Three Card Murder (2023) by J.L. Blackhurst

Jenny Blackhurst is a British crime-and thriller novelist who debuted a decade ago with How I Lost You (2014) and has since written seven more psychological thrillers, which are of no interest to me, but last year she started a new series – published as by "J.L. Blackhurst." Three Card Murder (2023) was alluringly touted as "a real puzzle box of a story" with "three deviously clever impossible crimes." Blackhurst described the book herself as "Jonathan Creek meets Hustle" (the BBC TV-series, not the 2019 movie), but you have to be wary these days of novels falsely presented as locked room mysteries. Several reviews appeared assuring that Three Card Murder is the real deal with no less than three genuine locked room murders. What sealed it is that this series is called "The Impossible Crimes Series" with Smoke and Murders (2024) scheduled for release in September.

That somewhat alleviated some of my initial doubt and hesitancy when it comes to modern crime fiction. One of the alarm bells is what's printed on the cover, "One sister is a cop. The other is a con artist. Both of them are suspects," which sounds more like a character-driven crime novel than an intricately-plotted, triple locked room mystery. So was glad to find that the character-arc of the protagonists were integral to the puzzle plot.

Acting Detective Inspector Tess Fox, of Sussex Major Crimes Team, has a secret. She's the daughter of "Brighton and Hove's biggest confidence men," Frank Jacobs, who runs a crew (his "family") with Sarah at his right hand. Fifteen years ago, Tess turned up at their doorstep as the long-lost prodigal daughter and stays with them for six months, but then she and her step-sister Sarah got into some serious trouble, which made Tess decide to leave the Jacobs to join the police as "some kind of redemption quest" – which is a big no-no in the Jacobs family. So fifteen years come, and go, when Tess gets to handle and lead her first murder investigation. A man had his throat cut and thrown from the third-floor balcony of a high-rise flat, but there a few oddities about this brutal murder. Firstly, the front door is both locked and boarded-up on the inside. Secondly, the CCTV showed nobody left the flat after the body landed outside on the pavement. Apparently, "a man who had been sliced from one side of his neck to the other" and "thrown from a third-floor balcony by the invisible man himself."

So more than enough complications to untangle and earn her stripes as an acting detective inspector, but Tess recognizes the victim, knows he had a connection with Sarah and that incident fifteen years ago. There are even clues at the crime scene that hint at it, which should not be possible as only two people knew what really happened. Tess and Sarah.

Tess tries to reconnect with Sarah, not as a suspect at first ("I do illusions, not murders"), but to help explain the murderer's miraculous exit from the scene of the crime. After all, "when it came to illusions and sleight of hand, Sarah had been an expert, even fifteen years ago." However, their uneasy reunion is beset with trouble as nobody is supposed to know Tess is the daughter of the man who heads a crew "consisting of forgers, illusionists, actors, street magicians and all manner of other grifters" – something could get her fired ("every case I've ever worked on would be called into question"). Likewise, Sarah can't be seen with her step-sister who works for the enemy. This makes for great storytelling and their character-arc is nicely braided into an engrossing plot and intriguing locked room-puzzle. I really liked the character of Sarah. Not only because she's a self-declared "student of Dr Fell, a rival perhaps to Merivale (sic) and Dr Hawthorne" who hit upon exactly the same two solutions for the first locked room that immediately occurred to me, which then got demolished as false-solution, but how she dons and shreds disguises and personalities like she's Kaito KID. Blackhurst obviously intended to have some fun with this series. So, as a fan of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series, I found that to be a small treat.

While the two sisters work out their issues, on top of a locked room murder, the invisible killer is still roaming the city and strikes two more times under seemingly impossible circumstances. One man is stabbed by the invisible killer inside an elevator and the third one is shot in a hotel room locked and chained from the inside. Every murder and discovery hands Tess more evidence against Sarah, while simultaneously driving Tess into a corner. Like I said, it all makes for good, fun read with the three impossible crimes giving weight to the plot. But is it any good purely as a detective story and locked room mystery?

 

 

First of all, I think I speak for all rabid locked room fans that we love and adore David Renwick's Jonathan Creek series. If only because episodes like Danse Macabre (1998) and Black Canary (1998) gives us a glimpse of what good, faithfully done adaptations of Carter Dickson, Edward D. Hoch and Hake Talbot would look and feel like. There is, however, a gulf in quality between the best and worst episodes large enough for an entire fleet of aircraft carriers to sail through. Generally, Jonathan Creek is not the best series to use as a model. Blackhurst definitely modelled Three Card Murder on Renwick's plotting. The first locked room (SPOILER/ROT13: erjbexf gur gevpxf sebz gur wbanguna perrx rcvfbqrf ubhfr bs zbaxrlf naq zbgure erqpnc vagb fbzrguvat gung yrsg zr hapbaivaprq, ohg gur nggrzcg vf nccerpvngrq. The stabbing in the elevator has a perfectly fine solution, but is given the least amount of attention as the trick would eventually have revealed itself (va gur nhgbcfl naq gbkvpbybtl ercbegf). The third and last murder has something clever and perhaps even new to offer to the locked room mystery. A good, simple enough trick, but a satisfying one and particular how it's executed. Just one observation: jnf vg ernyyl arprffnel gb uvqr gur zveebe jvgu fhpu n tvzzvpx, orpnhfr vg purncraf gur pber vqrn bs gur gevpx n ovg naq gur cerfrapr bs n zveebe jbhyq abg vzzrqvngryl tvira njnl ubj vg pbhyq or hfrq gb yvar hc gur xvyy fubg.

So while the trio of locked room-puzzles are somewhat uneven in quality, best one saved for last, it's the jack-in-the-box approach to the who-and why that ultimately left me in two minds about Three Card Murder – coming after a thoroughly enjoyable read. But the identity of the murderer is impossible to anticipate. And what drove this person to murder somehow seemed almost flimsy compared to the perceived motive. I remember not everyone appreciated my lukewarm "hot take" on Tom Mead's Death and the Conjuror (2022) and feel a little pang of guilt for ending this review so tepidly, but found the conclusion to this otherwise fun and excellent mystery to be a bit of a letdown. Nevertheless, Three Card Murder is a spirited first stab at the locked room mystery that tried to do something different with it and mostly succeeded. I never expect a writer swim or drown on their first try, especially in a specialized area such as the traditional detective story and locked room mystery. So very much look forward to see where the series goes from here and what it will bring to the locked room revival. One thing is for sure, I really should have waited with "The Locked Mystery & Impossible Crime Story in the 21st Century" until 2025.