Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2021

 

Well, it's that time of the year again. The yearly roundup of the best and worst detective novels and short stories, past and present, read in 2021. Traditionally, the list is dominated by locked room mysteries and the Golden Age detective stories, but the non-English (untranslated) have a strong representation this year in addition to a surprising number of rereads. So, in spite of my personal taste, a very varied list and, hopefully, it will help fatten some of your 2022 wishlists. 

So, before running down the list, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2022!

THE BEST DETECTIVE NOVELS READ IN 2021: 

About the Murder of the Night Club Lady (1931) by Anthony Abbot 

One of the best and strongest novels in the Thatcher Colt series. This time, the Police Commissioner of Greater New York is faced with an inexplicable murder in a top floor penthouse and a second body miraculously materializing on the thoroughly searched, closely guarded premise. A criminally underappreciated locked room mystery blazing with all the ingenuity of the 1930s. 

Operazakan aratanaru satsujin (The New Kindaichi Files, 1994) by Seimaru Amagi 

A landmark story in The Kindaichi Case Files franchise as it marked Hajime Kindaichi's first return to Hotel Opera, on Utashima Island, where he solved his first multi-murder case. Four years later, the original theatrical hotel had been torn down and rebuild to stage a new adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, but then a new murderer takes the stage and crushes an actress underneath an enormous chandelier in the auditorium – which had been completely locked up at the time. A first-rate theatrical mysteries and one of my favorite stories from the series. 

Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998) by Seimaru Amagi 

A relatively minor mystery novel and entry in the Kindaichi series, but has an impressive, small-scale piece of world-building as Hajime Kindaichi and Miyuki Nanase travel to a remote village to visit a former classmate – a place with its own unique culture and traditions. Such as the three-day Thunder Festival and a rare kind of clay used for pottery. This provides the background for a cleverly construed murder of the impossible variety involving something else that made isolated village famous in certain circles. A wild variety and sheer number of cicadas. 

The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat (1944) by Enid Blyton 

Yes, a children's detective story, but Blyton proved with The Mystery of the Vanishing Thief (1950) and The Rilloby Fair Mystery (1950) that she could plot. And knew how to handle an impossible crime situation. The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat belongs on that list as The Five Find-Outers and Dog try to clear a friend under suspicion of having stole a prize-winning cat. Not a problem that will fool any adult reader, but fairly clued and perfectly suitable for its intended audience. Surprisingly mature and unpleasant in some aspects. 

The Case of the Unfortunate Village (1932) by Christopher Bush 

A surprisingly unassuming, character-driven, but still thoroughly absorbing, story plotted around a series of incidents, personality changes and accidents that have changed the mood in the village of Bableigh for the worst. A very original, first-class village mystery. 

The Case of the Curious Client (1947) by Christopher Bush 

One of the more tidiest whodunits Bush wrote during the late '40s with a solution that got more out of the plot than went into it, but the story is also an interesting additional to the library of (post) World War II mysteries with a plot rooted in the pre-war period. And it's always a pleasure to see Travers reunited with Wharton. 

The Three Coffins (1935) by John Dickson Carr (a reread)

This is one of Carr's landmark novels and a monument of the locked room mystery, but, over the past fifteen years, The Three Coffins status as a classic underwent a devaluation as readers today find it not very technically sound – missing the point completely. The Three Coffins is the utterly bizarre and fantastic done right with all the logic of a mad dream. An impressive juggling act, which tiptoed across a slippery tightrope, reaching the end without the very tricky, maze-like plot becoming an incomprehensible mess. This is an almost otherworldly performance only few mystery writers are capable of producing. Carr was one of them. 

The Problem of the Green Capsule (1939) by John Dickson Carr (a reread)

A double triumph as Carr demonstrated he didn't need seemingly impossible crimes to create truly baffling, maze-like plots and presented the reader here with a murder during a psychological experiment to proof the unreliability of eyewitnesses – a murder both witnessed and filmed. One of the pleasures of rereading Carr is noticing how daringly he dangles clues or even the truth in front of your eyes. Or simply admiring how he created a psychological blind spot where he hid the murderer. 

The Libertines (1978) by Douglas Clark 

An earnest, rock-solid continuation of the Golden Age traditional, but Clark disguised his traditionally-styled plots as contemporary police procedurals. This time, George Masters and Bill Green have to bring clarity to two closely-linked poisonings during a cricket fortnight at a large farmhouse. 

