Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder (2024) by P. Dieudonné

During the summer, E-Pulp published the tenth novel in P. Dieudonné's Rotterdam police series, Rechercheur De Klerck en de sluier van de dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Veil of Death, 2024), which is a double-sized politieroman to mark the series' first milestone – reason why its publication was delayed several months. So didn't expect them to keep to the customary schedule of two novels a year, but the eleventh title in the series was recently published. And it's better than the previous, double-sized De Klerck mystery!

Rechercheur De Klerck en de status in moord (Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder, 2024) begins with a request to Lucien de Klerck and Ruben Klaver, of the Rotterdam police, to assist the harbor police investigate a suspicious death. One that looks an awfully lot like murder.

In the Veerhaven, a luxurious sailing yacht has been deliberately sunk and divers found the body of a woman floating inside, but the doors where sealed shut from the outside to keep her from escaping – turning the yacht into an inescapable death trap. De Klerck and Klaver quickly find out that the victim, Ismene Duetz, gave people around her plenty of reason to be glad someone gave her a one-way trip to the bottom of the river. Ismene was recently deserted by her long-suffering, browbeaten and now ex-husband, Ivo Lambriex, which is why she was temporarily living on her yacht. That ties-in with her favorite hobby: brown-nosing the Dutch aristocracy ("she absolutely adored the nobility...").

Ismene is friends with Lady Noëlle de Beauchateau, daughter of Lord Maximiliaan de Beauchateau, who is engaged to Baron van Feyesslink tot Elzeveld. Before her engagement to the Baron, Noëlle was dating the owner of a struggling diving supply store, Peter Versantvoort. Ismene got wind of Peter's financial troubles and told the Lord about. Similarly warned Noëlle about potential future advances from her brother, IJsbrand ("blue blood marries blue blood"). So more than enough to keep to the two inspectors busy for some time, but further complications arise when a member of the aristocracy is shot and a third, very surprising death. None of these murders follows the pattern expected from a Baantjer-style politieroman, which in this case added to the fun.

That third, final death really took me by surprise as it made me second guess my deductions, because it looked like a daring attempt to present De Klerck and Klaver with an easy solution to close the case – which didn't turn out to be the case. But an interesting turn of events. And was on the right track all along!

Dieudonné returned with Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder to previous novels like Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020), Rechercheur De Klerck en moord in scène (Inspector De Klerck and Murder on the Scene, 2021) and Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongewenste dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Unwanted Death, 2023) by presenting an old-school detective novel as a contemporary politieroman a la Baantjer. All very fairly clued, too. There are a couple of important pieces of information given late into the story, but, if you spotted the clues and hints, they shouldn't come like bolt from the blue. So what more can I say about this early Sinterklaas present that hasn't already been said in previous reviews? This series continues to be a rare treat giving me a double shot of nostalgia and something to sooth that detective itch in my own language! In that regard, Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder is another success story and a strong, solid entry in the series. I look forward to the next one and plan to do another “Hit List” blog-post ranking the first dozen De Klerck novels when it gets published.

A note for the curious: I wonder how many readers heard these words in their head when the murderer was revealed (SPOILER/ROT13), “qebzzryf, qebzzryf ra abt rraf qebzzryf, qvr pybja ra qvr npebonng!” :)

Tour de Force (1955) by Christianna Brand

The last two, three years of the reprint renaissance have been especially kind to the legacy of Christianna Brand as Green for Danger (1944), Suddenly at His Residence (1946), Death of Jezebel (1948) and London Particular (1952) appeared back in print – reissued in the British Library Crime Classics series. Death of Jezebel came in as an incredibly close second in the 2022 Reprint of the Year Award, before going on to unseat Green for Danger as Brand's definitive novel and currently trying to topple John Dickson Carr's The Three Coffins (1935) as the Golden Age locked room mystery. I noted in "The Hit List: Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" it would be a genuine, posthumous accomplishment if Death of Jezebel dethrones The Three Coffins. In addition to several rarely reprinted or previously unpublished short stories and a short serialized novel, Shadowed Sunlight (1945), reprinted for the first time in Bodies from the Library 4 (2021).

So not only is Brand finally getting the proper reprints her work deserves, but her frustratingly small body of work has been actually been expanding. There's enough in cold storage, so to speak, to continue this trend for a few more years. Such as the unpublished novella "The Dead Hold Fast" featuring Inspector Charlesworth, the mouthwatering Inspector Cockrill impossible crime novel The Chinese Puzzle and an unfinished manuscript titled Cat Among the Pigeons. And, of course, the reprints!

The latest offering from the British Library in Brand reprints is the modestly titled, absolute fan favorite Tour de Force (1955). I planned to reread Death of Jezebel and London Particular first or try one of her often overlooked Inspector Chucky novels, but got my arm twisted to give Tour de Force an immediate reevaluation. The book got nominated for the "New Locked Room Library," but didn't remember it being an impossible crime novel and voted no without a comment. Only no-vote cast for Tour de Force. So was strongarmed into a dimly-lit room, planted on a chair and asked to urgently explain my conduct – brass knucks and clubs were pulled out as encouragement. No, I didn't see any of their faces. I promised to reread Tour de Force to see if my previous held opinions needed editing. Well...

Tour de Force finds Detective Inspector Cockrill, the Terror of Kent, on a conducted tour of Italy, but has come to regret it and eyes the company with his fellow British tourists with "ever-increasing gloom." Cockrill becomes entangled with seven of them at a hotel on the island of San Juan el Pirata in a tricky murder case involving a tangle of apparently incontestable alibis.

A group of holidaymakers comprising of a successful novelist, Louvaine "Louli" Barker. An ex-pianist, Leo Rodd, who lost his right arm and career in a bicycle accident. Helen Rodd is his "patient, considerate, silently sympathetic, relentlessly kind" wife. Vanda Lane is a young woman who keeps herself to herself, but has fallen in love with the ugly, angry looking one-armed man ("after all the years of existing upon vicarious romanticism"). Miss Trapp is another lonely woman ("rich and lonely") who has caught the roving eye of the tour guide, Fernando Gomez. Last, but not least, Mr. Cecil, of Christophe et Cie, who previously appeared in the Inspector Charlesworth novel Death in High Heels (1941). That case is briefly mentioned in passing ("years ago, in Christophe's, one of the girls, you can't think how horrid").

Cockrill wisely decides to bury himself in "deep in the latest adventure of his favourite Detective Inspector Carstairs" ("...engaged upon The Case of the Leaping Blonde"), but then Vanda Lane is found stabbed to death in her hotel room. And her body almost ceremonially laid out on the bed. This unexpected murder presents two the holidaying Cockrill with a pair of pressing problems.

 

 

Firstly, everyone with a hint of a motive possesses a practically watertight alibi as Cockrill had them under observation, nobody could have sneaked away long enough to commit murder and it not being noticed, which comes with a detailed map of the beachfront scene – showing where everyone was on the beach and terrace. I can't remember a map being used (in a Western mystery) to illustrate an alibi problem rather than a locked room puzzle or simply giving a clearer picture of the story's setting. Secondly, the police force of San Juan el Pirata is not, exactly, a modern one who are mainly occupied with smuggling coffee, tobacco, hashish and taking bribes from other smugglers. They have no time for a long, drawn out investigation or unsolved murder to scare away the tourists and they settle on anyone who fits in order to have "the whole thing wiped over and forgotten." Cockrill is even briefly imprisoned as a suspect and returns to the hotel to tell the six suspects he "was not going back to that dungeon to save the neck of any murderer" and going to find the murderer. Not ignoring the fact that it was his own testimony that handed out alibis to everyone.

Tour de Force becomes a showpiece of Brand's talent and specialty, the multiple false-solutions. Death of Jezebel famously overwhelms the reader with a dizzying number of false-solutions, but, perhaps better put to use in London Particular in which a closely-knit family create dummy cases implicating themselves to protect each other. Suddenly at His Residence, on the other hand, has a family creating dummy cases as ammunition to be used against each other. Tour de Force mixes things up starting with Cockrill showing how some could have escaped his attention or line of sight, before accusations begin to fly and false-solutions start coming out of the ranks of the suspects.

