff Roden, hat in hand, had to ask Chief Polk to tell one of the characters at the Riverside Apartments to stop bullying him, but eventually pulls himself and the case together. So, on a whole, The Death of a Worldly Woman should have been a true vintage elevated by its decidedly non-Van Dinean detective and Cunningham's unvarnished depiction of post-WWII America. For example, on the very first page, Mrs. Blaze hysterically announced she was leaving Riverside Apartments and only for the various agencies to laugh at her ("...there were dozens of families living in tents and trailers and other dozens crowding in together..."). On the surface, it has enough to warrant a reprint. There are, however, a few imperfections and shortcomings keeping it from a place in the first-rank and why this series is never getting reprinted. Not until the copyright expires.

Firstly, the problem of the locked room that's not a locked room at all. This is not a problem, or shortcoming, because neither Cunningham nor Sheriff Roden treated the murder as an impossible crime. If anything, The Death of a Worldly Woman is a blunt example of the closed circle situation and never would have assumed otherwise had it not been for its inclusion in Adey's Locked Room Murders. I think Adey was a little unfair when he called it "the poorest solution of all," because it's not a locked room mystery. What's definitely a shortcoming is the rushed ending crammed into the last, 10-page chapter. I don't know if Cunningham was pleasantly writing along when he realized he had to conclude it and raced towards it, which made for a weak and unsatisfying ending. There were a few details that needed to be elaborated on and explained a little bit further. Cunningham just called it a day and ended the book on this short note, "I guess that's it."

The Death of a Worldly Woman has some points of interest, but the last chapter is too much of a rush job to recommend it. I know who reads this blog and what they want. They would be sore about how this ended. Unfortunately, that's not all.

I mentioned in the review of The Strange Death of Manny Square a recurring character in the series by the name of Big Nig. He accompanies the sheriff across the river to Norton and plays a peripheral role in the case. Let's say that the character has not aged gracefully and likely the reason why publishers have shied away from reprinting the series. So I wish I had something better to report back on, especially as The Death of a Worldly Woman had been on my locked room wishlist for ages. I remember Cunningham had a firmer grasp on the plot in The Strange Death of Manny Square and Death Haunts the Dark Lane. So I still keep an eye out for Who Killed Pretty Becky Low? (1951), the other title listed in Locked Room Murders, and any stray copies of titles like Murder at Deer Lick (1939), Murder at the Schoolhouse (1940) and Death Visits the Apple Hole (1945). Well, I'll try and pick something good next.

Murder in the Gilded Cage (1929) by Samuel Spewack

Samuel Spewack was a Ukrainian-born American journalist, Hollywood screenwriter and novelist who penned two detective novels, The Skyscraper Murder (1928) and Murder in the Gilded Cage (1929), before abandoning the genre – leaving behind two obscure, long out-of-print mystery novels. Obscure, out-of-print but not completely forgotten going by two somewhat modern and very mixed reviews. A 1990 review from William F. Deeck, posted on MysteryFile, dismissed The Skyscraper Murder as hackwork ("show biz has obviously taken its toll on our author"). Mike Grost, on the other hand, praised Murder in the Gilded Cage ("...an entertainingly written mystery story") and called Spewack "an absorbing storyteller." Even drawing an interesting comparison to Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. So on the wishlist it went.

Last year, Spewack's Murder in the Gilded Cage entered the public domain in the US and quickly became available again through sources like Project Gutenberg (free) or the Wildside Press reprint. So on the pile it went.

The story of Murder in the Gilded Case is recounted and told by a Mr. Abbott, an ex-newspaper reporter, who reported on the public and sensational "divorce case that startled the country." Mrs. Dora Breese made a spectacle of "the tortuous trials and appeals" that completely destroyed her ex-husband, Henry, who lost more than just the divorce case and a hefty settlements. Henry was publicly humiliated, abandoned by his children, lost longtime friends and was thrown out of several social clubs. Mrs. Breese loved every minute of it and became upset when interest newspapers, tabloids and the public stopped paying attention to her. So she organized a trip aboard her private yacht (part of the settlement) to her Havana "winter palace" (also part of the settlement).

Mrs. Breese sets sail to Havana, Cuba, accompanied by her two children, Henry Jr. and Countess Giering-Trelovitch, who had a short-lived marriage with a Russian nobleman, family friend Gordon Rice and Abbott – who was hired as Mrs. Breese's personal press agent. Controversially, she also brought along her boytoy, Guy Thomas, who also figured in the divorce trial. So the trouble begins during the voyage as Mrs. Breese announces her intention to marry Guy, Abbott resigns after refusing to play her attention craving, headline grabbing scheme and someone has to be rescued after falling overboard. Only gets worse when they reach their destination. For one, Henry Sr. and Count Giering-Trelovitch turn out to be Havana as well to complete the party. One of these people shot and killed Mrs. Breese.

