Blackstone Fell (2022) by Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards' Blackstone Fell (2022), alternatively published as The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge, is the third title in the Rachel Savernake series that can best be described as historical, pulp-style retro-thrillers with elaborately-webbed, tangled puzzle plots hidden underneath – comparable only to Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit series. A technique known as webwork plotting ("...the art of creating a single story out of random multiple narrative threads") and Edwards cleverly exploited to write one series that satisfies two different groups of readers. Those who enjoy a dark, eventful thriller with characters and those who want their crime fiction supported by a good, solid plot.

I belong to the latter and definitely appreciated the first two Savernake retro-pulp novels, Gallows Court (2018) and Mortmain Hall (2022), which combined the best of the detective story and thriller. Edwards ended both with a "Cluefinder" referring back to the pages and lines where the clues and hints to the solution were hidden in plain sight. Something I can always appreciate, but particularly looked forward to getting to Blackstone Fell as it contains not one, but two, impossible disappearances!

Back in 2022, Edwards wrote on his blog that he had been rewatching "the complete run of episodes of David Renwick's Jonathan Creek," as well as “working on John Dickson Carr titles for the British Library," while Blackstone Fell was still in its conceptional phase – deciding "it would be fun to have a genuine locked room mystery in the book." Edwards has written short impossible crime stories before, "Waiting for Godstow" (2000) and "The House of the Red Candle" (2004), but Blackstone Fell is his first novel-length locked room mystery. Just like it's two predecessors, Blackstone Fell has a plot resembling a deep, densely-webbed structure with maze-like properties. And like the previous novel, this third title in the series has a body count Paul Doherty would approve of.

Blackstone Fell is set in October, 1930, beginning with the arrival of the investigative journalist Nell Fagan in the small, remote Yorkshire village of Blackstone Fell "masquerading as a photographer named Grace" – trying to worm information from the locals about the local sanatorium. Vernon Murray contacted Nell to ask her help to bring whoever murdered his mother to justice, Ursula Murray. A widow who remarried a young, virtually unknown playwright, Thomas Baker ("no, none of the theatre critics have heard of him, either"), who packed her off to Blackstone Sanatorium to recover from a "nervous collapse." There she died from supposedly natural causes, but Vernon refuses to accept that verdict. And, out of desperation, turned to the crime reporter.

Nell took the tenancy of the historical, long vacant Blackstone Lodge as Cornelia Grace and tried poking around, but the close-knit community is not very keen on nosy outsiders and simply refuse to open up ("certainly not to an ungainly Londoner who reeked of tobacco and gin..."). However, Nell's prying disturbed someone as she's almost killed coming down the Fell by a boulder. Realizing she needs help, Nell reaches out to Rachel Savernake through Jacob Flint, because Nell is a persona non grata in Gaunt House. So she has to bait the hook with an offer for Jacob and an enticing mystery for Rachel. A historical locked room mystery centering on the gatehouse known as Blackstone Lodge!

Blackstone Lodge is a damp, drafty gatehouse dating back to the 17th century standing on the grounds of the now crumbling, overgrown Blackstone Tower estate of Harold Lejeune – whose family built and lived in the Tower for centuries. The tower gatehouse stood vacant for nearly as long on account of its dark history of inexplicable disappearances. In 1606, Edmund Mellor was the first guest to be welcomed at the recently completed Blackstone Tower and, one day, was seen by the rector entering the gatehouse, locking the door behind and "not a living soul ever clapped eyes on him again." Mellor had not only vanished into thin air from a locked gatehouse, but a locked gatehouse under observation as "the rector was adamant that he never budged from the spot." Three centuries later, it happened again 1914 when Alfred Lejeune, older brother of Harold, disappeared under similar circumstances from the gatehouse. Never to be seen again and declared dead in 1921. So coupled with the possibility that a killer is on the loose in the village, "perhaps more than one," makes for a pretty mystery to offer to Rachel as a peace offering, but she also had to give Jacob something.

Jacob editor is on a crusade against spiritualism, mediums and other supposedly supernatural mumbo-jumbo, which include "London's most renowned medium," but Ottilie Curle is not easily exposed as she conducted her sessions one-on-one – only to the credulous or the converted. Skeptics and the press are kept at a distance. Nell can arrange a place for Jacob at Curle's séance table under false pretenses, which is too good to turn down and the third main plot-thread of Blackstone Fell. This is only the beginning as people begin to die, left and right, before Rachel can begin her investigation in earnest. An investigation that brings even more deaths from the past to light.

Similar to Gallows Court and Mortmain Hall, you can't really discuss the unfolding events past the setup as things tend to become complicated really fast. Just like the first two books, the complicated web of characters, maze-like plot and potential motives are expertly handled. And beautifully tied together.

First of all, I knew Edwards intended the historical locked room puzzle of Blackstone Lodge to "a sub-ploy rather than the mainspring of the story," but couldn't help being a little disappointed my initial idea proved to be correct. I hoped Edwards' first novel-length locked room mystery would give me something to write about, even only as a minor subplot. The other two plot-threads are better handled with the deaths linked to the sanatorium being retro-pulp at its best ("...n fvtacbfg cbvagvat cebfcrpgvir zheqreref gb Oynpxfgbar Sryy"), while Ottilie Curle's storyline diverges from the usual involving spiritual mediums and dodgy séances. Edwards saved the best for last and concludes with a masterstroke (ROT13) erirnyvat gur guerr, vagrepbaarpgrq pnfrf ner n onpxqebc sbe n sbhegu, zbfgyl snve TNQ-fglyr jubqhavg uvqvat va cynva fvtug. Bravo! It's exactly what I hope to find in a modern mystery styled after the classics of yesteryear.

Just one little nitpick. I was completely satisfied with the ending and immediately turned over to the "Cluefinder," which "enjoyed a vogue during 'the Golden Age of murder' between the world wars" and Edwards decided to resurrect it for this series. It worked wonders for the previous two novels, but not in this case as it showed the clues ("a selection of pointers to the solution of the various mysteries") are not as strong as my impression was from the concluding chapters. Aside from that nagging, fanboyish bit of nitpicking, Blackstone Fell is another page-turner with a captivating, complicated plot and an immersive story that never stop moving. It's a worthy and excellent addition to both this series and the Golden Age revival. I just hope we'll get a genuine novel-length, John Dickson Carr-style locked room mystery from Edwards in the future. Until then, I have Sepulchre Street (2023) awaiting on the big pile.