Give Me Death (1934) by Isabel Briggs Myers

Last year, Chosho Publishing reprinted Murder Yet to Come (1929/30) and Give Me Death (1934) by the co-creator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Isabel Briggs Myers, whose debut earned her a controversial $7500 cash prize in a writing contest – originally won by Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery (1929). A decision that was overturned when the organizer, New McClure's Magazine, folded and absorbed into a women's magazine called The Smart Set.

Between her first and last novel, Briggs Myers worked on a three-act stage play, "Death Calls for Margin" (1931), starring her two detective characters, Peter Jerningham and John MacAndrew. Not much can be found online about "Death Calls for Margin," except for a notice from the April 21, 1931, publication of the Swarthmore Phoenix offering a tantalizing glimpse. "Death Calls for Margin" takes place in Philadelphia "just after the stock market crash" with "two of the same characters in Mrs. Myers' book making their reappearance." Another scrap of information (PDF) reveals Myers was part of the original cast ("Author Convincing in One of Leading Roles") and a copyright notice describes it "a murder mystery in 8 acts." Possibly the play has a longer and shortened version intended for smaller venues. Would love to take a look at it!

Three years later, Briggs Myers published her second, and last, novel-length mystery novel. While obscure and practically unknown today, Give Me Death continues to be dogged by controversy and some interesting, but mixed, reactions.

Curt Evans reviewed Give Me Death, back in 2012, praising its "exceptional virtues" ("...pulling off some Christie-Carr level slight of hand...") and noting Briggs Myers was a better writer, trickier plotter and better at creating characters than S.S. van Dine – on whom she modeled her detective novels. Curt also pointed out the book has a notable failing likely to run some readers today the wrong way. This notable failing has been hanging around the book like a millstone as Stephen Pierce chimed in on the comments saying Give Me Death "is already kind of an in-joke on the Honkaku Discord, mostly just referred to as the racist book" based on a spoiler from her Wikipedia page. I thought that was too hasty a dismissal. Only for Scott to enter the comments with a book report admitting "the whodunit and reversal at end were clever," but the "over the top histrionics that trigger the events ridiculous" leaving a bad taste. Add to this a contemporary review calling Give Me Death the very best in then recent mystery fiction and became more than a little curious. Curious enough to snatch up the reprint.

Give Me Death is once again narrated by John MacAndrew, "Mac" for short, who's the personal secretary and occasional Watson to famous playwright and sometimes amateur detective, Peter Jerningham. The story finds them putting the finishing touches to the manuscript of Jerningham's latest stage play when they receive two visitors.

One of these visitors is young Stephen Darneil, of the Darneil dynasty, who looks like a corpse and came to Jerningham for help, because his father is dying with a bullet in his brain – which poses an unusual problem. Gordon Darneil, head of the Prudential Trust, has an impeccable reputation, personally and professionally. His bank "had proceeded on its conservative way unshaken by crash or panic," because it "had nothing to apologize for." There appears to have been no reason why a perfectly healthy, financially secure and morally upstanding man looking forward to the marriage of his two children suddenly decide to pick up a gun to shoot himself. Stephen believes his father shot himself and the idea frightens him, which is why asked Jerningham to either hush it up or find a different answer. However, the physical evidence irrefutably points towards suicide with the investigation quickly turning on the question what, or whom, drove him to take his own life.

They know Gordon Darneil received some kind of disturbing news or unsettling information, which completely changed his mood and ended in suicide. Gordon Darneil is not the last of his family to do the same upon learning that dark, dreadful secret.So the premise of Give Me Death has a wrinkle of originality in setting up 1930s detective novel investigating a suicide rather than a murder and "Chapter XI: The Last Motive" even has a short lecture on suicide motives – listing all the reasons from A to K. Briggs Myers honestly tried to deliver on the premise with twisty ending. Something that might have worked had it not been for everything between the opening and closing chapters.