Fortunately, there's also a Great Detective staying in Havana, Boris Sergeivitch Perutkin, who was "a big gun with the Czarist police" until the Bolsheviks threw him out. Perutkin has a reason to be there. Before the revolution, Perutkin was in Riga to investigate the murder Count Giering-Trelovitch's neighbor, Baron Peter Setovski, who was shot in his bedroom. Count Giering-Trelovitch was the number one suspect, but before Perutkin could draw his conclusions, the revolution forced both the Perutkin and the Count out of Russia. Now all the suspects have reunited in Havana. Perutkin believes the murders of Baron Peter Setovski and Mrs. Breese were done by one and the same hand.

Perutkin is certainly an interesting and striking detective character to introduce in 1929. Mike Grost noted Perutkin has some features that reminds one of Christie's Hercule Poirot, "a flamboyant, good natured, slightly comical sleuth" who admires his own genius ("have I not done an extraordinary piece of detective work?"), but they couldn't handle their cases more differently. Perutkin's logic and reasoning has a blunt, bludgeoning and prefers theatrics and taking shortcuts. Perutkin not only tries to take a shortcut, but charges the chance at a shortcut like a mad elephant. This also makes it funny Perutkin sometimes foreshadows Miss Marple penchant for drawing comparisons to apparently unrelated incidents, but Perutkin's observations aren't about missing umbrellas or the butcher's son courting the maid working up at the big mansion ("I am reminded of the famous Sebastopol tragedy, where someone with a homicidal humor played just such tricks..."). Far from it.

However, Perutkin trying to rush and tackle that early shortcut provides Murder in the Gilded Cage with its most memorable scene and a stage for the second murder. They can't prevent a third murder briefly presented as an impossible crime, "nobody's invented an invisible gun or an invisible man," but that didn't last long as it was quickly revealed to have been ordinary shooting.

So the plot keeps Perutkin and the reader busy enough, but is it any good? I think it can be considered better than what can generally be expected from an obscure, 1920s mystery novel. The plot holds and hangs together well enough, however, it's über conventional, flirts with the odd cliche and barely poses a challenge to the seasoned, suspicious-minded reader – even with the spotty clueing and red herrings. Now, I don't want to sell Spewack short here. While I spotted the killer, there were enough red herrings to keep other options open and the story moving along. There's also a pleasingly clever, underlying logic to the series of murders.

When (SPOILER/ROT13) gur zheqre bs Zef. Oerrfr jnf qvfpbirerq, gur svefg guvat V gubhtug jnf, fubg jnf, fur? Bqq! Tbvat ol gur punenpgre bs Zef. Oerrfr, ure npgvbaf naq gur zbfg ivnoyr fhfcrpgf, lbh rkcrpg fur jbhyq unir orra fgenatyrq be oyhqtrbarq. Znlor fgnoorq, vs n sehvg xavsr be cnve bs fpvffbef jrer unaql. N pbby, qryvorengr naq rssvpvrag bar-fubg xvyy frrzrq bss va guvf fvghngvba. That hunch was correct and (ROT13) jul V jnf nyzbfg qrnq fher nobhg gur zheqrere nf gur zrgubq va guvf pnfg bs punenpgref ernyyl svggrq bayl bar crefba (“...bar-gvzr fbyqvre bs sbeghar”). Again, I don't want to sell Spewack short as he penned a very lively, entertaining and straightforward mystery novel that somehow doesn't read like the über conventional, slightly cliched mystery novel it really is underneath. I was never bored, enjoyed Perutkin's unorthodox detective work and have come across much worst mysteries from this decade. Just disappointing Spewack was unable to do something more with the plot and perhaps some of the characters.

But going by what has been written about The Skyscraper Murder, Spewack improved considerably with Murder in the Gilded Cage. At least it appears to have more consistency than his first stab at the detective story, which is not an unimportant piece of good detective fiction. So maybe it's to be regretted Spewack quietly bowed out of the genre after Murder in the Gilded Cage. I would have liked two, three more Perutkin mysteries to see if Spewack continued to improve or if Murder in the Gilded Cage was his ceiling. The potential was there.

