Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2023

 

 

Since 2020, these years roundups acquired a depressing undertone and I'm afraid this year is no exception as Rupert Heath, of Dean Street Press, died on March 6 of heart failure – aged only 54. Curt Evans announced the news on his blog, "Death of a Publisher," before an official email confirmed DSP was getting shut down. Only the last five scheduled Moray Dalton reprints were published in April, but Heath and DSP left behind an indelible mark on the genre and gave the reprint renaissance the momentum it needed back in 2015.

John Pugmire, of Locked Room International, had to dial it back his publications due to health issues and Black Heath stopped altogether in February. Black Heath was not exactly a quality publisher, but sometimes reissued some interesting novels and authors like Harriette Ashbrook, Nicholas Brady and James Quince. On the upside, Moonstone Press is planning to reprint James Ronald and Pushkin Vertigo is going to add a lot more Japanese titles to their catalog in 2024. Starting with Akimitsu Takagi's Noumen satsujin jiken (The Noh Mask Murder, 1949) and Seishi Yokomizo's Akuma no temari uta (The Little Sparrow Murders, 1957/59) coming in the first-half of next year Tetsuya Ayukawa's Kuroi hakuchou (The Black Swan Mystery, 1960) and Yukito Ayatsuji's Meirokan no satsujin (The Labyrinth House Murders, 1988) coming towards the end of the year. The BBB is currently serializing MORI Hiroshi's Tsumetai misshitsu to hakase tachi (Doctors in the Isolated Room, 1996), which should be available as a complete ebook sometime early next year. This comes in addition to more vintage reprints and anthologies from the British Library and American Mystery Classics on top of brand new novels from Anne van Doorn, P. Dieudonné, Tom Mead and, hopefully, James Scott Byrnside and A. Carver. So not too bad, if you share my taste in detective fictions.

This year, I played genre historian and put together "The Locked Room Mystery & Impossible Crime Story in the 21st Century: A Brief Historic Overview of the First Twenty (Some) Years." I also tried my hands several top 10 lists, but always try to go for an unusual theme and unexpected picks. Such as a "Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels," "Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 1-25" and "Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated."

Before we hand over another year to the history books, it's time for the yearly roundup of best, and worst, detective novels and short stories encountered in 2023 and what a mess this list threatened to become – coming close to scrapping it altogether. I finally managed to tidy everything up, but had to whittle down the list considerably and cutting the likes of Norman Berrow and Philip Kerr. However, I think the list is now presentable and a little different from previous years. The locked room and impossible crime story is, as to be expected, very well represented, but a surprising amount of rereads made the list this year. No wonder I was struggling to find titles for the worst-of section. I revisited a lot of old favorites this year without really noticing. Another trend worth pointing out is the growing number of detective novels, published in the past five years, that make the cut. A second Golden Age really is in the air!

So, with all of that out of the way, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2024. Now let's go down the list in chronological order.

 

THE BEST DETECTIVE NOVELS:

House of Fear (1916) by Wadsworth Camp

A surprisingly good, if somewhat dated, detective from the dawn of the Golden Age and the grandfather of the ever popular theatrical mystery novel. The setting is dark, decaying theater reputedly haunted by the ghost of an actor who died on stage and his phantom cat. First rate stuff for 1916!

 

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1916/20) by Agatha Christie (a reread)

Christie's debut is a diamond-in-the-rough, lacking only in subtlety and polish, but bubbled with ideas and promise for the future. One of the better debuts in the genre!

 

The Wrong Letter (1926) by Walter S. Masterman

Another surprisingly good debut and a better than average 1920s locked room mystery with a solution that was somewhat innovative for the time. There were a couple of other novel from the period playing with similar ideas, which showed the genre was moving away from the Doylean era.

 

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) by Francis Beeding

A vintage mystery-thriller that holds up today, even if the passage of time dulled the twist at the end. In every other way, it's an excellent, early serial killer novel showing the effects such an individual can have on a small community.

 

La nuit du 12 au 13 (The Night of the 12th-13th, 1931) by S.A. Steeman

Steeman was a mystery novelist with a ton of original ideas that fueled the French detective story during the 1930s. This is easily the best Steeman novel I've read and another sign the detective story had entered its Golden Age.

 

The Hanging Captain (1932) by Henry Wade

Wade is one of those once famous, but now underappreciated and often overlooked Golden Age mystery writers, but he was a mystery novelist of the first rank. The Hanging Captain has all his skill and talent on display. More importantly, it earned extra points in my book for indulging in the criminally underused trope of the rivaling detectives.

 

Five to Five (1934) by D. Erskine Muir

A rock solid detective novel applying the skill of the mystery novelist to a sordid, real-life crime and showing what could have happened if a competent inspector had been in charge of the Oscar Slater Case.

 

Thou Shell of Death (1936) by Nicholas Blake (a reread)

So much better than I remembered and remembering bits and pieces of solution, I could only sit back and admire how Blake rigged up a grand deception. As good as the best from his better remembered contemporaries.