Firstly, there's that dark, all-consuming dreadful secret driving the Darneils to an early grave. Conceptually, the premise works with an idea, a hazardous information, which in 1934 was ahead of its time. Not what generally passes for dangerous information in crime fiction, but something like a domestic version of Roko's Basilisk. It could have made for something truly special had the secret not been so ridiculous to the point where it aged into a parody. I mean, they eventually find a letter from Gordon divulging the dreaded secret and honest to God opens with this dryly stated, unintentionally hilarious line (SPOILER/ROT13), “vg unf orra cebirq gb zr orlbaq ubcr bs dhrfgvba gung gurer vf va zl irvaf n fgenva bs Arteb oybbq.” That line caught me off guard and just cackled like a long-lost demented relative of the Darneils, holy shit! Secondly, the incredibly annoying, over the top histrionics of the Darneils to this secret, but that even turned into a parody of itself. As if the secret had activated the self-destruct mode on a bunch of Manchurian candidates. Like a Monty Python sketch! Thirdly, Jerningham doesn't shine at all as a detective here. On the contrary.

Brigg Myers tried to pull everything together by the end and there's a rather brilliant line, hidden somewhere in this mess, doubling as a tell-tale clue, but it's too little too late. Not to mention that the convoluted twisting and turnings of the plot happen so late into the proceedings, it's simply hasn't enough room nor time to make it work effectively. So everything to make a good, even original, detective story were present, but the executions of those ideas ended up being a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Give Me Death closed the book on Briggs Myers stint as a detective novelist, but would have liked to see if she could have rebounded. I noted in the review of Murder Yet to Come how it reminded me of the work of two other female Van Dinean mystery writers, namely Harriette Ashbrook and "Roger Scarlett" (Dorothy Blair and Evelyn Page), who also started out as Van Dinean imitators – e.g. Ashbrook's The Murder of Cecily Thane (1930) and Scarlett's The Beacon Hill Murders (1930). Ashbrook would go on to originate a now worn-out, but then startling new, trope in The Murder of Sigurd Sharon (1933) and Scarlett's final novel, In the First Degree (1933), severed itself from its Van Dinean roots. You can see elements of both in Give Me Death in trying to do something different within the Van Dinean detective story. Yes, it was poorly conceived, poorly done, poorly executed, aged poorly and many today would argue it was done in poor taste. I'm just curious if she could have rebounded from it and at least returned to the level of her first novel. But as it stands, I agree with Scott that Murder Yet to Come is the superior detective novel and the one for which Briggs Myers should be remembered. So don't let the not undeserved reputation of Give Me Death dissuade you from reading it.

The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks (2022) by Danro Kamosaki

So I was perusing the blog-posts and reviews from the previous two, three months when I noticed it had been about that long since I came across a good, hefty locked room or impossible crime novel – going back to late February. That substantially-plotted impossible crime novel in question was Danro Kamosaki's Misshitsu ougon jidai no satsujin – Yuko no yakata to muttsu no trick (Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms – The House of Snow and the Six Tricks, 2022). You can't always pick a winner beforehand, but sometimes you can steer a bit in the right direction. When I say steering a bit in the right direction, I mean going for the blindingly obvious.

Danro Kamosaki's Misshitsu kyouran jidai no satsujin – Zekkai no katou to nanatsu no trick (Murder in the Age of Locked Room Mania – The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks, 2022) is the second entry in the "Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms" series translated by Mitsuda Madoy and "cosmmiicnana." Like its title suggests, it has even more locked room murders than the impossible crime extravaganza that's The House of Snow and the Six Tricks.

The premise of this series is basically a glimpse of what feels like my home universe/native timeline. A real-life locked room murder lead to the murderer being acquitted, "proof of non-resolution of a locked room is equivalent to proof of absence from the of a crime," which "was the same as acquitting a suspect with a perfect alibi" – not without consequences. The number of people murdered in locked rooms increased at an alarming rate alongside new kind of professionals and professions. There are specialized detectives tackling cases that can't be explained by one of the well-known tricks in the Ministry of Justice's Locked Room Classification List and appraisal companies who examine houses for secret passages and other nooks or crannies with ultrasound and x-rays. In the criminal underworld, "hitmen who specialized in locked room murders" ("they were called locked room agents") who for the right price would end their targets in a perfectly locked room. Not to be overlooked is the Tower of Dawn, a religious cult, dedicated to worshiping the scenes of locked room murders.