So, all in all, Spewack's Murder in the Gilded Cage is an amusing mystery full with humor, social satire and a detective who believes he's the hype, but too lightly plotted to satisfy the more demanding fan who read detective stories for their plots. But if the light touch to the plot is no objection, it's well worth getting the cheap ebook edition or downloading it.

The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Detective Novels from the 1950s

The Golden Age of Detective Fiction is generally narrowed to the interwar period, roughly covering the 1920s and '30s, because the World Wars make convenient bookends for the detective story's post-WWI boom period and post-WWII decline – not everyone agrees. Some have argued it started with E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913) or even earlier with G.K. Chesterton's short story collection The Innocence of Father Brown (1911). It also ignores the 1920s was a decade of growing pains as the genre was still putting itself together. And, worse, it dismisses the 1940s. A time when established writers produced some of their best, most mature work and new names appeared on the scene.

I have changed my opinions on the start and end of the Golden Age several times over the years. Placing it first somewhere around the early '20s and coming to an abrupt end in 1949, but later included the 1950s. More recently, I have come to see the Golden Age as a life cycle rather than a clearly, or vaguely, defined period.  

1910-1919: I officially consider this period pre-GAD, but it can be seen as the GADs infancy/nursery

1920-1929: GADs childhood years of discovery, trial and error

1930-1939: GADs adolescence years full of dreams and wild ideas

1940-1941: GAD matured into adulthood

1950-1959: GADs twilight years

The 1960s is the decade when the traditional, fair play detective novel of the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s died with only a few holdouts persisting through the '60s and 1970s – until Gladys Mitchell and Michael Innes turned out the lights in the 1980s. This view is, of course, somewhat of generalization in itself as there were plenty of so-called Golden Age writers who never developed pass the nursery or childhood stage. It works for me and doesn't blot out two decades of which one is rather important and the other too often overlooked. I, too, was skeptical about the fifties, but that decade keeps surprising me. The '30s and '40s were definitely in the rear view mirror, but there was still life in the old thing at this point. So wanted to spotlight that too often ignored twilight decade.

A few years ago, it was all the rage to post top 10 lists of favorite mysteries from the 1920s, '30s and '40s, but doing a list of the twenties would comprise almost entirely of titles from the last three, four years of that decade and would need a top 25 for the other two. So decided to do "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Detective Novels from the 1950s," but my first version bumped into a problem as most of them appeared on previous Hit Lists. It looked more like a thematic copy/paste clipshow post than a top 10 post. I compiled a new list excluding every novel that has appeared on a previous Hit Lists.

So no S.H. Courtier's The Glass Spear (1950), Douglas Ashe's The Longstreet Legacy (1951), Stuart Palmer's Nipped in the Bud (1951), Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (1953/54) and Derek Smith's Whistle Up the Devil (1954). Worst of all, I had to scrap one of my all-time favorites, The Danger Within (1952) by Michael Gilbert, because it's already on both "Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels" and "Top 10 Favorite Reprints from Rue Morgue Press." This second iteration of the list was a little trickier to put together, but the result is far more interesting list and representation of what the 1950s had to offer (albeit in diminished quantity) than the original list. There were still titles that didn't make the final cut like Christianna Brand's London Particular (1952), Bruce Campbell's The Clue of the Phantom Car (1953), Christopher Bush's The Case of the Three Lost Letters (1954) and Asimov's The Naked Sun (1956/57). So you're probably wondering what the hell actually did make the list? Let's find out!

Hardly a Man is Now Alive (1950) by Herbert Brean

Until fairly recently, Herbert Brean was primarily remembered for Wilders Walks Away (1948), nearly netting him an Edgar for best first novel, but fans today consider Hardly a Man is Now Alive to have been Brean's best mystery novel – a minor classic of the American detective story. The pattern of the story and plot are as intricate as they're simple. Reynold Frame and Constance Wilders plan to get married in the historical town of Concord, Massachussetts, by the 104-year-old Dr. Annandale, but a strange disappearance, a ghost lamp, a phantom army, a historical mystery and a body in a disused well threaten to upset their plans. Jim Noy, of The Invisible Event, called the book "majestic and exhausting and wonderful" offering "a great picture of the genre at a time of huge change." I couldn't agree more and the fact it's has remained out-of-print to this day is baffling.