Golden Rain (1980) by Douglas Clark 

This novel about the poisoning of the beloved headmistress and benevolent dictator of Bramthorpe College for Girls begins slowly and delays the most important plot-pieces until the second-half, but the end result is excellent. Another neo-Golden Age detective novel masquerading as a modern police procedural. 

Murder on the Orient Express (1934) by Agatha Christie (a reread)

This another one-time classic whose status has been called into question during the internet era, but, to me, Murder on the Orient Express is to the closed-circle whodunit Carr's The Three Coffins is to the locked room mystery. The completely fantastical and unbelievable done convincing with the most memorable cast of characters and setting in the genre. So the plot had to fit such a grand stage and assembly of characters. And it did! 

Evil Under the Sun (1941) by Agatha Christie (a reread)

One of Christie's triumphant masterpieces that's often overshadowed by her even bigger and more famous masterpieces, but Evil Under the Sun is a first-rate entry in the Hercule Poirot series as his holiday is cut short by the murder of a well-known actress – which he neatly solves. Having read the novel before, I could sit back and admire the brazen clueing and shrewd misdirection. She created an apparently maze-like plot without an exit while the open door was in plain sight the entire time! 

Six Against the Yard (1936) by The Detection Club 

Technically, this is a collection of short stories and should be mentioned below, but it seemed to fit in better here as the stories form a very novel collective. Six members of the London-based Detection Club, some better known and remembered than others, match wits with Superintendent Cornish. Can the real life detective unravel the schemes of the Merchants of Murder? Superintendent Cornish was no Lestrade and demonstrated the police has one advantage over the amateur criminal: a ton of experience. 

The Reader is Warned (1939) by Carter Dickson (a reread)

An underrated, low-key masterpiece in which Sir Henry Merrivale is confronted who claims to possess telepathic powers. Allowing him to read minds, predict the future and kill with his mind. There are several, seemingly inexplicable, deaths to back up his claim, but the Old Man is not that easily tricked. A nigh perfectly plotted detective novel and a masterclass in cavalier clueing and devious misdirection! 

Rechercheur De Klerck en moord in scène (Inspector De Klerck and Murder on the Scene, 2021) by P. Dieudonné (untranslated)

I was initially a little skeptical when the synopsis was released as the plot is centered on a deadly rivalry between two rap groups in Rotterdam, but Dieudonné proved in his previous four novels, like Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020), he was not another pale imitation of the late Appie Baantjer. There's more rhyme and reason to the seemingly ordinary and sordid crimes De Klerck and Klaver have under investigation, which turn out to be set to a very familiar and classical tune. A late-minute highlight of 2021!

Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors (1935) by Roger East 

The last novel in a short-lived series of proto-police procedurals in which the now retired ex-Superintendent Simmy Simmonds becomes embroiled in sabotage, murder and political intrigue on a fictitious, pocket-sized island republic in the West Indies – ruled over a by generalissimo. During the first-half, the story appeared to go nowhere with Simmonds' situation and his comic opera police force being played for laughs, but the ending revealed a deviously planned whodunit with an original motive. 

The Fortescue Candle (1936) by Brian Flynn 

A little loosely plotted in parts with one plot-thread annoyingly left unresolved, but nonetheless a detective story as intriguing as it's intricate with Flynn tying together the shooting of an unpopular Home Secretary and the poisoning of a stage actress. While some parts were better handled than others, the solution is far from disappointing and an example why this has become a household series of Dean Street Press. 

The Ebony Stag (1938) by Brian Flynn 

Admittedly, this is not the strongest title in the Anthony Bathurst series, but it's a tremendously entertaining one and, surprisingly, contained a locked room-puzzle not recorded in either Adey or Skupin. However, the impossibility is only a small part of this old-fashioned whodunit involving a very strange weapon, false-identities, hidden alibis, coded messages and a historical mystery. 

Glittering Prizes (1942) by Brian Flynn 

This one is a perfect example of Flynn's versatility as both a plotter and storyteller. A rich, elderly American widow who puts her entire fortune at the disposal of the British Empire to combat the Nazi menace. She handpicked nine men and women with outstanding public records and put them through a test to see which two would receive a small fortune to help protect their way of life, but the game turns into a sensational murder case when the winners are found murdered under bizarre circumstances. A case in point why Flynn has more than deserving of being rediscovered. 