 

Case for Three Detectives (1936) by Leo Bruce (a reread)

One of my all-time favorite detective novels! Simultaneously being a hilarious parody and perceptive pastiche of the genre crammed with rivaling detectives, false-solutions and faked alibis. A gem from the Golden Age!

 

The Whistling Hangman (1937) by Baynard Kendrick (a reread)

One of my two favorite titles from this strange series standing on the borderlands between comics, pulps and the traditional detective story. In this novel, the blind Captain Duncan Maclain tackles two impossible murders at a New York residential hotels. Deserves to be reprinted!

 

Curtain (c. 1940/75) by Agatha Christie (a reread)

The last of the Hercule Poirot novels, written during the Second World War in case the worst happened, but the book so much more than the series nest egg. A serial killer story bringing a sickly, wheelchair-bound Poirot back the scene of The Mysterious Affair at Styles and pitted against subtle sadist who perfected the art of murder. A grand farewell performance from the most celebrated mystery writer and her famous creation!

 

You'll Die Laughing (1945) by Bruce Elliott

A short, fast-paced and imaginative pulp-style locked room minor and a minor classic of the form, back in print since 2006, but continues to fly under everyone's radar.

 

Subject—Murder (1945) by Clifford Witting

A classic of the British World War II mystery novel with a long prelude, a comedy drama ending in tragedy, but when it happens, it happens with the harsh, brutal justice of the Dark Ages and all the ingenuity of the Golden Age.

 

Suddenly at His Residence (1946) by Christianna Brand (a reread)

This is perhaps Brand's most conventional take on the detective story, apparently ticking all the boxes, but underneath the clichés and tropes is a first-rate mystery that can be tested against the best by Carr and Christie. Amazingly, it's not even her second or third best novel nor even the fourth or fifth! Brand simply was one of the best!

 

The Girl with the Hole in Her Head (1949) by Hampton Stone

A better than average second-stringer, or mid-tier, detective novel. Solidly plotted with a good solution complimented and strengthened by a motive arising from a very specific set of circumstances. Perhaps not the best title on this list, but I enjoyed it.

 

Akuma ga kitarite fue o fuku (The Devil's Flute Murders, 1951/53) by Seishi Yokomizo

The latest translation from Yokomizo's famous Kosuke Kindaichi series by Pushkin Vertigo presenting a human tragedy as a detective story, a locked room murder included, in which the truth comes at a hefty prize. I eagerly look forward to the next translation coming next year.

 

The Caves of Steel (1953/54) by Isaac Asimov (a reread)

A masterpiece of the science-fiction and detective genres, but, purely as a detective novel, I consider it to be one of the most important detective novels from the second-half of the previous century. A detective novel for the future demonstrating that even the presence of highly advanced, futuristic is no excuse for a weak or non-existent plotting.

 

The Case of the Dead Man Gone (1961) by Christopher Bush

I had to include a Christopher Bush title and while it has a smudge, or two, it's still miles ahead of what was becoming fashionable at the time. Bush tried and mostly succeeded in preserving the essential of the classical detective story in his sleek, trimmed down 1960s mysteries.

 

The Killing of Katie Steelstock (1980) by Michael Gilbert

A classically-styled, updated take on the quintessential British village mystery in the deceiving guise of what appears to be a fairly typical, 1980s police procedural.

 

Face Value (1983) by Roger Ormerod

This could, arguably, be the best traditionally-styled detective novel produced in the West during the 1980s. A stunningly original and daring mystery novel giving the reader a glimpse of what the Golden Age detective novel could have evolved into had been allowed to develop pass the 1950s.

 

Suishakan no satsujin (The Mill House Murders, 1988) by Yukito Ayatsuji

The eagerly anticipated sequel to Ayatsuji's epoch-making novel, Jukkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987), which superbly weaves complex patterns out of sheer simplicity. Fortunately, the publication of The Labyrinth House Murders is only a few months away!

 

Subete ga F ni naru (Everything Turns to F: The Perfect Insider, 1996) by MORI Hiroshi

 A seminal novel for the second wave of shin honkaku couching the neo-orthodox plots of the first wave in highly specialized environments or subject matters. In this case, an isolated computer research institute. Not the best detective novel Japan has produced over the past forty years, but still very good and fascinating to compare it to the works of "NisiOisiN" and Motohiro Katou.

 

Crucified (2008) by Michael Slade

An excellent, somewhat gory mystery-thriller in which the archaeological discovery of a lost WWII-era Allied bomber leads to the discovery of a long buried, seemingly impossible murder of the rear gunner. The wreck of a sealed submarine offers a second historical locked room mystery.

 

Gallows Court (2018) by Martin Edwards

A tremendously enjoyable, pulp-style thriller that introduces a retro-Golden Age mystery series, starring Rachel Savernake, from the Nestor of the Golden Age Renaissance, Martin Edwards. You can expect reviews of Mortmain Hall (2020) and Blackstone Fell (2022) next year.