So that's background of The House of Snow and the Six Tricks in which 17-year-old high school student Kasumi Kuzushiro is dragged by Yozuki Asahina to house of a celebrated, but dead, mystery writer. A house that would soon host a series of grisly, seemingly impossible murders and reunion with an old school friend, Shitsuri Mitsumura, who has a knack for solving complicated puzzles. Particularly locked room puzzles.

The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks follows a similar setup, except for the opening pages. A notorious, nameless assassin-for-hire, known as "The Living Locked Room Library," receives an assignment to wipe out an entire group with one particular condition – eliminate the targets inside a locked room. One of the targets is a reclusive business tycoon, Aoi Otomigawara. She lives on an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean known as Wire Mesh Island. A solitary island that was once the home of the last living Golden Age mystery writer, Richard Moore, who died in 2010 aged 111. Yes, Moore's name is a Case Closed/Detective Conan reference. Anyway, Wire Mesh Island, formerly known as Full Moon Island, is encircled by a high wire mesh fence and the only gap, or entrance, is the gate at the dock which is under camera surveillance. Everything that happen to pass over the island is monitored by cameras on top of the fence pointing straight upwards. So a island tailored to the backdrop of a good, old-fashioned whodunit with its fortress-like appearance and dotted with strange, custom-made cottages. Even before Otomigawara took it over, the island was the scene of two impossible murders that became known as the "Decapitation Chamber of Wire Mesh Island" and “One of Japan's Four Great Locked Rooms."

Otomigawara is hosting a "Locked Room Trick Game" on the island and invites a number of experts like a Youtube detective, a singer-song writer detective, a Tower of Dawn executive and a former judge. Kasumi Kuzushiro, Yozuki Asahina and Shitsuri Mitsumura are also present. Similar to the first novel, Kuzushiro didn't expect to find Mitsumura among the guests. Furthermore, there are two butlers, a chef, a doctor and a woman, Emiri Sotodomari, who claims to be a 1000-year-old vampire camping on the island. The first locked room problem to solve is part of the game and won't go into the game rules, because the game is abandoned when the real murders begin. A lottery picks the player who gets to be the culprit and has to stage a locked room murder somewhere in the mansion for the others to solve with the victim being a large, stuffed polar bear. This also mirrors the first novel in which the first problem under investigation was the stabbing of a doll inside a perfectly sealed room.

This first locked room "murder" of the plushy is not terribly relevant to the plot of this story, however, something tells me it might be very relevant to the main storyline of the series (ROT13: "V'yy unir lbh xabj V'z dhvgr cebhq bs gung gevpx"). When the first real murder is discovered, things really begin to kick off. Note that the Chapter 4 is already titled "Too Many Locked Rooms."

So where to even begin? There are seven locked room murders and a problem of these impossible crime extravaganzas is maintaining a balance between quantity and quality. The House of Snow and the Six Tricks managed to keep a fairly decent, overall balance with only two, out of six, locked room-tricks being less than impressive – even if they were mostly excises in technical prowess. The locked room-tricks in The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks can certainly be deemed technical, Kamosaki found some wildly unrealistic imaginative ways to put them to use. And, more than once, the locked room-tricks ventured into being entirely original. You really, really need to have an unhealthy love for locked room mysteries to go along with all of them. Even I had to draw the line at one of them. But I'll get back to that one.

The second locked room is the first that stands out, a stabbing in a locked and bolted cottage, which has a bonkers way to do the job, but rather conventional compared to what comes next. The cottage where previous victims were decapitated claims a third victim and the solution is brilliantly original, fantastically nightmarish and unbelievably impractical. Loved it! While the trickery is borderline insane, I think these two impossible crimes could have easily carried a whole novel by themselves. That only makes three impossible murders with the next, another stabbing in a locked basement room, offers both a simple and elegant false-solution and correct solution – both very good, solid locked room-tricks. However, I don't think the correct solution would work (ROT13) orpnhfr, fheryl, gur plyvaqre bs gur qbbe uvatr vf abg jrvtug rabhtu sbe gur cva gb whfg qebc jura gur vpr unf zrygrq. Vg'f gbb gvtug n svg sbe gur cva gb or “nssrpgrq ol tenivgl naq snyyf vagb gur plyvaqre,” evtug? Lbh unir gb sbepr vg vagb cynpr. Much better is the trick used to leave body in yet another cottage with the door securely locked by a key card and the only two key cards lying right next to the victim. I remember coming across one, or two, locked rooms involving key cards in Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, but Kamosaki came up with a grand idea. So another one that easily could fueled an entire story by itself. Great stuff!