Murder and the Married Virgin (1944) by Brett Halliday 

A hard-paced, hardboiled private eye novel in which Mike Shayne is hired by distraught army lieutenant to find out why his fiance committed a suicide a day before they were to met at the altar. Or was she perhaps murdered? One of the better attempts at the time at combining the hardboiled private eye with the impossible crime. As solid as a sock on the jaw!

La toile de Pénélope (Penelope's Web, 2001) by Paul Halter 

I've been hoping and waiting for a translation of Penelope's Web ever since reading Xavier enticing review back in the late 2000s. So not only was it very satisfying to finally have the book available in English, but it mostly lived up to my expectations. A very well done, Agatha Christie-style whodunit with an unusual impossible murder in a locked room with the open window covered with an intricately-woven, unbroken web. My sole complaint is that the second victim would have made a great (one-shot) detective character.

La maison interdite (The Forbidden House, 1932) by Michel Herbert & Eugène Wyl 

Arguably the best French-language locked room mystery novel from the 1930s and '40s to come out of John Pugmire's Locked Room International. A masterpiece worthy of the label that not only asks who, why and how the crime was committed, but also who the detective is going to be. A story curiously prescient of Leo Bruce's Case for Three Detectives (1936).

Blind Man's Bluff (1943) by Baynard Kendrick 

Baynard Kendrick created a unique link between the comic book superhero and capeless crusader from the pulp magazines of the 1940s in the guise of a detective, Captain Duncan Maclain, who lost his eyesight during the First World War and had a superhero-like training to become a private eye – directly inspiring the creation of Daredevil. This novel ranks with The Whistling Hangman (1937) as the best the series has to offer as Maclain has to contend on his own with a string of suicides which were very likely disguised murder. A pulp-style rendition of John Dickson Carr's The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941) with the only drawback being that it lacked the showmanship and magical touch of the master.

The Three Taps (1927) by Ronald A. Knox 

A humorously written and cleverly plotted detective novel, crammed with clues, detectives and false-solution, which read like a portent of things to come and possibly influenced some of the celebrated British mystery writers of the 1930s – like Anthony Berkeley and Leo Bruce. Only drawback is that one of the false-solution is somewhat better than the actual solution. 

Shijinso no satsujin (Death Among the Undead, 2017) by Masahiro Imarura 

A modern classic that "made enormous waves in the world of Japanese mystery fiction" by blurring the lines between the detective and horror genres without compromising the integrity of either. Death Among the Undead is an ingenious, traditionally-plotted detective novel, but set during a small, localized zombie apocalypse that added a new dimension to both the closed-circle situation and locked room mystery. A very rare success story of the hybrid mystery novel that can only be likened to Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (1954). 

A Talent for War (1989) by Jack McDevitt 

This science-fiction series came to my attention because it was compared to Ellery Queen and McDevitt cited G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown as a huge influence on it. Alex Benedict is an antique dealer who solves historical mysteries ten thousand years into the future when humanity had formed a troubled, multi-world Confederacy. I loved the world-building with a fascinating historical mystery surrounding 200-year-old lost warship. 

Polaris (2004) by Jack McDevitt 

The sequel to A Talent for War with more focus on the historical, space-age mystery plot than world-building, which concerns the Mary Celeste-like disappearance of a scientific expedition who were observing the destruction of an ancient star system by a white dwarf. But there's much more to this very tricky, complicated plot with a truly horrifying crime at the heart of story. 

The Key to the Case (1992) by Roger Ormerod 

This criminally underrated entry in Ormerod's Richard and Amelia Patton series represents his best attempt to consolidate the traditional, plot-oriented detective story with the gritty, character-driven crime novel of modern times – centering on the murder of a convicted rapist and suspected murderer. A murder that took place in a hermetically sealed, practically fortified house and the who is even better than the how. 

A Shot at Nothing (1993) by Roger Ormerod 

An honest and successful attempt at imagining what the Golden Age mystery novel would look like in the '90s and it feels like the genuine article. There are some modern touches and smudges to the plot, but, on a whole, it's very handled and particular the impossible crime in combination with the second murder. 

She Had to Have Gas (1939) by Rupert Penny 

There's not much I can say to sum up this utterly strange detective novel except to quote my own review, "one of the most delightfully bizarre, ambitiously plotted and convoluted curiosities of the genre's Golden Age."