Night of the Jabberwock (1950) by Fredric Brown

I never understood the popularity of Joel Townsley Rogers' The Red Right Hand (1945), a phantasmagorial crime novel, which somehow bagged the 2020 Reprint of the Year Award. Fredric Brown may not have been the first to try his hands at a criminal flight of fancy, but his Night of the Jabberwock is so much better and imaginative than The Red Right Hand. Doc Stoeger, editor of Carmel City Clarion, is putting the paper to bed as he wishes something newsworthy would happen for him to write about. He then steps out into the night and into, what appears to be, the Twilight Zone. Or, as the title suggests, tumbled down a rabbit hole into a different reality where rationality doesn't exist. A fantastic mystery novels!

Death in Silhouette (1950) by John Russell Fearn

Fearn is my favorite second-stringer, pulp writer and at times a surprisingly decent, sometimes underrated, mystery novelist. Fearn wrote some grossly underrated mysteries like Except for One Thing (1947), Flashpoint (1950) and the posthumously published Pattern of Murder (2006). Death in Silhouette is one such underrated novel which takes place in the house of a modest, middle class family whose members have ordinary jobs like a restaurant cashier or store clerk and no domestic servants. That creates notable change in tone and atmosphere when an engagement party ends with the discovery of the future groom hanging behind the locked door of the basement. Fearn is incredibly cheeky with his solution, but just as interesting as the locked room trickery (simple as it is), is the part the pulp magazines that litter the house play in the story. It has been pointed out this is "one of the best sociological portraits of the popularity of US crime pulps in England." Death in Silhouette deserves more credit than I have given it.

Inugamike no ichizoku (The Inugami Clan, 1951) by Seishi Yokomizo

I cheated just a little bit by including The Inugami Clan, because it came as my recommendation for Seishi Yokomizo in "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance,"  but that list was more about writers and their rise from near or total obscurity – not their works. So took that as good enough excuse and how could you not include it on a list of best 1950s mystery novels? The Inugami Clan is the Japanese detective novel taking place at the lakeside villa of a family of influential silk merchants, but the death of the patriarch throws the various, warring branches in a conflict over the inheritance. What follows is a string of grotesque murders as iconic as the book itself and the detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, who eventually solves those murders. A grandiose whodunit and one the grand detective novels from the second-half of the previous century.

The Sleeping Bacchus (1951) by Hilary St. George Saunders

This excellent, often overlooked and out-of-print impossible crime caper has an interesting backstory. Hilary St. George Saunders, who shared the penname "Francis Beeding" with John Palmer, found a copy of Pierre Boileau's Le repos Bacchus (Bacchus Rests, 1938) in Parisian bookshop and asked Boileau's permission to adept the book into English. So a rewrite rather than a translation. Nevetheless, The Sleeping Bacchus is a very fun caper about a debonair, snooty gentleman thief, called "Zed," who stages a series of impossible thefts and miraculous vanishings. I would love a twofer volume with a reprint of Saunders' The Sleeping Bacchus and a translation of Boileau's original version.

Murder Points a Finger (1953) by David Alexander

The dying message is a well-established, popular trope and one that admittedly works much better in short story form than inside a novel-length mystery where they're usually only a small part of the larger plot. There are, however, a few detective novels, not written by Ellery Queen, making real work of the dying message. Alexander's Murder Points a Finger is one of those rare novels in which an ex-policeman and fingerprint expert is shot and mortally wounded, but leaves behind a cryptic message naming his killer with a set of fingerprint cards. Like others, I have always been surprised at the lack of reputation of Murder Points a Finger as it's a very good, if somewhat unusual, mystery novel that has never been exceedingly rare or hard to find. I found my old paperback copy right here in the Netherlands. And that was long before Wildside Press reprinted it. A highlight of the fifties!

Black Widow (1952) by Patrick Quentin

I know crossovers are generally regarded as cheap gimmicks or promotional material, smacking of desperation, but they're my guilty pleasure. There have been some genuinely good detective crossovers over the decades. Notably Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice pooling their detectives in a series of six short stories, starting with "Once Upon a Train" (1950), collected in People vs. Withers and Malone (1963), but arguably one of the best crossovers remains largely unacknowledged. Black Widow takes Peter Duluth from the Quentin's flagship series and frame him for the murder of a young woman. A murder investigated by Quentin's secondary detective, Lieutenant Trant from Death and the Maiden (1939), who starts out believing Duluth guilty and really goes after him. So a legitimate case of when worlds collide, but even without the crossover element, Black Widow still would have been a very well done suspense drama driven by a clever persecution plot. Deserves to be better known.