This continues building up, and knocking down again, of false-solutions is truly impressive and the highlight of the book. More impressive than the actual solution. A very clever, immaculately clued solution and remembering broad outline of the final twist made me enjoy it slightly more the second time around. I pointed out before that the truly greats of the genre have great reread value as not only do you get to admire their skills in laying out a plot, planting clues and dropping red herrings, but their boldness in pointing out the truth and simultaneously pushing you in the wrong direction is what separates the masters from the rest. That certainly was on full display in Tour de Force and loved (SPOILER/ROT13) Pbpxevyy'f pbzzrag nobhg bar bs gur punenpgref pregnvayl orvat bhg nf n cbgragvny fhfcrpg, which technically correct. A blatant, highly suspicious observation that's too obvious as both a clue or red herring. Love it when mystery writers lie through their teeth without uttering a single untrue word.

So no complaints there, however, I think this is going to be point where most of you'll start shouting at me. Angrily. The actual solution coming right after the final, twisty false-solution is both clever and immaculately clued, but nothing more, or less, than a plot-technical achievement. I think most (seasoned) readers will either pick up enough clues and hints or instinctively guess (see ROT13 comment) from which direction to expect the solution to come. And to give that expectation an unexpected form is, once again, a plot-technical achievement. Such an achievement would have been enough to elevate the work of a lesser writer to a five-star mystery novel, but Brand has written legitimate masterpieces. Tour de Force is simply not one of them.

Neither is it any way, shape or form an impossible crime nor is it an example of the impossible alibi. I explained before in the past that a manufactured alibi can only be considered an impossible problem under one very simple, but uncompromising, condition: the alibi solely relies on the murderer appearing to have been physically incapable of having carried out the crime. For example, the murderer is bound to a wheelchair and the victim is discovered in a place inaccessible to wheelchairs or someone is suspected of having broken somebody's neck after breaking both his arms. I exaggerate to clarify to show the impossible alibi is easily identified by the apparent impossibility of the murderer's physical circumstances to have killed the victim. So alibis depending on witnesses, documentation or tinkering with clocks are out as witnesses can be misled, mistaken or outright lie and documents can be faked or misinterpreted – similar objections for alibis depending on clocks and time stamps. More importantly, they're not needed for an impossible alibi. A gray area is admittedly murderer's who appear to have been in a different country or continent. I'll probably dedicate a post to the subject.

I didn't want to end this review by nitpicking small details, but people were being wrong on the internet and I couldn't let that stand (probably at the cost of a couple of broken fingers). Tour de Force is still an excellent, late-period Golden Age mystery and a plot-technical marvel in how it uses to the multiple false-solutions to rip through half a dozen alibis – dunking and flexing on Christopher Bush and Brian Flynn. However, the brand-name Brand's name demands something more than a technically-sound plot and knocking down alibis. So the book, for me, paled in comparison to the likes of Green for Danger, Death of Jezebel and London Particular. But feel free to disagree!

Locked and Loaded, Part 5: A Selection of Short Impossible Crime and Locked Room Mystery Stories

Every now and then, I do one of these "Locked and Loaded" posts to read and review mostly obscure, often uncollected short locked room mysteries and impossible crime stories covering nearly a century of miraculous crime fiction – stretching from Charles G. Booth's "One Shot" (1925) to James Scott Byrnside's "The Silent Steps of Murder" (2023). I discuss those two short stories, and everything in between, in Part 1, 2, 3 and 4. This fifth installment adds three more obscure, rarely reviewed short locked room mysteries and one magnificent impostor. So without further ado...

Christopher Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin," originally published in the April, 1974, issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, is part of a short-lived, now forgotten series about a somewhat unusual detective. Richard Verner is not a detective, technically speaking, but a heuristician. It translated to someone specialized in solving problems or a troubleshooter.

Verner is called to "Grove's Lake Cabins" by the local sheriff to assist him on an apparently open-and-shut case that simply doesn't sit well with him ("...I don't believe the evidence"). The owner of the cabin park, Grove, was found with a knife sticking out of his chest behind the triple locked door of the cabin he shared with his niece, Ellen Grove. A large, spacious cabin has a large room and bath at each end separated by an insulated wall with no door in it, which divides the living quarters of niece and uncle. So when her uncle failed to emerge from his part of the cabin, Ellen grabbed an electric saw and cut a doorway into the insulated dividing wall as it would have been easier than to smash the door or one of the windows. Unfortunately, cutting a doorway into the dividing wall immediately elevated Ellen to the status of prime suspect as the only door on her uncle's side was locked, bolted and securely chained – similar to the door on her side of the cabin. So nobody could have sneaked out that way, once Ellen had cut through the wall and ventured inside to discover the body. And, of course, the windows were all securely locked as well.

A phenomenal locked room setup! One that today's crop of locked room specialists would probably get a lot of mileage out of and had the solution been more than an elaborate take on a familiar locked room-trick, it would have been a little more than merely a solid locked room howdunit. Nevertheless, I enjoyed "The Drop of a Pin," especially the whole setup, enough to keep an eye out for the other stories. Christopher Anvil and Richard Verner might be of interest to Crippen & Landru as there appear to be enough material for a short story collection.

Robert C. Schweik's "Imagine a Murder," originally published in the June, 1978, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, is another story from an even shorter-lived, now forgotten series of detective stories. This series of three short stories stars an amateur detective of the old school, Professor Paul Engel, whose method is simply to analyze a problem, speculate on it and apply a dab of rich imagination – "just imagine what possibilities there are." So when his friend and bookseller, Harry, overhears the murder of his roommate over the telephone, Professor Engel is on his way to put his analytical mind and imagination to work. The victim, Markham, was an accountant working on a report that would place someone behind bars and called Harry to ask him to post a letter, which is when he got shot. Inexplicably, the place was locked and bolted from top to bottom ("...the entire apartment was buttoned down"). So how could the murderer and gun vanish from a thoroughly locked room with a crowd gathered in the hallway outside the locked door shortly after the gunshot rang out?

This story shares some outward similarities with Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin." Schweik created a pleasingly tight and baffling locked room scenario with the revelation of the murderer's identity adding a second, quasi-impossibility in the form of a cast-iron alibi. One hinging on the other. Just like the previous story, "Imagine a Murder" is an elaborate, pleasing and, in this case, fairly clued reworking of a classic locked room-technique/trick. So not a blistering original, cutting edge locked room mystery, but a solid, competently plotted impossible crime story. And not a bad one to help fill a future impossible crime themed anthology.

Jack Ritchie's "Cardula and the Locked Rooms," originally published in the March, 1982, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and collected in The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories (1983), sailed pass me under a false flag and not a locked room mystery – nor any other kind of impossible crime. Nevertheless, I was pleased to have stumbled to it right after my previous read. "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is eighth of nine comic private eye short stories about Cardula (Dracula) who "has been forced to leave his home country of Romania after being thrown out of his castle by communists" and moved to America to become a slick, nighttime private detective ("I am simply a night person"). Mike Grost praised the series for its many pleasant touches of "logical fantasy." Cardula is hired by a man named Thompson ("blood type B, I guessed") who bought a stolen Van Gogh years ago. The painting was his private pleasure for five years, but now it has been stolen from a private room. A simple case of breaking and entering, but who knew Thompson possessed a stolen Van Gogh?

Cardula is paid a handsome fee to locate and retrieve the painting, which is simple enough, but the theft of the painting and how it was stolen comes with a neat, well-done little twist worthy of Edward D. Hoch's best Nick Velvet stories. Of course, the fun and main draw of the story, and obviously the series as a whole, is Cardula's double role as detective and vampire. So another series of stories that needs further attention and looking into at some future date.

The last two short stories were nominated in the first round of voting for the "New Locked Room Library" and come from the same author, "Miŏgacu." Just like the previous review, I was gives copies of the short stories and told not to be smart ass who asks too many questions. So no background on the author nor stories except that "Miŏgacu" is a huge mystery fan who wrote the following two short stories as a homage to the Grandest Game in the World with the hope of having them properly published one day.