The Stolen Gold Affair (2020) by Bill Pronzini 

There are several plot-strands that make up this novel, but the one that can be called "The Monarch Mine Case" is what earned the book a spot on this list. John Quincannon goes both undercover and underground to dismantle a high-grading operation, but finds himself in a tight corner when an impossible murder occurs in a closely watched crosscut. A mine is such a great setting for a detective story! 

Hoteldebotel in een hotel (Pell-Mell in a Hotel, 2021) by Eugenius Quak (untranslated)

An ambitious, madcap and pulp-style homage to Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen in which outlaw detective and wanted fugitive, Eugenius M. Quak, goes into hiding at his aunt's beach side hotel, De Rode Haring (The Red Herring). Everything goes hilariously wrong when a guest dies under suspicious circumstances and the hotel is overrun with policemen, which forces Quak to do some highly unorthodox detective work. This detective novel has everything. A plot stuffed to the gills with clues, red herrings, false-solutions and challenges to the reader, but everything fitted together logically and satisfactory in spite of all the madcappery. What a shame neither the traditional nor the pulp-style of detective fiction is so unpopular in my country. 

The Frightened Stiff (1942) by Kelley Roos (a reread)

This is one of my all-time favorite comedic mysteries and should be the measure stick of the murder-can-be-fun school. A genuinely funny detective story in which the newlywed Jeff and Haila Troy overhear a man in a telephone booth planning to meet someone in the basement of the Greenwich Village apartment they moved into, which ends with a body in their garden and police knocking on their door. Tom and Enid Schantz wrote in their introduction that the series gives reader a snapshot of "what it was like to be young and in love in the New York of the 1940s" when "mysteries were meant to be fun," but it should not be overlooked the plots are generally better than found in other series with bantering, mystery solving husband-and-wife teams. So, yes, this one more than stood up to rereading. 

Lamb to the Slaughter (1995) by Jennifer Rowe 

The last novel in the now largely forgotten, long out-of-print Verity Birdwood series that admirably found a balance between the modern, character-driven crime novel and the traditional detective story. Lamb to the Slaughter has a modern exterior with its cast of characters coming from the bottom rungs of society, who have to deal with an unpleasant, recently freed murderer returning to their neighborhood, but appearances can be deceiving – used here to both hide a clever plot and misdirect the reader. A bright light in the dim nineties of the traditional detective story. 

The Listening House (1938) by Mabel Seeley 

Arguably one of the strongest debuts from the American Golden Age and praised, past and present, as "spirited updating of the HIBK novel," but with a much grittier edge. More importantly, it has a plot that twists, turns and coils like a snake lost in a hedge-maze exposing the peril of being an amateur detective along the way. The two well-done locked room mystery were the icing on the cake. 

De moord op het sloependek (The Murder on the Boat Deck, 1941) by Vanno (untranslated)

Only a second-string detective novel compared to its American and British contemporaries, but a surprising and welcome addition to the too short list of genuine, Dutch-language Golden Age mystery. The story takes place during a pleasure cruise in the Aegean Sea when a murder of the impossible variety cuts short the holiday of Inspector Barry D. Weston and that amateur detective of some notoriety, Charles Venno. 

Moord onder astrologen (Murder Among Astrologists, 1963) by Ton Vervoort (untranslated)

Now this was a pleasant surprise! I picked this barely remembered, long out-of-print Dutch detective novel as a contrast to W.H. van Eemlandt's astronomically-themed Dood in schemer (Death in Half-Light, 1954), but, as Kacey Crain pointed out in the comment-section, the story about the pseudoscience turned out to be more rigorously plotted of the two – a Dutch take on the American detective story of S.S. van Dine and Ellery Queen. Complete with bizarre architecture, crackpot characters and a dying message. 

Moord onder de mantel der liefde (Murder Under the Mantle of Love, 1964) by Ton Vervoort (untranslated)

A bizarrely structured detective novel that starts out as a fairly convention whodunit with a murder among the members of an old, dysfunctional Amsterdam family, but the second-half has the killer cut loose from the closed-circle situation. What follows is a parapsychological manhunt for a serial killer who targets the city's invalids and future victims. Strangely enough, it actually worked! The characters and situations made it an unmistakable, almost stereotypical, Dutch detective story. 