Cake in the Hat Box (1954) by Arthur W. Upfield

Upfield was not known for creating intricate, maze-like plots or realistic, razor sharp characterization, but, as a so-called regional regional mystery writer, he was nearly unmatched in casting Australia as a backdrop for murder from remote cattle ranches and dying lakes to the desolate Nullarbor Plain – crimes committed there often feel native to the setting. For me, Cake in the Hat Box is the most striking of Upfield's mysteries bringing Bony to the small, dried up desert settlement called Agar's Lagoon. A strange place surrounded by an ever-widening ring of empty bottles and a great place for star gazing or watching meteor showers. Bony strolls into this settlement not long after the local police constable is found shot dead in his jeep. This is one of those novels in which Upfield pleasingly gave more consideration to the plot and harmonized it with the evocative, colorful backdrop. I don't know if there's such a thing as an outback procedural, but if there is, Cake in the Hat Box is a superb example of it.

Captain Cut-Throat (1955) by John Dickson Carr

For some obscure, never fully explained reason, John Dickson Carr's historical fiction is often overlooked or outright ignored. I suppose they're generally considered swashbuckling adventures full with duels and romance, which is not entirely incorrect, but they also have strong detective plots and great mystery hooks. My favorite of Carr's historical mysteries is unquestionably Captain Cut-Throat. A thunderous mix of ghostly murder, spy shenanigans and adventure when the figure of Napoleon loomed large over Europe. Captain Cut-Throat takes place in the summer of 1805 when Napoleon had gathered Armée d'Angleterre to invade England, but an apparently invisible entity is sneaking around the camp and killing sentries. There's also a lot of swashbuckling action and derring-do between the murders exemplified by the midnight chase through the Field of Balloons. I rank Captain Cut-Throat with Carr's best non-historical mysteries.

The Double Turn (1956) by Carol Carnac (a.k.a. E.C.R. Lorac)

I mentioned in past reviews and "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" how Lorac's return to print has done wonders for her once tarnished reputation, because her work dropped out-of-print when she died and was mostly remembered novels which were easy to get secondhand – which didn't include her best work (e.g. Murder by Matchlight, 1945). British Library remedied that by mostly cherry picking the work to reprint that garnered Lorac praise and a reputation during her lifetime. Recently, British Library have begun reprinting the novels publisher the "Carol Carnac" pseudonym and The Double Turn is currently my favorite. Lorac had her own ideas about the detective and preferred to plot her own route through what could have been fairly typical and conventional detective novel. In this case, the apparent locked room murder of the Miss Trimmings, a major-domo of an invalid's household, who's found dead at the bottom of the staircase along with half the ceiling. The problem of the locked house is not the central focus of the plot. This is, after all, still a Lorac novel, but still a solid locked room mystery and a fine example of her home brewed detective fiction.

So, as you can probably gather from the list and cut titles, the 1950s was not without its moments and even produced the occasional classic or noteworthy mystery novel, but after 1955 it undeniable began to taper off. Still enough to consider that decade the twilight years of the Golden Age detectives, before the fire was reduced to embers when the world entered the 1960s. Even then some of those embers were still glowing bright, but that's something for a future list.

Cardula and the Locked Rooms (2026) by Jack Ritchie

Back in 2024, I posted "Locked and Loaded, Part 5: A Selection of Short Impossible Crime and Locked Room Mystery Stories," a series of reviews of randomly selected short stories, which included the misidentified, non-impossible crime story, "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" (1982), penned by Jack Ritchie – another long-gone giant of short stories. So even though "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is not an impossible crime story, it's still a hilarious and clever mystery about Cardula (Dracula) who moved to the US to moonlight as a private detective. And the reason why Cardula had to flee to the US is fantastic in the literal sense of the word. To quote Mike Grost, "the throwing of his vampire detective Cardula out of East Europe after the Communists nationalized his castle is a great comic concept."

"Cardula and the Locked Rooms" not only has a genuinely funny and fresh premise for a private eye series, but it's also a pretty good, solid detective story in its own right. Cardula is hired by an art collector to retrieve a stolen Vincent van Gogh that got stolen a second time and compared it to Edward D. Hoch's Nick Velvet series. So jotted down the Cardula stories as a series of interest and even mentioned in the comments I would welcome a Crippen & Landru collection. Guess what?

In February, Crippen & Landru released Cardula and the Locked Rooms (2026), edited and introduced by Brian Skupin, gathering all nine short stories about the vampire detective and a whopper of a bonus – all six of Ritchie's impossible crime stories! What a clever excuse way to turn that misleading short story title into a descriptively accurate title for this collection by bundling the Cardula stories with Ritchie's impossible crime fiction. I admire how Skupin tackles and solves editorial problems. Like to see more, but let's take a look at this collection first.