"Eggnog and the Cylinder" (2023) can be categorized as an impossible crime caper in the style of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin and Gosho Aoyama's Kaito KID. A French millionaire by the name of M. Aristide Benguet bought "the largest purple sapphire in the world on a whim" and decided to keep The Feline of Somerset in a locked room at his country home, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, to be displayed at a fancy Christmas party – which caught the attention of a renaissance criminal. Phantom Thief Lenoir, "dashing and masked," has become the scourge of the rich and famous of Europe as a modern-day Robin Hood. M. Benguet is taking extreme measures to protect the sapphire by engaging four different detectives/security agents from across the world to guard the sapphire in the locked room during the party. There's a rotating system to allow the detectives to take a break ("...stretch your legs, empty your bladder, grab some champagne"), but three detectives will stay with the sapphire in the locked room at all time.

A fail proof security measure, however, when their assignment comes to an end, they discover the sapphire has been replaced with a fake! Somehow, someway, Phantom Thief Lenoir switcharoo'd The Feline of Somerset under the nose of four detectives inside a securely locked room.

This story comes with a short "Author's Postface" in which "Miŏgacu" explains the inspiration for "Eggnog and the Cylinder" came from reading a description of the locked room puzzle in Marcel Lanteaume's untranslated, frustratingly out-of-reach Trompe l'oeil (1946) – realized "there is a very simple solution." That very simple solution is actually the cleverest, wildly imaginative and most original locked room-trick of the stories discussed so far. A trick certainly in the spirit of Lanteaume "in which imagination leaps confidently over probability" and perhaps a trick that would be hard to swallow in a regular locked room mystery, but perfectly suited for "a Japanese-y phantom thief story." It's unexpected gems like this making the future of the traditional Western (locked room) mysteries look very bright indeed. Not to mention a story with the potential to age like fine wine, if it ever turns out "Miŏgacu" constructed to correct solution from a short description of Lanteaume's Trompe l'oeil locked room puzzle. And makes me want to overlook (ROT13) gur znffvir onyyf vg gbbx gb abzvangr uvf bja jbex sbe pbafvqrengvba.

The second story, "The First Meeting" (2017/23), is a homage to the Japanese shin honkaku mysteries (and a pastiche, of sorts) and particular to the teenage detectives of series such as Case Closed, The Kindaichi Case Files and Q.E.D. Niimoto Tadashi is the son of a typical, storybook detective, Tsukiko, who had to solve the Yellow Mask Mystery on her wedding day. Tadashi was never shielded from his mother's investigation, but "never knew corpses raining down upon him" like some other child detectives. So a relatively normal childhood, but, on his sixteenth birthday, Tadashi "made his first step to detectivehood." Tadashi got his own Watson, Zhenya, who's the son of a Russian scientist staying as a guest at the Niimoto home. Tadashi and Zhenya throw themselves at a local locked room murder.

On the morning January 18, 2005, the esteemed neurosurgeon, Furuta Fujio, was found stabbed to death in his stuffy, everyday working study with door locked from the inside and the key sticking out of the keyhole – windows either didn't open or looked over an obstacle. Such as a roaring river or locked garden gate. So the scene of the crime resembles "an impenetrable capsule," but trick is not nearly as good or even half as inspired as the brilliant solution to the previous story. An enormous step down, judged purely as an impossible crime story. On the other hand, simply as a homage to those meddling kid detectives of the manga/anime corner of the shin honkaku mysteries, "The First Meeting" is first class.

Not a bad harvest for a handful of, more or less, randomly selected short stories. Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin" and Schweik's "Imagine a Murder" didn't bring anything new or really innovative to the table, but showed some ingenuity in presentation and a solid hand in their solutions. Despite the misleading title, Ritchie's "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is an unexpected treasure and it goes without saying "Eggnog and the Cylinder" is the standout with "The First Meeting" having charm and qualities outside of its locked room puzzle. I told you I would pick something good eventually. :)

And Then There Were Nyan (2024) by A.Z. Ruin

So for the past three, four months, I've been reading, rating and reviewing impossible crime novels and short stories that were nominated in the first round of voting for the "New Locked Room Library" – organized by Alexander of The Detection Collection. Since I was already familiar with the majority of nominated titles, I decided to focus on the obscurer, lesser-known "exotic" picks that came out of the first round.

Some truly surprising, unexpected picks which, for some reason or another, flew under my radar. Several can now be counted among my personal favorites starting with Aosaki Yugo's short story "Knockin' On Locked Door" (2014) and Mitsuda Madoy's superb fanlations of Kie Houjou's modern classics Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022). Not to be overlooked K.O. Enigma's fun, off-beat self-published genre parody Bunraku Noir (2023) or nominations previously reviewed on this blog (e.g. H.M. Faust's Gospel of V, 2023). And not every nomination observes the rule of having to be "reasonably available." The subject of today's is a shining example of ignoring that rule.

I know nothing about the author nor book, except it's a write-in and was given a copy with the instruction not to be a smart ass who asks impertinent questions.

So there's nothing I can say about A.Z. Ruin and gather And Then There Were Nyan is an as of yet unpublished manuscript floating around certain circles, which explains why not a mention of it can be found online and still got nominated. So, knowing next to nothing about the author or book, I pieced together from the comments And And Then There Were Nyan is a hybrid mystery trying to bridge the gap between the grounded, fair play detective story and pure fantasy – presented as a courtroom drama. Apparently, wrote it as a homage to the Ace Attorney series. So this is more or less going to be a gamble rather than picking something good, because I'm notoriously skeptical when it comes to hybrids of pure fantasy and mystery. I prefer the horror and science-fiction concoctions of the mystery hybrid. A skepticism that can be partially blamed on Randall Garrett's godawful Too Many Magicians (1966), but promised someone to give them another shot when a reasonably promising-sounding fantasy/mystery hybrid turned up. So is Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan going to change my opinion on fantasy/mystery hybrids or cement it firmly in place? Let's find out!

And Then There Were Nyan follows a woman, simply referred to as the Hunter, who's traveling with her rifle and caravan to New York, but gets stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere. For some reason, she has been locked out of both the caravan and car. So the Hunter has to move on foot, unless she wants to be torn apart by the nighttime wildlife. It doesn't take long for her to arrive at a small town resembling "the remains of some long-abandoned Civil War outpost" with badly-worn sign reading, "In this town, no man may kill a cat." The town appears to be abandoned, but nearly every house is locked and every door has a cat flap. And in the only unlocked house, the Hunter finds the bloody remains of a dead cat with a bullet wound. But being made of sterner stuff, the Hunter thinks nothing of it, cleared the floor and went to sleep. Only to be awakened by a crowd of talking, upright walking cats who take a dim view of finding her next to the body of their fellow feline, Pluto.

The Hunter happened to stumble into the town of Ulthar, "any cat in Ulthar is granted the protection and blessings of the goddess Baast," which is why they can walk upright like humans and speak their languages. Ulthar appeared abandoned because the entire townfolks were away "celebrating the first night of Kattenstoet" (love that name!) and upon return found the Hunter in a situation demanding an explanation. So she's apprehended (not without a fight), thrown in a jail cell and placed on trial. A trial presided over by a giant female sphinx. Well, that escalated quickly!

This trial covers roughly the first-half of And Then There Were Nyan and cleverly exploited to do a bit of world-building throughout the courtroom proceedings. The Sphinx tells the Hunter that innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply in Ulthar. So the prosecution doesn't have to conclusively prove her guilt, but she has to demonstrate her innocence by questioning logically, "expose contradictions in arguments and otherwise convince the judge," the Sphinx – which she has to do in a situation entirely alien to her. Not only the town with its inhabitants and laws are strange and unknown, but the murder of Pluto itself seems to have been impossible to pull off for a feline murderer. While the door itself was unlocked, the doorknob can't be turned by kitty paws and the cat flap was sealed from the inside with magic talismans. Pluto was shot and that's another mark against the Hunter as "no cat could have shot the victim" ("...cats don't have opposable thumbs"). Finally, the house/hut had been abandoned for years and the floor was thick with dust, but the only tracks in the dust were "the pawprints of the victim and a single set of boot-prints" belonging to the Hunter.