Murder at Monk's Barn (1931) by Cecil Waye 

Cecil Waye is the least-known pseudonym of John Street, better known as John Rhode and Miles Burton, who added four more titles to his already impressive bibliography under the Waye name. However, the Waye novels tend to lean more towards the thriller genre, but Murder at Monk's Barn is straightforward, 1920s style mystery novel with a brother-and-sister detective team investigating an impossible murder. 

Catt Out of the Bag (1939) by Clifford Witting 

A seasonal, more lighthearted offering from the humdrum and realists school which appears to have a plot as unassuming as it looks unexciting, pilfering of a collection box during Christmas, but there's a fairly clued, solidly plotted detective story hiding underneath it all – like a wrapped present. Just like presents, you're best off knowing as little as possible before unwrapping it. A perfect mystery for those cold, dark December days. 

Mom Meets Her Makes (1990) by James Yaffe 

Not your typical Christmas detective novel. No quiet, snowed-in mansion in the British countryside where the stingy, hated family patriarch is murdered, but an American town loudly decorated from end to another – complete with gunfire, small town politics and religious strife. A classic play on the dying message trope and the multi false-solutions makes this a first-rate, EQ-style detective novel.

THE BEST SHORT STORIES READ IN 2021 (collections):

The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin B-13 (2021) by John Dickson Carr 

"The Man Who Couldn't Be Photographes"

"The Blind-Folded Knife Thrower"

"No Useless Coffin"

"The Power of Darkness"

"The Street of the Seven Daggers"

"The Island of Coffins"

"Lair of the Devil-Fish"

"The Man with Two Heads"

 

Meer mysteries voor Robbie Corbijn (More Mysteries for Robbie Corbijn, 2021) by Anne van Doorn (untranslated) 

"The Letters That Spelled Doom"

"The Painting That Didn't Hang Around"

"The Pianist Who Fell Out of Tune"

"The House That Brought Bad Luck"

"The Man Who Wanted Fly"

"The Bus That Went into the Fog"

"The Man Who Rather Stayed Inside"

 

The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories (2018) edited by Martin Edwards 

 

Selwyn Jepson's "By the Sword"

Carter Dickson's "Blind Man's Hood"

Ronald A. Knox's "The Motive"

Cyril Hare's "Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech"

John Bude's "Pattern of Revenge"

John Bingham's "Crime at Lark Cottage"

 

Locked and Loaded, Part 2 

 

Edgar D. Smith's "Killer in Khaki"

Bruce D. Pelletier's "The Hedgehog and the Fox"

Don Knowlton's "The Room at the End of the Hall"

Edward D. Hoch's "The Weapon Out of the Past"

THE BEST SINGLE SHORT STORIES READ IN 2021: 

 

G.K. Chesterton and Max Pemberton's "The Donnington Affair" (1914)

Simon Clark's "The Climbing Man"  (2015)

Joseph Commings' "The Grand Guignol Caper" (1984)

Carter Dickson's "The Silver Curtain" (1939)

Martin Edwards' "The House of the Red Candle" (2004)

Edward D. Hoch's "The Spy and the Snowman" (1980)

Edward D. Hoch's "The Bad Samaritan" (1981)

Matt Ingwalson's "Not With a Bang" (2016)

Gerald Kersh's "Karmesin and the Meter" (1937)

John Sladek's "Scenes from the Country of the Blind" (1977)

THE WORST/DISAPPOINTING READS OF 2021: 

 

Voodoo (1930) by John Esteven

A mystery novel that sounded and began promising enough, but an indecisive, directionless writer plunged the story to the ranks of overly cliched, third-rate pulp fiction. What killed the story was the incomprehensibly idiotic solution to the impossible murder that can cause a brain aneurysm. The reader has been warned! 

Na afloop moord (Afterwards, Murder, 1953) by Bob van Oyen (untranslated)

A so-called military mystery set among the engineering officers of the Genie-bureau and had a premise with potential, but completely dissolved as a detective story as the non-existence of the plot became painfully obvious. No idea how it earned this place in a detective story competition with 169 other entries. However, I did enjoy skimming over my review and read back all the brilliant armchair detective work that went nowhere. That name-clue would have been really clever! 

Pink Silk Alibi (1946) by Bruce Sanders 

An amusingly enough written crime novel full with bantering, smart-aleck dialogue and humor, which certainly went a long way in covering up the fact that the plot is practically non-existent. Nothing more than a bit of fluff demonstrating why some writers or novels went down into obscurity.