Fittingly enough, this unusual detective series begins with a non-detective story, "Kid Cardula," which first appeared in the June, 1976, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Cardula, on the verge of running completely out of money, turns to a boxing trainer/promoter, because he has read in the papers "there's a fortune to be made in prize fights." Something that should be easy money for an undead vampire possessing the strength of ten men, but Cardula eventually figures out someone in his position probably can't afford to become a boxing champion or legend. No matter how big the prize purses get. So this story is hard to rate as there's no mystery to be solved, but it sure is a fun story and introduction to the character. I particularly enjoyed Manny having to arrange Cardula's fights like pro-wrestling matches, otherwise every fight would have ended in an instant knock-out. You have to send the crowd home happy.

These light, humorous touches and furtive references to Cardula being a vampire ("You got blue blood in your veins?" "Occasionally") would fortunately be carried over when the series went into private eye mode with the second story.

"The Cardula Detective Agency," originally published in the March, 1977, issue of AHMM, brings Olivia Hampton to Cardula's nighttime detective agency. Someone took a shot at her uncle, Hector, who had gathered his family to tell them he was going to cut them all out of his will and Olivia wants Cardula to ensure he's still alive when he sees his lawyer the next morning – after which the motive to kill him is removed. Cardula enters the somewhat eccentric household as a bodyguard to ensure Uncle Hector lives to see the sunrise. Hilariously, Cardula reads a book on hematology while sitting guard. During the night, Cardula finds out the case is not as clear cut as presented and gets to showcase his abilities as a detective and vampire-detective. But the ending demonstrates Cardula's not like other detectives. Not just on account of his fangs or ability to fly. This story also gives a bit of background on what happened Cardula's wealth ("what wasn't confiscated or nationalized was destroyed") and castle ("...east gallery has been converted to public restrooms"). So good reboot of the character and series.

"The Canvas Caper," originally published in the August, 1977, issue of AHMM, brings an unusual, anonymous client to Cardula with something more akin to a confession than a case. This man and his associates cut cards to see who had to kill their shared blackmailer and the man drew the low card. However, he couldn't go through with it and turned to Cardula figuring "any private detective whose office hours are from eight P.M. to four A.M. must be closer to the night world of crime than anybody else." So he offers Cardula ten thousand dollars to kill the blackmailer or find someone willing to do the job, but, once again, the assignment is not as simple and clear cut as it was presented to him. Simply as a detective story, "The Canvas Caper" is blatantly unfair, but, as a story about a vampire detective, it's as entertaining as all the others.

"Cardula to the Rescue," originally published in the December, 1977, issue of AHMM, casts Cardula not as a boxer, bodyguard or fangs-for-hire, but as a Good Samaritan coming to the rescue of a woman. A purse snatcher tried to take her handbag, but Cardula made short work of him. No good deed goes unpunished. The woman tells him to mind his own damn business, promptly disappears and the police want to arrest him for assaulting the purse snatcher! Cardula pulls a Batman to escape from the policemen, only for exactly the scene to repeat itself the following evening ("had I somehow inadvertently passed through a time warp?"). Not surprisingly, Cardula finds there's more behind the attempted robberies than just the daily routine of a purse snatcher and his victim.

"Cardula and the Kleptomaniac," first published in the April, 1978, issue of AHMM, is the longest story in the series and brings an unusual problem to Cardula's desk. Diana Weatherly is dying with curiosity to find out whom of her old friends is the kleptomaniac who has been stealing their trinkets since their schooldays. She has whittled down the list of suspects down to four friends and even prepared a baited trap, but, while trying to catch the thief in the act, she fell asleep – which is why she turned to Cardula. She wants Cardula to come to her house party, undercover, to identify the thief. You guessed it, Cardula pretty quickly notices there's more beneath the surface than a human magpie. So, plot-wise, this is one of the better stories, but the conclusion also show its hardboiled side.

"Cardula's Revenge," originally published in the November, 1978, issue of AHMM, is similar to the first story, "Kid Cardula," technically not a detective story. Cardula's old nemesis, "that beast Van Jelsing," is dead, but his grandson, Professor Van Jelsing the Third, carries on the torch. This new vampire hunter has become a real pain in the neck to the vampire community, but they can't get near him as he wears a magical collar around his neck. What's worse, Van Jelsing is currently in the US on a lecture tour to present his nephew and successor, Henrik van Jelsing. So what's a vampire detective to do? Not a detective story or mystery at all, but an entertaining comedy in which a vampire outwits two vampire hunters like a Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd skit.