So the Hunter has to be quick witted in order to parry the prosecutor's constant attacks and has to find alternative explanations on spot, not merely pointing out she had no motive to kill Pluto, but constantly disadvantaged by her lack of knowledge about the place and its feline inhabitants. Something Chat Botté, town prosecutor, viciously exploits especially during the first trial. Botté became one of my favorite characters. A delightfully slimy, elegantly dressed character who has a habit of dabbing his forehead with a lace handkerchief ("...cats only sweat from their paws") and the perfect (I refuse to use the pun purr-fect) antagonist for the Hunter during her many trials of the story. I also took a liking to the cat characters of Schrödinger, Dinah and her brother, the Cheshire Cat.

But what about the giant, magical elephant in the locked room at the heart of this feline mystery, you ask? Well...

I groaned audibly when it was revealed the cats of Ulthar can not only talk and walk like humans, but "every cat is granted a unique and singular blessing." Imagine the X-Men with tails, cat ears and they all shed on the couch. Not just Beast. Naturally, these individual abilities are gradually, and conveniently, revealed as the story progresses – right up to the very end. Not that it makes it less fun seeing the Hunter draw up reasonably logical cases and arguments, only to be torn down again. Just not as impressive when the tearing down is done by magical powers. It can come across as just making things up as you go along. Another problem with fantasy/mystery hybrids leaning heavily on the magical aspect of the story is that those magical elements eventually have to be constrained to drown out the detective element.

For example, the Sphinx presiding over the trials is omniscient, "she knows absolutely everything," but that would be a spoil sport in a detective story. So her omniscience is nerfed with a personal code allowing the Sphinx "to ignore her own omniscience and only make judgements based on what she sees before her eyes." I don't celestial boredom is good enough reason. Why make her omniscient in the first place? Why not simply make her a judge who acts as a storyguide, of sorts, who tells the characters/reader whether or not the evidence and testimonies presented to her were truthful. Like telling a witness told the truth or told what they believe to be truth. That was kind of set up with the Sphinx's only ironclad rule forbidding any falsified or tampered evidence being brought into her courtroom ("the courtroom is the sole domain of logical and oratorical prowess"), but never really put to good use. I hated how this potentially great character exited the story.

I could have put all of that aside as a personal prejudice against an over abundance of magical nonsense in a detective story. After all, I promised to be fair and seriously went to work on the impossible murder of Pluto. When you think about it, the murder only constitutes half an impossibility for an ordinary cat and combined with the ability of a certain cat it opened up a way in and out of the hut. So assumed (ROT13) Purfuver jnf gur zheqrere, nsgre nyy, jub hfrq gur sebt-naq-gur-fpbecvba ehfr gb trg Cyhgb gb pneel uvz vagb gur uhg, xvyyvat uvz bapr gurl jrer vafvqr naq gur gnyvfznaf nccyvrq gb gur png sync. Bapr gur png jub nccyvrq gur gnyvfzna qvrf, gur gnyvfzna fgbcf jbexvat (“...orpbzrf nf jrnx naq syvzfl”), ohg erznva haoebxra npebff gur png syng. Juvpu vf gur cbvag. Fb bapr gur zheqre jnf qbar (zber ba gung va n zvahgr), nyy penml Purfuver unq gb qb jnf jnvgvat gb or sbhaq. Bapr gur qbbe, be png sync, jnf bcrarq Purfuver fvzcyl gheaf vaivfvoyr naq nibvqf yrnivat uvf uhtr cnj cevagf va gur qhfg ol genirefvat n aneebj yrqtr ehaavat nebhaq gur jnyy gbjneqf gur qbbe. Nsgre gung, vg fvzcyl vf n pnfr bs whzcvat bhg bs gur bcra qbbe sebz nobir be penjy qbja gur qbbecbfg naq bhg bs gur png sync. Ol gung gvzr, gurer jrer nyernql bgure cnj cevagf va gur qhfg. Erzrzore pngf ner vaperqvoyl ntvyr navznyf jub pna rkcybvg gur fznyyrfg bs sbbgubyqf.

Only thing that had me stumped (ROT13) vf ubj Purfuver znantrq gb znxr vg nccrne nf vs Cyhgb jnf fubg. V fhccbfrq Cyhgb pbhyq unir orra fgnoorq nf vg jnf cbvagrq bhg rneyvre va gur fgbel Purfuver unf ybat, hagevzzrq pynjf. Naq fhccbfr n fcrag ohyyrg pbhyq unir orra ergevrirq sebz gur arneol uhzna frggyrzrag gung jnf chfurq qbja gur fgno jbhaq, ohg abg ubj ur pbhyq unir snxrq gur fpbepu znexf. It goes without saying my solution (actually solutions) missed the marked completely, but did put aside my skepticism, threw myself wholeheartedly at the game and this is the best I could do with what was given – what did I get in return? Let me tell you, (SPOILER/ROT13) gur bevtvany Cyhgb unq qvrq lrnef ntb naq jnf vzcrefbangrq, juvyr gur obql jnf chyyrq vagb n ibvq, n fcnpr orgjrra fcnprf, ol fbzr ryqevgpu nobzvangvba naq chfurq onpx lrnef yngre be fbzrguvat. Gung xvaq bs fuvg pna shpx bss evtug onpx gb gur Gjvyvtug Mbar.

Good luck trying to arrive at that conclusion yourself. Another thing that irked me (SPOILER/ROT13) vf gur pninyel ebyyvat va ng gur raq, juvpu jnf bayl znqr cbffvoyr ol n gryrcnguvp jneavat sebz Xvat Gvyqehz'f Fgenl Png pybarf. Abg bapr unf gryrcngul orra zragvbarq rira nf n oyrffvat sbe bar bs gur pngf. Vg nqzvggrqyl erfhygrq va arng fprar va juvpu nabgure png hfrq ure oyrffvat gb chccrgrre gur qrnq. Gur chccrgrrevat bs gur qrnq vf nabgure oyrffvat abg zragvbarq hagvy irel yngr vagb gur obbx naq arire pbafvqrerq ubj gung gevpx pbhyq or hfrq gb perngr n ybpxrq ebbz fpranevb. N qrnq Cyhgb unir orra “znevbarggrq” gb jnyx onpxjneqf va uvf bja cnj cevagf, cynpr aba-jbexvat gnyvfznaf ba gur png syng (gb znxr vg nccrne nf vs gurl fgbccrq jbexvat nsgre ur jnf xvyyrq va n ybpxrq ebbz) naq erghea gb gur cynpr jurer ur qvrq – ergenpvat uvf fgrcf cresrpgyl jvgu gur uryc bs zntvp naq zhfpyr zrzbel. You get the idea by now.

So, plot-wise, And Then There Were Nyan is very reminiscent of Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) with its fantastical premise, lengthy storytelling and a conceptually original locked room scenario, but both missed the mark in their execution. Kyogoku's The Summer of the Ubume ended up being more horror than an actual detective novel and Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan is in the end more fantasy than a proper locked room mystery.

You get the idea by now. Plot-wise, And Then There Were Nyan strongly reminded me of Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) with their fantastical premise, lengthy storytelling and a conceptually original locked room scenario, but both missed the mark in their execution. Kyogoku's The Summer of the Ubume ended up being more horror than mystery or detective story and Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan turned out to be more fantasy than a proper locked room mystery. I think I prefer my fantasy/mystery hybrids when the magic and fantasy is kept small and manageable. Takekuni Kitayama's Rurijou satsujin jiken (The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders, 2002) might be the best way to do it.

So, if your taste is even remotely similar to mine, And Then There Were Nyan is going to disappoint as a locked room and hybrid mystery, but, as a courtroom drama/mystery, it now ranks alongside Carter Dickson's The Judas Window (1938) and Anthony Gilbert's The Clock in the Hat Box (1939) as a personal favorite – even with the plot not being up to scratch. The cat-and-mouse games and courtroom shenanigans are just too damn fun and engrossing to sink the whole ship. Just a shame the detective elements took a backseat to all the fantasy hokum. Otherwise it would added another, surprisingly modern, masterpiece the growing list of hybrid (locked room) mysteries.

