9/22/21

Penelope's Web (2001) by Paul Halter

I remember reading Xavier Lechard's review of Paul Halter's La toile de Pénélope (Penelope's Web, 2001) back in the late 2000s, on his old blogspot, describing the story as "one of Halter's most orthodox detective novel" born from a challenge posed by a Belgian scholar, Vincent Bourgeois – challenging him to devise "a strange manner" to seal the scene of a crime. Xavier praised Penelope's Web as an "elegantly and soundly devised" locked room mystery that ended up looking "more like Christie than Carr."

That old review never stopped to intrigue me and cemented Penelope's Web on my impossible crime wishlist. But, at the time, the only English translations of Halter's work consisted of a smattering of short stories with the first novel-length translation finally being published in 2010. Over the next ten years, John Pugmire of Locked Room International would go on to publish sixteen of Halter's novels and compiled two short story collections. Penelope's Web remained untranslated and tantalizingly inaccessible until recently. So let's cut through the tangled web of this long, eagerly anticipated translation.

Professor Frederick Foster was an entomologist who went to South America, "to study some rare species of spider," three years ago, but he went missing in Brazil and his body was eventually found on the bank of a river – murdered by a band of savages. Back home, the Foster household continued and his widow, Ruth Foster, became engaged to the local physician, Dr. Paul Hughes, who has been treating her for an illness of retina that made her practically blind. Ruth and Paul receive a nasty shock when they receive news that the body in Brazil was misidentified and Professor Foster is not only alive, but on his way back home to the village of Royston.

Professor Foster brought back more than just stories and anecdotes about his "incredible tribulations in the Amazonian jungle." What he brought back are some very rare, even hitherto unknown species of spiders and "practically tamed" one of them, which he named after his goddaughter, Penelope Ellis. Penelope is one of those unknown species with very well-developed silk-spinning organs and can spin a web faster than her sisters. Professor Foster placed Penelope in an open window of his study where she spun an fine, intricate silk web stretched across the oak window frame. Something that becomes important later on in the story.

So the situation is an uneasy one and begins to deteriorate when questions arise about his identity. A photograph of the professor turns up, but the name scribbled on the back, Peter Thompson, is that of his traveling partner. The man whose body was found on a Brazilian riverbank. Or was it? There's no denying Thompson is, or was, the spitting image of Professor Foster, but are they dealing with an impostor? A question that's not as easily answered as it should be.

Ruth is half-blind and Dr. Hughes always tried to avoid Professor Foster, because he had eyes only for his wife. Ruth's 12-year-old orphaned nephew, James, remembered him only as the uncle who read him Thousand and One Nights and Gulliver's Travels as an 8-year-old (he recently turned 12), while the professor brother-in-law, Major Edwin Brough, confessed he can't be sure either way – only Penelope believes Professor Foster is her godfather. Even if he aged, lost a lot of weight and grew a beard. So the police has to get involved and they tracked down a set of fingerprints from registry office to settle the matter. Shades of John Dickson Carr's The Crooked Hinge (1938)! But, of course, the fingerprints gets stolen during a frantic search for two escaped spiders.

The situation becomes an impossible one when Professor Foster apparently shot himself in his study with "the only door bolted from the inside" and two, of the three, windows "more or less rusted in place." The third window is open, but covered entirely by Penelope's intricately-woven, unbroken silky web. The dark hole in his temple was still "oozing blood" when they broke down the door and there was "a strong smell of gunpowder in the room." However, the police quickly eliminate the possibility of suicide, but how could it have been murder? Dr. Alan Twist and Inspector Archibald Hurst happen to be on hand to help out the local policeman in charge, Inspector Mike Waddell. 

Penelope's Web is one of Halter's shortest novels to date with the murder taking place close to halfway mark, which makes it tricky to discuss further details. Suffice to say, Halter delivered on his promise of not only finding a new way to lock and seal a room, but came up with an original, tailor-made solution to fit a very novel impossible crime. Interestingly, the how doesn't immediately reveal the murderer's identity, which was almost ruined by the annoying use of unidentifiable pronouns. Even when they made no sense to use in certain sentences. However, this hardly detracted from an overall enjoyable, clever and original locked room mystery. One that strongly reminded me of Halter's Le cercle invisible (The Invisible Circle, 1996) as it shared some of its strength and weaknesses.