"The Return of Cardula," originally published in the February, 1982, issue of AHMM, brings a petty thief and burglar, Walter, to Cardula. Walter had a partner in crime, Albert, who had been in-and out jail together nearly their entire life, but something went terribly wrong when they hit the ball park to go through the locker rooms while the players out on the field. Walter stood guard at the entrance, of the corridor leading to the locker rooms, while Albert went inside to loot the lockers. Two minutes later, a dying Albert came stumbling back and uttered the cryptic words, "no snow." Yes, an actual dying message! Walter asks Albert to find the killer of his long-time friend and we get to see Cardula (getting caught) sneaking into the stadium, but solves the murder and dying message while watching the ball game. Skupin wrote in the introduction that this story "could have been an Ellery Queen tale" with "its baseball milieu and wordplay solution" (c.f. Ellery Queen's "Man Bites Dog," 1939). I agree!

The next story is "Cardula and the Locked Room," but already reviewed it as part of "Locked and Loaded, Part 5." However, it should be noted it's arguably the best and strongest story of the series. Perhaps it would have been best if the series had ended here.

"Cardula and the Briefcase" appeared in the June, 1983, issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine (not AHMM) and has a premise similar to “The Return of Cardula.” Alvin Atkins, a burglar, turns to Cardula after burglary job has presumably gone wrong. He and his partner, Charley Whittle, burgled a posh apartment, but, when he returned from bringing a typewriter to their car, discovered the front door chained shut. Charly tells him through the locked door the home owner has a gun and is going to call the police, which is followed by a thud and groan. Alvin makes himself scarce, but the next day no news about what happened. So asks Cardula to find out what really happened and the case of the missing burglar becomes entangled with a briefcase full of money. I suppose this is not necessarily a bad story, but I found it instantly forgettable and struggled to remember what it was about. For some reason, this last story left no impression whatsoever on me.

So that concludes the first part of Cardula and the Locked Rooms. Obviously, the Cardula series does not entirely adhere to the traditional, fair play mystery format. There are three or four really good, solidly-plotted stories in this series, but their main draw is unquestionably the character of Cardula, the premise of the series and the vein of humor running through all the stories. I suggest reading this as a short series of stories about an unusual detective instead of a series of unusual detective stories and take the better plotted stories as an extra.

Now let's see what Cardula could do with the stronger, plot-driven locked room mystery and impossible crime story.

"Upside-Down World," originally published in the May, 1962, issue of AHMM, technically is a how-was-it-done, not an impossible crime or locked room, but a good one. Regan, an insurance investigator, is tasked with investigation the sudden death of a client, Robert Cramer, who died from a heart attack when visiting a friend. Nothing suspicious as the autopsy showed Cramer had died from heart disease, but the two-hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy obliges the company to investigate. Even more so when the beneficiary is not the widow, but a woman named Miss Helen Morland. Only clue or detail hinting at something resembling foul play is that fingers of Cramer's right hand had been "seared slightly" with fragments of glass embedded in them, but he obviously wasn't electrocuted. So what happened and how do you give a man a heart attack? Like I said, this is not an impossible crime story, but it definitely has some impossible crime features like the key-element of the solution. So a good and solid opening to this section, even though it's technically a howdunit.

"Swing High," originally published in the May, 1965, issue of AHMM, arguably is the best overall short story from this collection. The policeman narrator is investigating the death of man, Thurmond Fraser, whose body was found beside the Medical Arts Building beneath three windows – third, fourth and fifth floors. If he didn't fall from one of those three windows, he must have fallen from the roof. However, the roof is covered in a thick, undisturbed coat of coal dust and each of the three windows is the waiting room of a doctor or specialist, which were either empty and locked or occupied. Nobody has seen anyone jumping or being pushed from one of those (locked) windows. So a neatly posed impossible crime with a credible motive on the murderer's part to create a confounding locked room situation. What makes "Swing High" more than just a very well done locked room mystery is the secondary plot-thread concerning the detective's marriage. Normally, I'm not exactly a fan of the post-Golden Age troubled cop trope, but here it complimented the traditionally-styled impossible crime plot and provided a superb conclusion. A conclusion that would not have been possible without the detective's private problems intruding on his work. So definitely a future inclusion for "The Locked Library."