The Crossword Mystery (1979) by Robert B. Gillespie

Robert B. Gillespie is, or perhaps was, an American writer who authored eight now largely forgotten, out-of-print crime, detective and thriller novels – published between 1979 and 1990. Only his first mystery novel appears to have left a visible trace on the genre.

First of all, The Crossword Mystery was reprinted by Raven House, a short-lived imprint of Harlequin Books, which was a line of paperback mysteries published with a recognizable, uniform cover designs. That makes them collectibles to some people. Despite only lasting two years, Raven House appears to be better remembered today than Harlequin's disastrous 2009 publication of a set of horrifically mutilated thoughtfully censored reprints of vintage hardboiled crime novels. Mysteries plotted around crossword puzzles is a-niche-within-a-niche with its loyal following who enjoy their daily crossword puzzle as much as their regular detective fix. More importantly, Robert Adey listed The Crossword Mystery in Locked Room Murders (1991) with a fascinating description of the impossibility ("starvation in a locked apartment") and briefly highlights it in his introduction ("...dry and unusual"). So it was bound to turn up here sooner or later.

Rocco "Rocky" Caputo is an English teacher at St. Malachy's, New York, who enjoys crossword puzzles, cryptograms and word games – solving and creating them. Rocky has been constructing crossword puzzles for Muriel van Dyne, puzzle editor of the New York Herald-Courier and the Herald-Courier syndicate, who's better known under her nom-de-plume of "Mary Cross." Now that she has passed away under tragic and somewhat mysterious circumstances, the newspaper is in desperate need for a new puzzle editor. Chuck Godbold, director of the New York Herald-Courier, is an old friend of Rocky and had shanghaied him before to take over for Van Dyne when her liver acted up for the first time. And practically demands he takes over again as readers expect their daily crosswords.

Rocky accepts to take a hiatus as a teacher and becomes the third person to inherit the "Mary Cross" name, but also inherits Van Dyne's aide and protege, Amy Gross. She believes Van Dyne didn't die naturally, or accidentally, but someone had a hand in her death.

The circumstances under which Van Dyne died can be called a little unusual. Van Dyne hadn't been seen, or heard of, for several weeks until Amy decided to get the janitor to enter her apartment where they found her dead in bed – surrounded by empty bottles. Van Dyne was an ex-alcoholic suffering from liver sclerosis. So everyone assumes she relapsed and died due complications, or a drunken accident, but the autopsy revealed the cause of death is starvation! The locked room fanatics among you will probably think The Crossword Mystery is a 1979 take on Ronald A. Knox's "Solved by Inspection" (1931), which deals with murder by starvation in a locked room. However, The Crossword Mystery can only under the most generous of terms be qualified as a locked room mystery. Technically, it's a howdunit employing something that could be, technically, termed as a locked room-trick (SPOILER/ROT13: gur zheqrere fghaarq Ina Qlar naq ybpxrq ure hc va ure bja fbhaqcebbs, jvaqbjyrff jbex qra ol hafperjvat naq erirefvat gur ybpx cyngr. Fb gur fbhaqcebbs ebbz pbhyq bayl or bcrarq sebz gur bhgfvqr, juvyr abobql pbhyq ure fpernz sbe uryc. Nsgre fur qvrq, gur zheqrere (jub hfrq n qhcyvpngr xrl) erghearq gb zbir ure obql gb gur orqebbz. But that's not much of a mystery for very long as Rocky (ROT13) svaqf gur gnyr-gryy fpengpurf ba gur cyngr, fperjf naq ybpx. One of the things he comes across that convinces him Van Dyne was deliberately murdered and begins to privately investigate together with Amy.

There are more than enough odd, suspicious looking or acting characters to keep them occupied for the next 180 pages. Such as Van Dyne's husband, Matthew, and their eccentric son, Robbie, who's a sculptor. The gruffy janitor of Van Dyne's apartment building and the figure of a tall man in fatigues carrying around a tool box who's often seen, but never really noticed. There's a woman by the name of Rose Hawkins who created crossword puzzles for Van Dyne and needed the money badly, but Van Dyne terminated their agreement when she found out Rose copied one of her crosswords ("...please look elsewhere for your food and shelter"). She also has an elusively, rarely seen son who might be a person of interest. Not to be overlooked are Chuck Godbold, half a dozen regulars of The Ink Spot ("...an oaken dive next door to the back entrance of the old Courier building...") or the fact that Van Dyne handed out spare keys to the male population of New York like candy bars to kids on Halloween. And she's been receiving threatening letters ("...YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED") melodramatically signed, "The Avenging Angel."

So the setup and characters certainly live up to the promise of an unusual, somewhat traditionally-styled detective novel, but the characters and characterization, or lack there of, can also be blamed why nothing lands as intended – everything simply falls flat on its face. Not only because of the shallow characterization (even by my shallow standards), but the first-half sees them acting more like school children than adults. From the barroom scene that got Van Dyne barred to Rocky challenging Masters to make a crossword puzzle, but the one he makes is not suitable for printing as every word was dirty and clean words were given "filthy clues" ("the word Pigtail was defined as 'Sloppy slut'"). Whenever the story tries to go for a serious note or attempts an emotional gut punch, it misses completely. The second murder with its unexpected and surprising victim should have come with that emotional gut punch considering the setup. And something that should have altered the tone of the story and left more of a mark on Rocky's mood. Both just walked it off.

Another problem is that everything of even remote interest is either left under developed, under utilized or something comes along to undermine it. For example, the combination of motive and method is quite good (more John Rhode than John Dickson Carr), but the identity of the murderer is preposterous. Rocky acknowledging the ridiculousness of it all doesn't automatically make it acceptable. Nor does the murderer hamming it up when exposed help things. Even worse, the titular crossword puzzle (a coded dying message) is poorly integrated into the plot. The crossword puzzle is included with the solved puzzle printed, upside down, on the next page, however, only certain clues were discussed in the story. Rocky tries to fit the clues to the known suspects without developing a single, fully-fledged false-solution.

That's another odd feature of the book. The Crossword Mystery has faint traces all over it of the Van Dine-Queen detective story. Most obviously, the victim's name, but Rocky's father is also a New York policeman and they exchange information on the case. A word-clue in the form of a crossword dying message, which should have been the focal point since nothing significant was done with the murder under bizarre and near impossible circumstances. Faint traces... like a pencil drawing that was erased and something new drawn on top of it, but you can still make out lines of the previous drawing. Interesting technique, artistically speaking, but not very satisfying for a detective flirting with so many classical tropes.

If experienced hadn't thought to expect nothing from these obscure, post-1950/pre-2015 one-off locked room novels and hope for the best, I would have been tremendously disappointed. The Crossword Mystery is pretty standard fare for these kind of between-eras (one-off) mysteries trying to work, one way or another, classical tropes like locked room murders and isolated mansions into a modern surrounding. Some definitely succeeded (e.g. John Sladek, Kip Chase, Charles Forsyte), while others ended up being neither fish nor fowl. These are your Stephen Frances' The Illusionist (1970), Tony Kenrick's A Tough One to Lose (1972), Richard Forrest's A Child's Garden of Death (1975) and Lionel Black's The Penny Murders (1979). Gillespie's The Crossword Mystery can be added to that list. So nothing really to recommend here, unless you happen to be a crossword historian or collector. Detective fans and especially locked room fanatics can safely cross this one off their wishlist.

A note for the curious: crosswords appear to have been hobby of Gillespie as he apparently wrote Cryptopic Crosswords (1983), which is even more obscure than his crime-and detective fiction. If you're still interested after my lukewarm review, Gillespie's other work include the mysteries Little Sally Does It Again (1982), Heads, You Loose (1985), The Last of the Honeywells (1988) and Deathstorm (1990). Print-Out (1983) appears to be an early techno-thriller. Empress of Coney Island (1986) and The Hell's Kitchen Connection (1987) sound like crime/thriller novels. I won't be seeking them out, but will try to pick something good next.