 

Magan no hako no satsujin (Death Within the Evil Eye, 2019) by Masahiro Imamura

I called the first novel in this series a shock to the system and this second novel the calm after the story, but the problem of inescapable prophesy of the future is nothing to sneeze at. Hopefully, we can expect a translation of the third novel sometime next year. Fingers crossed!

 

The Paradise Affair (2021) by Bill Pronzini

Possibly, the final title in the series in which John Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter finally tied the marital knot, but work goes on and they end up solving a locked room murder with a dying message in Honolulu, Hawaii. If this is their last recorded case, Pronzini gave them a happy sendoff that retrospectively brightened Beyond the Grave (1986).

 

The English Garden Mystery (2022) by Dan Andriacco

A homage to the mystery writing cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, a.k.a. “Ellery Queen,” covering everything from a subtitle (“A Problem in Deduction”) to the Queenian tropes of the dying message, false-solutions, fallible detective and a challenge to the reader. Andriacco apparently also penned a locked room mystery (Holmes Sweet Holmes, 2012) that I'll get to next year.

 

Monkey See, Monkey Murder (2023) by James Scott Byrnside

The fourth novel in the Rowan Manory series and the first to probe the hardboiled underbelly of a prohibition-era Chicago, but not without throwing the 1920s gumshoe a locked room murder to chew on. What a locked room murder! One of the more bizarre impossible crimes I've come across in a while!

 

The Christmas Miracle Crimes (2023) by A. Carver

Have you ever noticed how many Christmas mysteries only feature Christmas incidentally? Carver noticed and decided to write a genuine Christmas mystery crammed like an overflowing sack of presents with seasonal miracles and magic. I'm sure this one will go down in history as an early highlight of the locked room and impossible crime revival. Carver shows what can be done when building on your genre's rich, stories history instead of dismissing it.

 

Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongewenste dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Unwanted Death, 2023) by P. Dieudonné

This series has the deceiving, outward appearance of a Dutch politieroman, which are hardly known for their plot complexity, but Dieudonné fixed that problem. And the newest addition to the series impressively tiptoes across an particularly slippery tightrope of a plot without tripping.

 

Het Delfts blauw mysterie (The Delft Blue Mystery, 2023) by Anne van Doorn

The first entry in the New York Cops series, written in Dutch, but an English translation is in the works and hopefully it will be published before too long, because the story is excellent. A cleverly constructed locked room mystery set in a modern-day skyscraper and snugly fits into the tradition of S.S. van Dine, Anthony Abbot, Herbert Resnicow and Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. Just penned by a Dutchman!

 

The Murder Wheel (2023) by Tom Mead

A tremendous improvement over Death and the Conjuror (2022) with the third impossibility, a body materializing out of thin air, lives up to his growing reputation as a modern-day champion of the locked room mystery. Although I think Mead has so far shown a far more skilled hand when it comes to crafting and dovetailing intricate, GAD-style whodunits than Carr-like miracle problems. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to see what Mead is going to do with my hobby horse in Cabaret Carnival (2024).

THE BEST SHORT STORIES AND SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS:

Short Story Collections:

The Name is Malone (1958) by Craig Rice

London's Glory (2015) by Christopher Fowler

The Adventures of the Puzzle Club and Other Stories (2022) by Ellery Queen and Josh Pachter

Short Stories:

"Lars Blom" ("Lars Blom and His Disappearing Gun," 1857/63) by August Blanche

"Le mystére de la chambre verte" ("The Mystery of the Green Room," 1936) by Pierre Véry

"“Who Killed Matthew Corbin?" (1939/40) by John Dickson Carr

"The Name on the Window" (1951) by Edmund Crispin

"Tall Story" (1954) by Margery Allingham

"The Glass Room" (1957) by Morton Wolson (reviewed together with "Tall Story")

"The Locked Roomette" (1990) by William Bankier

"The Burglar Who Dropped In On Elvis" (1990) by Lawrence Block

"The King's Writ" (2017) by Paul Doherty

THE WORST DETECTIVE NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES:

Novels:

The Toledo Dagger (1927) by Robert Brennan

I'm convinced Ronald Knox had a copy of The Toledo Dagger on his desk when he compiled "The Ten Commendmants for Detective Fiction" in 1929. This is the kind of third-rate, bottom-of-the-barrel cliched tripe that could actually damage to the genre had it not been so obscure. Only read it if you're looking for an excuse to be pissed about something.

 

Death Against Venus (1946) by Dana Chambers

Chambers was a better writer than Brennan, but only marginally better as a plotter as this promising story ended up being an unimpressive, tangled mess and not long-forgotten classic I was hoping to find. I suppose they can't all be rediscovered gems or alternative classics.

 

Key Without a Door (1988) by Anthony Lejeune

Another novel that began promising enough with a man in pajamas vanishing from the doorstep of his London home, but turned into a boring, uninspired thriller after only three chapters. Just like with his first novel, Mr. Diabolo (1960), there's a gaping gap between the author's aspirations and delivery.

Short Stories:

"Peacock's Cry" (2016) by Paul Doherty (reviewed together with "The King's Writ")