"Pearls Before Wine," originally published in the August, 1968, issue of MSMM, is a three-page, short-short about an attempt of insurance fraud by making a string of duplicate pearl disappear from a locked and guarded room. Nothing much to say about this one other than the method is not bad and couldn't help but think how this short-short could have been the premise of a novel-length murder mystery. Just imagine (ROT13) fbzrbar fcbggvat gur inavfuvat-gevpx naq tenoorq gur bccbeghavgl gb trg evq bs fbzrbar ol fbzrubj znavchyngvat be thvqvat gung tynff bs npvq gbjneqf gur ivpgvz. But a fun and amusing short-short nonetheless.

I'm not entirely sure if "Play a Game of Cyanide," first published in the May, 1961, issue of AHMM, counts as a full-blown or borderline impossible crime story, but either way, it stands as one of the most original and entertaining stories of its kind. An exasperated policeman has to deal with a pair of clever and mischievous children, Ronnie and Gertrude, who got their hands on a dozen cyanide pellets – which they have hidden all over the house. A house that has been searched top to bottom by the police, but not with too much success. So they try everything from threatening to bribing the children, but they're determined to let police work their brains in order to find the pellets ("I always regarded the Children's Crusade as a great tragedy... not quite so certain now"). Some flashes of inspirations reveal a few of the cunning hiding places, however, what happened to last cyanide pellet is what makes this short story a little more than a monstrous Easter Egg hunt that could have been organized by Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr. I begin to see why Ritchie counted so many short story writers among his biggest fans.

The next and penultimate short story is "Box in a Box" (1977), but already discussed it on this blog in my review of the Edward D. Hoch edited All But Impossible: An Anthology of Locked Room and Impossible Crime Stories (1981). Since it's the least interesting and successful of Ritchie's impossible crime output, I'm skipping it here.

Finally, "The Crime Machine," originally published in the January, 1961, issue of AHMM and anthologized in Alfred Hitchcock's Crime-Watch (1984), ditches the customary supernatural trappings when a locked room mystery evokes the other worldly to go for a science-fiction angle. Mr. Reeves is an outwardly normal man with a wife and an apparently good paying job, but Reeves source of income primarily comes from being a murderer for hire. So imagine his shock and surprise when, one day, a man named Henry visits him and tells him in intricate detail about his most recent murders. Henry claims to have invented a time machine allowing him to observe the past anywhere at anytime ("I cannot participate in any manner in the past... only observe"). So why not look at some recent, unsolved murders for a bit of extra pocket money. Reeves laughs at the whole idea and tells Henry to hop in his time machine to find out Jack the Ripper's true identity ("I'll do that tonight"), but how did he know about the murders down the smallest detail? Slowly, but surely, Reeves becomes convinced the time machine might be real after all. And wants to buy it. But not without a convincing demonstration. Henry gives a demonstration worth his money as he hops into his time machine and briefly vanishes from a sealed room.

"The Crime Machine" is, of course, not a hybrid science-fiction mystery, like Anthony Boucher's "Elsewhen" (1946) or Isaac Asimov's "Obituary" (1959), but a good, old-fashioned locked room mystery with a solid explanation for the disappearing time machine. The source of Henry's impossible knowledge is linked to the who and why, which is not overlooked in this excellent impossible crime story. I have mentioned this before, but never understood why the post-WWII detective story, especially the impossible crime story, rarely ventured outside the Victorian setups of haunted houses, cursed rooms and murder around a séance table. Just the still largely untapped potential for impossible crime stories and locked room mysteries involving possible time travel, apparent interlopers from parallel universes and outer space. As this story shows, it gives a new impulse to the classic locked room setup. Great story to end this collection on!

Cardula and the Locked Rooms can stake a claim to the title of best balanced anthology or collection of short stories. Cardula, the vampire-detective, is the star and main attraction of his own series, but with enough twists and turns to keep the demanding, slightly spoiled detective fans like myself happy. The stories with the gamey plots can be found in the Locked Rooms section. "Swing High," "Play a Game of Cyanide" and "The Crime Machine" being the standouts with "Upside-Down World" and even the short-short "Pearls Before Wine" following closely behind. So, to cut a long story short, Cardula and the Locked Room is a fantastic short story collection from Crippen & Landru and Brian Skupin that comes highly recommended.

I guess between Seishi Yokomizo's Yoru aruku (She Walks at Night, 1948), Locked Room Puzzles (1986), Carver's Death in 13 Rooms (2026) and this collection, I more than made up for the dry spell in locked room reviews last month.