Tales of a Steam Hotel: "The Looting of the Specie-Room" (1900) by Cutcliffe Hyne

C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne was a British writer who was "one of the most prolific and successful producers of early magazine SF" and novels like The Lost Continent (1899), but also wrote short stories of action, adventure and mystery – like his once popular Captain Kettle series in Pearson's Magazine. So a fictioneer in the tradition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who himself had a series of pirate stories published in Pearson's Magazine and authored the famous science-fiction novel, The Lost World (1912).

Fittingly, Hyne contributed one of those so-called, turn-of-the-century "Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" in "one of the artfullest pursers in all the Western Ocean passenger trade," Mr. Horrocks.

Mr. Horrocks appeared in a short series of six short stories, "Tales of a Steam Hotel," published between July and December 1900 in, where else, Pearson's Magazine. "The Looting of the Specie-Room" is the first story and introduces Horrocks as the experienced purser on the Liverpool-New York line of the Town S.S. Company. A purser, Horrocks reminds the reader, is not only the man for passengers to throw complaints at or tell them stories of the sea at dinner, but "answerable for a sight more than any Captain that ever wore uniform" – whose latest responsibility is 1.25 million dollars in gold bullion. A precious cargo stored in the ship's specie-room, tucked away under the saloon, walls, floor and roof made of steel plates and an unpickable lock on the door. So "nothing short of dynamite would open that specie-room to a man who hadn't a key." And the person in possession of the only key to the specie-room is Horrocks.

That becomes something of problem when half of the gold bullion disappears from the supposedly securely locked specie-room. So the assumption is Horrocks had been careless enough with the key to allow someone to make an impression of the key and make a duplicate, which places his job in peril. But not to his personal detriment.

"The Looting of the Specie-Room" is very much a first in a series and gives Horrocks a sketchy backstory. Horrocks is a bachelor who was bequeathed a considerable sum from a late uncle, "his wants were small, and his private income covered them easily," who uses his income as a purser to secretly finance a personal charity project. Horrocks created a false identity, Mr. Rocks of Rocks' Orphanage, to provide a home for "those wretched children of the slums." It's their "maintenance and relief" that's really at stake. However, Horrocks is not an entirely saintly character as it's made very clear he supplemented his income on the side by "various well-recognized methods" of the passenger trade.

Another troublesome aspect confusing the matter is the Chief Officer of the Birmingham, Godfrey Clayton, who desperately needed a large sum of money. Horrocks had teased him about the shipment of gold in the specie-room. But when Clayton gets arrested, Horrocks receives a letter begging him to clear up the case or get killed when he gets released.

The solution, or the key towards the solution, is more or less dropped in Horrocks lap. Simply works out the whole scheme from there. You have to keep in mind this short story was published a 124 years ago and barely resembles the traditional, fair play detective story that would emerge over the next twenty, thirty years – an acceptable enough excuse for breaking a few cardinal rules. That being said, I enjoyed Horrocks mildly toying with the idea of false-solutions as he considered and rejected the idea of having been hypnotized or chloroformed in order to make an impression of the key as absurd. No duplicate key was employed in the theft of the gold nor the parcel of diamonds that disappeared under similar circumstances during the voyage to New York.

Not that the actual locked room-trick is blistering original, but how it was done, and where, certainly counts for something this early in the game. The specie-room (SPOILER/ROT13) jnf oernpurq ol perngvat n qbbejnl sebz na nqwnprag pnova hfvat fhpu zbqrea tnqtrgf nf na bkl-ulqebtra synzr srq ol tnf sebz fgrry plyvaqref. Guvf qbbejnl jnf perngrq va n funqbjl cneg bs gur fcrpvr-ebbz naq na nppbzcyvpr (“n pyrire pnecragre”) jbexrq njnl gur genprf yngre jvgu serfu cnaryvat naq cnvag. Lrf, gur fbyhgvba vf cerggl zhpu n frperg rkvg, ohg abg n cer-rkvfgvat bar. Vg unq gb or znqr naq pybfrq ntnva. Fb vg pbzovarq gur neg bs ubhfroernxvat, fnsr penpxvat naq fzhttyvat gb perngr n ybpxrq ebbz gursg naq vzcbffvoyr qvfnccrnenapr bs unys n zvyyvba va tbyq sebz n fuvc. That's not bad at all for a short, borderline detective story about an impossible theft from 1900. You can read story here and judge for yourself.

A note for the curious: "The Looting of the Specie-Room" was adapted for the 1970s TV-series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, but not collected in any of the Rival-themed anthologies. I wonder how this obscure came to their attention. Anyway, "The Looting of the Specie-Room" was collected together with the other five stories in Mr. Horrocks, Purser (1902).

Owl of Darkness (1942) by Max Afford

Owl of Darkness (1942), alternatively published as Fly by Night, is the fourth and penultimate novel in the Jeffrey Blackburn series by Australian playwright and mystery writer, Malcolm Afford – who wrote under the thinly veiled penname "Max Afford." This fourth outing for Jeffrey Blackburn and Chief Inspector Read differs from their previous cases in which they tackled the locked room slaying of a High Court judge (Blood On His Hands, 1936), a seemingly impossible murder staged at a BBC radio studio (The Dead Are Blind, 1937) and strange stabbings at an ancient stone chapel (Death's Mannikins, 1937). Owl of Darkness is a fairly conventional country house mystery, except that the country house of this detective story is being invaded by a pulp-style comic book villain.

Over a two-month period, a character going by the name of "The Owl" exploded into the newspaper headlines following a series of daring robberies. It's not merely the crimes or the "fantastic sobriquet" of The Owl that captured the imagination of both the public and every crime reporter in Britain.

The Owl is not your ordinary housebreaker, but a fully costumed, caped and masked arch-criminal wearing "the wings and false face of an owl" with "two pale, lidless eyes" blazing "above the cruel hooked beak of a nose" – who "could seemingly come and go at will." His arrival is preceded by the hooting of an owl and always leaves behind his calling card reading, "Fly by Night." The Owl's first claim of fame was an attempt to blow up the strong room of a well-known bank to get to a small fortune in bonds. However, the master thief succeeded in stealing Sir Charles Mortlake's famous Cellini Cup from his private museum and grabbed headlines when the Duchess of Doone's had a diamond "snatched from her throat as she sat in her darkened box at Covent Garden." The Owl's latest exploit opened Owl of Darkness as Lady Evelyn Harnett had a valuable necklace stolen after a house party and was nearly caught, but escaped by diving through a window ("...flew through that window... like a bird!").

Chief Inspector Read has everyone breathing down his neck and not amused when Blackburn finally decides to show up, but this reader was amused when Read sat Blackburn down to read him the editorials criticizing his performance ("I don't see you smiling, Mr. Blackburn"). A fun scene followed by the arrival of Miss Elizabeth "Betty" Blaire, "the newspaper woman connected with that murder at the B.B.C.," who has a possible lead on the robberies. Her brother, Edward, is a chemist and researcher who received a generous offer from Sir Anthony Atherton-Wayne to develop an anti-toxic gas. Edward was set up in a cottage on the grounds of Sir Anthony's home, Rookwood Towers, in the village of Tilling. During his experiments, Edward accidentally discovered "a perfect foolproof substitute for petrol" at about one-twentieth its price. Edward wants to sell the formula as his agreement with Sir Anthony is for the development of an anti-toxic gas. Not a petrol replacement. Elizabeth brought along her fiance, Robert Ashton, who's Sir Anthony's private secretary and confirms her story.

So the news of the formula attracts the attention of certain individuals. One shady individual who got wind of the new invention is The Owl and has been sending his visiting cards to Edward with a very clear warning. Give up the formula or die. The Owl has given Edward two more days coinciding with his birthday party. A birthday party extended into a tense, nearly two week siege of Rookwood Towers during which The Owl has a run of the place. And an increasingly harassed Reads insists on keeping everyone at the scene. More on that in a moment. Something else needs to be addressed first.