While both Penelope's Web and The Invisible Circle both sport original impossible crimes with equally original solutions, but they're not exactly flawless and you can pick holes in them. For example (no spoilers), Dr. Hughes points out to Dr. Twist that there are "traces of gunpowder on the temple" indicating "the shot was fired from point-blank range," but, according to the solution, the shot was fired "through a piece of cloth." There are some other details about the locked room-trick that can be a little sketchy or make you scratch your head.

Penelope's Web is not merely the sum of its locked room-trick and Xavier said in his old review the story ended up being more Christie than Carr. I sort of agree. Penelope's Web is arguably better as who-and whydunit than as an impossible crime story as Halter expertly dangled the smartly clued solution in front of the reader's eye while simultaneously planting red herrings as a distraction. Judging the story purely as a whodunit, Penelope's Web stands as one of his stronger and more solid efforts. The locked room-trick is merely the cherry on top. You can say the same about the second murder, which gave the story a dark and tragic tinge, but a good use of a second murder that's not merely there as padding. Still a pity, because the second victim would have made an interesting detective character. Even if it was just for a one-shot.

So, yeah, I personally enjoyed and recommend Penelope's Web, but mystery readers who are still struggling with Halter might find themselves in another frustrating catch-as-catch-can wrestling match with his own unique brand of plotting and mystery writing.

Now that Penelope's Web can be crossed off my Halter/LRI wishlist, I hope Le crime de Dédale (The Crime of Daedalus, 1997), Le géant de pierre (The Stone Giant, 1998), Le douze crimes d'Hercule (The Twelve Crimes of Hercules, 2001), Le voyageur du passé (The Traveler from the Past, 2012) and Le tigre borgne (The One-Eyed Tiger, 2004) will follow soon!

17 comments:

  1. No.I'm sorry if I let you down. The novels you expect to be translated do not deserve the effort, with the exception of Le voyageur de passé. I strongly recommend Les meurtres de la salamandre and Le masque du vampire instead, which find Halter in better form.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fortunately, The Traveler from the Past is near the top of my Paul Halter wishlist, but would still like to see the others translated. Even if The Twelve Crimes of Hercules turns out to be another The Seven Wonders of Crime. But I'm not opposed to the titles you mentioned cutting in line to be translated.

      Delete
  2. And oh!, I forgot, la chambre d'Horus, which is a unique tale that compares with The gold watch in weirdness and originality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Gold Watch boasts Halter's finest impossible crime trick, I think.

      Delete
    2. For me, the vanishing alleyway from The Phantom Passage is Halter's finest piece of trickery, but The Gold Watch is superb. One of his overall strongest and most consistent detective novels.

      Delete
  3. Good call on PP. I would place that second on my Halter ranking. Another very ambitious trick, but I have to mark it down slightly for it depending on the targets becoming especially disorientated in order for the deception to succeed, which I had trouble swallowing. The footprints in the snow from Gold Watch however is one of two, maybe three locked room solutions that had me in awe of what the culprit (so nearly) accomplished.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think (ROT13) vg'f nyy gung qvssvphyg gb qvfgbeg fbzrbar'f frafr bs qverpgvba va na vyy-yvg ohvyqvat ur'f arire orra orsber. The Phantom Passage deserves an extra points for coming up with a very different kind of solution to the problem of a vanishing street. A big problem with disappearing rooms, houses and streets is that writers are (mostly) limited to variations on the same solution, because a house or street allows for precious little maneuvering. That's why there are so rare, but Halter pulled it off to do something new and original.

      Purely out of curiosity, which are the other two locked room mysteries that left you in awe?

      Delete
    2. V guvax vgf yrff ceboyrzngvp vs V nffhzr gur gnetrgf jrer inthryl njner gung gurl jrer gnxvat n qvssrerag ebhgr ba gur jnl bhg ohg va fcvgr bs gung whfg gbbx sbe tenagrq gung gurl zhfg or yrnivat gur fnzr ubhfr. Bgurejvfr V guvax gur gnetrgf, nf jryy nf gur ohvyqvat, jbhyq unir unq gb or cnegvphyneyl qvz ;)

      The other two.. well, I think the solution to Tokyo Zodiac is the only other one that produced a comparable release of dopamine in my brain. When the trick is explained and you realise what purpose the concept of Azoth really served. But if we're strictly talking locked room solutions, I would say Death of Jezebel and, if pressed for a third, the first murder in Whistle up the Devil.

      Sorry if you were expecting something more obscure :)

      Delete
    3. At least we can agree the trick of the vanishing alleyway is great. Whether its brilliant or close to brilliant is a mere detail!

      Believe it or not, I half-suspected you would mention Death of Jezebel. A great and intricate piece of impossible crime fiction on top of being a rare crossover. What's not to love? The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is a monument of the Japanese trademark trope (Gur Pbecfr-Chmmyr), but preferred the false solution to the locked studio mystery.

      "Sorry if you were expecting something more obscure :)"

      Don't worry. There's a reason why those novels have a reputation among mystery fans.

      Delete
    4. That we can! Like I said, PP wouldn't be my second favourite Halter trick if I wasn't willing to overlook certain credulity-straining aspects in light of how amazingly inspired it is. Its my humble opinion that The Gold Watch surpasses it in terms of sheer ingenuity, but I won't go endlessly back and forth trying to convince anyone who feels its the other way around. They're very close in quality.

      Yeah, Jezebel is one of the standard bearers of impossible crime fiction. One that should make most genre aficionados' top five. You are, of course, utterly insane for preferring the false locked room solution in Tokyo Zodiac to the reason for why the bodies were dismembered in that fashion, but hey, its all subjective ;)

      Delete
    5. "You are, of course, utterly insane for preferring the false locked room solution in Tokyo Zodiac to the reason for why the bodies were dismembered in that fashion, but hey, its all subjective ;) "

      No, no! You either misunderstood me or I expressed myself wrongly. The corpse-puzzle is the main course of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, but the false-solution to the murder in the locked studio is better than the actual one. That being said, they're both overshadowed by Azoth!

      Delete
  4. Penelope's Web was another stellar read from the maestro. Absorbing for its 150 page duration and does not exceed the page count its relatively straightforward plot would warrant. The locked room is delightfully original as you say and the ultimate literality of the child's apparently inane outburst "but they escaped through the.." was crafty, with the stakeout scene at the end also worthy mentioning for its creepiness.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm going to pick this up in the coming weeks, so have not yet read the above review. However, I'm writing this as a test since I think Blogger is swallowing my comments again...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sucking, swallowing and spitting out comments. Blogger is quite the harlot!

      Delete
  6. I enjoyed "Penelope's Web", and of the two Chinese translations I read, it's the stronger of the two. In fact I think it could hold its own well among the English translations. Not quite in the same league as "Seventh Hypothesis"—but nonetheless among the stronger titles.

    I've "12 Crimes of Hercules" in Chinese on my TBR pile, and will keep you posted when I get round to it...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. P.S. On "Penelope's" I confess I was slightly surprised by your comment that the novel worked better on who and why than how...

      POTENTIAL SPOILER

      I thought the culprit was one of the more obvious choices among the characters. Not sure if reading the novel in Chinese meant that I missed one or two of the red herrings you mentioned in your review?

      Delete
    2. I can't judge the Chinese translations, but Halter worked with half a dozen characters with only four viable suspects. And that's always tricky to do without becoming too obvious. I thought Halter did an excellent job in both clueing the murderer's identity and trying to distract the reader's attention away from this character. Opinions will always vary in these parts. :)

      "I've "12 Crimes of Hercules" in Chinese on my TBR pile, and will keep you posted when I get round to it..."

      Please do!

      Delete