The Owl is not the only person coming to Rookwood Towers with the intention to get their hands on the formula, legally or otherwise. There's an American representative of an oil company, Charles Todhunter, but the other party bidding against Sir Anthony and Todhunter needs some explaining as it's bound to confuse history savvy readers. Dr. Heinrich Hautmann is a foreign service officer, working for the German Minister of War, who came with his daughter, Elsa, to purchase the petrol formula – which would have been treason in 1942. Just talking business without selling the formula to the German representatives would have been considered treasonous. I found that odd for a mystery published several years deep into World War II. A quick search revealed Owl by Darkness is a novelization of the radio-serial Fly by Night broadcast on Australian radio from April 14 to July 21, 1937. So the story takes place before WWII and explains other apparent irregularities like no mention of the war or Read casually suggesting to someone they take a holiday on the Continent (where, Portugal?). But it could have been stated clearer the story takes place before 1939 to prevent confusion. For example, the chapters all start with the date/day and it needed was adding the year to the date or simply change the nationality of the Hautmanns. Just make them Dutch (Herman Houtman).

Interestingly, the wikipedia page of the radio-serial has a quote from a contemporary critic calling Fly by Night "swift and forceful" with every other minute a new twist, turn of events or surprising developments. Afford carried this successfully over to the fast-paced novelization which dumps a whole bag of genre tropes out over the story. Some incredibly time-worn, but all put to good and effective use. There are one or two quasi-impossible situations like a kidnapping from a locked, top floor bedroom, but not substantial enough to use the "locked room mysteries" tag on this review. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed how Afford made use of the rabbit warren of secret passageways, hidden doors and underground burial vaults perfectly suited for exploration, shenanigans and staging a murder or two. Strange, disfigured hands open hidden panels to grab at people and not everyone might who they claim to be or willing to tell everything they know. Not to mention a dash of blackmail, a disappearing letter, romance and the dawning realization The Owl could possibly be a resident or guest of Rookwood Towers.

Blackburn himself observes it "smacked too much of melodrama," but the whole case is melodrama personified with its eccentric young inventor, revolutionary formula and a masked arch-criminal running around the place – unimpeded by the heavy police presence. So, as far as the plot-ingredients and tropes are concerned, Owl of Darkness is not terribly original outside of the main plot-thread of the titular criminal. That being said, it's impressive Afford carted out all these old, hoary tropes and squeezed a relentlessly amusing country house caper out of them. Unironically throwing a costumed super villain from the pulps and comics into the mix is just ballsy. A character so absurd in a 1940s Golden Age mystery, it normally would have reduced any other mystery to ranks of a genre curiosity. Afford got away with it and written something a little more than a genre curiosity. Owl of Darkness could even been a minor classic had the main plot-thread, namely the identity and motives of The Owl, not been one of the most telegraphed solutions I've come across in a classic mystery novel.

I wish it was just me being in rare form as an armchair detective as my razor sharp mind cut through the intricate design of the plot, like a katana through silk, but Afford banks on (SPOILER/ROT13) gur ernqre orvat anvir naq arire nfxvat gur boivbhf dhrfgvba: ubj yrtvg vf guvf fhccbfrq eribyhgvbanel sbezhyn sbe n purnc, rnfvyl cebqhprq fhofgvghgr sbe beqvanel crgeby. Bapr lbh xabj jurer, be engure gb jubz, gb ybbx, gur cybg cenpgvpnyyl haeniryf vgfrys. I was also suspicious (ROT13) Rqjneq jnf qrcvpgrq fbzrjung bjyvfu jvgu oyvaxvat rlrf oruvaq guvpx yrafrq fcrpgnpyrf naq fhfcrpgrq ur pubfr gur bjy crefban gb vapbecbengr uvf tynffrf vagb gur pbfghzr, but I obviously gave that aspect too much thought.

So not the best or most challenging detective novel written during the WWII years, but certainly one of the most striking country house mysteries of the Golden Age. More importantly, it's never boring as the characters and plot developments ensure there's never a dull moment between chapters. I think detective fans with a soft spot for the gentlemen thieves and colorful criminals of the rogue branch of the genre will get the most out of this, especially fans of the Kaito KID capers from Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series. It's not everyday you such a character let loose in a vintage country house mystery.

The Communicating Door and Other Stories (1923) by Wadsworth Camp

Wadsworth Camp was an American reporter, playwright and a noteworthy, often overlooked mystery writer from the 1910s, when the genre began to gradually move away from the Doylean era and rivals of Sherlock Holmes, who wrote most of his detective novels during the First World War – which were lean years for the genre. During those war years, Camp produced several, what can be called, proto-Golden Age mysteries. Similar to Frederic Arnold Kummer's The Green God (1911) and Isabel Ostrander's The Clue in the Air (1917), Camp's House of Fear (1916) and The Abandoned Room (1917) are in many ways ahead of their time, but, in other ways, hopelessly chained to their period. A reminder that the detective story, as we have come to know it today, was still very much a work-in-progress during the 1910s and '20s.

However, the best of these early, transitional mysteries (not penned by G.K. Chesterton or R. Austin Freeman) aren't without (historical) interest or completely lacking as detective novels. Camp is one of those fascinating, early pre-GAD mystery writers whose work read like a direct ancestor of John Dickson Carr, Hake Talbot and Paul Halter.

House of Fear takes place in an abandoned, decaying and reputedly haunted theater where the resident ghost of a dead actor prefers to play his part to empty seats, but gets disturbed when a theatrical producer wants to revive it – starting a procession impossible incidents and unnatural deaths. The Abandoned Room is thick with atmosphere reminiscent of Talbot's The Hangman's Handyman (1942) and Rim of the Pit (1944) with the dead ceasing to be dead upon being touched and other apparently supernatural happenings. Camp, of course, never reached their heights as a mystery writer, but liked them enough to seek out more. Camp was not the most prolific of mystery writers with choices being limited to Sinister Island (1915) and a collection of short stories.

The Communicating Door and Other Stories (1923) is listed online as a collection of seven ghost stories and the reason why I didn't give it much attention, until a reliable source identified them as detective stories. Several sounded promising enough. So on the big pile it went.

Just one more thing before delving into this collection... it takes a few stories to get to the really good stuff. So bear with me.

The collections opens with "The Communicating Door," originally published in the September 15, 1913, publication of The Popular Magazine, which can probably be blamed for getting the collection tagged as a bundle of ghost stories. Dawson Roberts, a young lawyer, is determined to rescue Evangeline Ashley from her husband, John Ashley, but he has tucked her away in Ashley House – a large, rambling place in the remote parts of northern Florida. Roberts is not deterred and travels to Florida to find a pallid, haggard and ghost haunted Evangeline at Ashley House. She only want to go with him, if he can proves she has only been imagining things ("...find a natural explanation"). This involves a ghost story surrounding one of her husbands long-dead ancestors and a communicating door locked, and rusted, shut for the better part of a century. "The Communicating Door" reads like the setup of one of Camp's locked room novels and concludes with several seemingly impossible incidents and an unnatural death. Camp impressively gives answers in short order, "everything can be normally explained," but leaves it up to the reader to decide whether the events have a natural or supernatural explanation. A short story with timely charm, even if it was already a good decade out-of-date by 1913.

A note for the curious: "The Communicating Door" is another example of Camp's detective fiction being a direct ancestor of Carr. Carr himself successfully stitched together the detective and ghost story in his short story "Blind Man's Hood" (1934) and the standalone novel The Burning Court (1937).

"Hate," originally published in the April 3, 1920, publication of Collier's and is a departure from Camp's usual murders in old, decaying haunted building to tell a crime story of the Roaring Twenties. David Hume and Edward Felton, "rival proprietors of secret and luxurious gambling houses," having being going at it over a beautiful chores girl, Baby Lennox. The so-called "politer underworld" agreed one would inevitably put the other out of the way. Hume fires the first proverbial shots by pulling a dirty trick on Felton placing him in jail, but bail is posted and Felton is determined to kill Hume. Camp's series-detective, Jim Garth, is present to see the first attempt fail and hear Hume promise, "when you get too much for me I won't try any cheap gun play" ("the cops will only wonder at the beautiful floral offering I'll send for your funeral..."). Felton thinks that's a splendid idea and Hume is found the next day gassed to death in his room. A murder-disguised-as-suicide with a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing towards Felton, but the courtroom wizardry of a young, hungry prosecutor secured a conviction – sending Felton to the death house to be electrocuted. After the verdict, the prosecutor begins to second guess himself and begs Garth to find out if he send the right man to the chair.

Right up until the end, "Hate" is not a bad 1920s crime story with a reverse take on the locked room mystery ("...suicides by gas, as a rule, lock their doors and are content without such extras as chloroform") and some courtroom dramatics, but the conclusion is a muddled, open-ended mess. The whole story is concerned with getting a confession from Felton, whether he's guilty or not and never bothers with the truth. Did he kill Hume or was it somebody else? Camp never gives an answer while an obvious solution is staring everyone in the face. Hume was already dying from an incurable disease. Everything suggested to me Hume killed himself and left behind evidence of murder to frame Felton, but botched it as the evidence under normal circumstances would never have resulted in a guilty verdict or even get to trial. Only a young, hungry prosecutor determined to make a name for himself ensured the plan worked. That would given the story a pitch-black ending as the prosecution hammered on "this revolting idea of the murder of a dying man to satisfy an evil vengeance before nature could interfere." So this story can be filed under "Missed Opportunities."

"The Dangerous Tavern," originally published in the July 24, 1920, publication of Collier's, hands Jim Garth "one of the queerest cases" of his career. A young, barefoot, half-dressed woman was found nearly frozen to death on a country road near a place called Newtown. The trail leads Garth to a remote, deserted and inhospitable tavern where he engages in a nighttime battle of cat-and-mouse with several dangerous criminals who don't shy away from murder. A fun, lively gangster story, but not really my thing.

"The Haunted House," originally published in the January 8, 1921, publication of Collier's, is the first truly good story from this collection. Jim Garth is asked by Simon Allen, an ex-poet, to come to the lonely village of Ardell to prove he's not the victim of self-hallucination. Simon lost his wife three years ago and, ever since, "the house has been full of Helen" and her presence is beginning to take a toll on his sister – who lives in the house with their invalided father. Simon knew Helen was unhappy in Ardell and longed for the city, which is why he's guilt ridden over her death and refuses to live in the house. Whenever he has to stay the night, Helen never fails to put in a ghostly appearance. So what's behind these haunting, domestic events? Garth has to take on the role of John Bell instead of Sherlock Holmes to get to the bottom of this case, which leads him down the dark, gloomy family vault. A very nicely-done, well-handled surprise is waiting for both Garth and the reader. Not to mention a good, not wholly unoriginal solution that wouldn't be out-of-place in a detective story from 1931.

So an excellent short story all around and, together with House of Fear and a short story later in this collection, Camp's best to the early Golden Age detective story. "The Haunted House" is another example of how Camp reminds of Carr. This time, the story recalled my favorite radio-play by Carr, "The Dead Sleep Lightly" (1942), which has one of my favorite lines, "but the dead sleep lightly... and they can be lonely too." Camp is a bit more wordy than Carr, but "Helen's only lonely... she wants company" ("it's wicked of you to be afraid of her") and "you wouldn't let her go when she was alive, Simon, you can't be cross with her for staying now that she's dead" landed just the same. I don't think Camp has ever been mentioned as a possible influence before, but wouldn't be surprised if a young Carr had read Camp's novels and short stories.

For example, "Defiance," published in the December 24, 1921, publication of Collier's, is another short story full with Carrian vibes and the damned cussedness of all things general – especially the setup. Dr. Jimmy Wilmot is visited one evening Stacy Baldwin, a young scoundrel, who has a bullet wound and a strange story to tell. When he arrived home that evening, someone was hiding behind the curtains with a revolver and fired a shot, but Baldwin carries a loaded cane and struck the arm behind the flash ("...if I didn't break a bone I gave a beastly bruise"). So he'll be on the look out for anyone with his arm in a sling. At the same time another patient arrives. A veiled woman with a beastly bruise on her arm and circumstances lead the doctor to discovering her identity, Anna Baldwin. The wife of Stacy Baldwin. What's worse, Dr. Wilmost has always loved Anna. Now he had unwittingly "delivered her helpless into the hands of her vicious husband." I don't Camp pulls it off as good as Carr would have done, but still a pretty solid, early Golden Age detective story from a writer who often appears to belong to a different era.

No original publication date or magazine appearance is known for the next story, "Open Evidence" (1923?), which could mean it was previously published under a different title or this is its first appearance in print. But whatever the case may be, it's unjustly forgotten, overlooked short story. Camp's best piece of detective fiction. A fully-fledged, Golden Age locked room mystery complete with false-solutions and a detective anticipating both Philo Vance and Ellery Queen. More importantly, the solution might be a first. I'll get to that in a minute.

The story takes place not in an old, dark and decaying building, but on the top floor of a Fifth Avenue office building where a writer, named Hudson, is kept from his work by the telephone ringing in the doctor's office next door. And it has been going on for twenty minutes. So goes to the janitor to complain, but, when he looks through the mail slot, they start to break down the door. They find the doctor lying on the floor, stabbed with one of his own scalpels, but the door is locked and bolted on the inside. However, the connecting door opens into Hudson's tiny workroom and only he knows nobody left through that door. Something that looks very suspicious and immediately calls in the help of a private investigator, Parsons, who looks more like a dandy than a private detective. Parsons draws up two dummy cases before revealing the real murderer and locked room-trick ("I will show you a more obvious exit"). That locked room-trick has, as of now, some historical significance (SPOILER/ROT13): n dhrfgvba nebfr fbzr lrnef ntb ubj bevtvany gur fbyhgvba gb gur frpbaq vzcbffvoyr zheqre va serrzna jvyyf pebsgf fhqqra qrngu jnf va avargrra guvegl-gjb, juvpu unf fvapr orpbzr fbzrguvat bs na byq qbqtr. Vg srryf yvxr vg zhfg unir orra hfrq orsber fhqqra qrngu, ohg abobql pbhyq pbzr hc jvgu na rneyvre rknzcyr. Ubjrire, V abgrq ng gur gvzr na rneyvre rknzcyr, be gjb, cebonoyl rkvfgf va na bofpher fubeg fgbel sebz gur gjragvrf. V guvax guvf bar dhnyvsvrf. Gur gevpx vf nqzvggrqyl n ybat-jnl-ebhaq irefvba bs gur gevpx, ohg abg gbb qvssrerag naq npuvrirf gur fnzr rssrpg (zheqrere fghzoyvat vagb gur ebbz nsgre gur ybpxrq qbbe vf oebxra bcra). So, you anthologists out there, take note of this unjustly overlooked locked room treasure from the early Golden Age. Same goes for Max Rittenberg's "The Invisible Bullet" (1914) and Laurence Clarke's "Flashlights" (1918).

The seventh and final story, "The Obscure Move," was originally published in the May, 1915, issue of Adventure and is a fun, lighthearted and warm story of crime and adventure. Morgan is a successful private detective, "commonsense and a sense of humor were his own stock in trade," who specialized in tracking down swindlers. The latest crook he's hunting down is a man named Duncan, of the Duncan Investment Company, who had fled with large sums of investment money. Duncan "revealed the attributes of an eel" as he keeps dodging Morgan, while the pursuing Morgan forces Duncan to turn in his tracks several times. A cat-and-mouse chase leading to a logging camp in Florida where they both get lost in the swamps. So they have to survive together, until they can find their way back to the camp. Such an ordeal allows for some misplaced sympathy to grow on Margon's part for someone who ruined numerous people, but not a bad story to round out this collection.

The Communicating Door and Other Stories is the mixed bag of tricks to be expected from an obscure, 1920s collection of only seven short stories, but here it can be put down to personal taste. Not a the lack of quality. "The Haunted House" and "Open Evidence" are the standouts of the collection and my personal favorites with "Defiance" following behind at a distance. "The Dangerous Tavern" and "The Obscure Move" are both well written, but not for me. Only the first two stories, "The Communicating Door" and "Hate," came up short, but even they had their moments. Not to be overlooked, the best stories showed Camp was not hopelessly shackled to the turn-of-the-century period of the genre and could write fully-fledged, Golden Age mysteries. And had he continued to write stories like "Open Evidence," Camp would not have been half as obscure as he's today. Very much worth a look!