However, the impossibility involving the disappearance of a prisoner and appearance of a body inside a strange architectural structure called the Tower of Heaven. I actually liked the intricate setup as the impossibility didn't concern the lockedness of the tower, but how the key was securely tucked away in a nesting doll of locked rooms. The "key was in a different locked room, whose key was in a locked safe, whose key was in another locked room." And the safe requires five keys, "each of which is being kept by a separate person." This premise filled me with hope as I initially feared the bizarre, cross-shaped tower was really a giant mechanical toy and rotated to flip around the rooms with the prisoner and body to make it appear like an inexplicable disappearance/appearance. Amazingly, the actual solution somehow turned out to be even more preposterous than a pirouetting, cross-shaped tower. Something so ridiculously, it's impossible to suspend your disbelieve and go along for the ride. Not just because it sounds and probably looks ridiculous.

If you go for such an overly complicated and involved trick, you should at least be shown why it could have only been done in that specific way. I mean, (ROT13) vs lbh trg gur xrl bhg sne rabhtu gb unaqyr vg, jul abg fvzcyl znxr na vzcerffvba be phg bss gur fgrz naq ernggnpu vg yngre? Gur bgure ybpxrq ebbz-gevpxf nyernql gblrq nebhaq jvgu zrgnyf naq nyybl znavchyngvba. The various murders in the locked cottages also require the reader to suspend their disbelieve, especially the decapitation cottage-trick, but they gave a reason – demonstrating the cottages were practically sealed. And, in comparison, their tricks have a degree of believability the nesting doll-trick simply lacked. So only one out of seven locked room murders missed the mark. Not a bad score.

And then there's the seventh locked room murder. An impossible murder, once again, flipping the script on the whole story. Not one I'll soon forget! It does everything right what the nesting doll-trick did wrong with not many pages left to go.

Similar to its predecessor, The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks is mostly about picking apart ingeniously-contrived, original locked room-tricks littered with diagrams and floor plans. Well, mostly. I would be doing Kamosaki a disservice not to mention how immensely satisfying it was to see how (ROT13) gur raqvat ybbcrq onpx gb gur bcravat. An unexpected artistic touch from a plot-mechanic like Kamosaki. Not to mention one plot-thread turned out to be a demonstration how to cheat fairly. Well played, Kamosaki! Well played. This, of course, comes at the expense of characterization and a weakly handled motive ("I'm the sort of person who doesn't bother reading the motivation scenes in mystery novels"). Even the only meaningful characterization, between Kuzushiro and Mitsumura, is dominated by trying to find a solution to the murder that started the locked room boom. If you're like me, hopelessly addicted to impossible crime fiction, The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks is another extremely well done, must-read love letter to the locked room mystery improving on The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks is and upping the ante. Hopefully, I'll get an opportunity to read the third and apparently best novel in the series. From what I understand, it has a classic village setting for a series of eight locked room murders and mysteries.

Only question remains unanswered: how did I end up with you lot in this shitty Berenstain universe? I could have been the Hercule Poirot to this version of Japan! Oh... and I wanted to highlight this little fellow from the cover.

 

 

Inspector De Klerck and the Silent Hope (2025) by P. Dieudonné

Recently, the small independent Dutch publisher E-Pulp released the twelfth novel in P. Dieudonné's Rotterdam police series, Rechercheur De Klerck en de stille hoop (Inspector De Klerck and the Silent Hope, 2025), which begins with introducing a kaleidoscopic jumble of plot-threads – apparently unconnected. The opening chapter finds De Klerck arguing with Commissioner De Froideville over a two-year old, still unsolved and open missing persons case.

Frits Kieviet, "a habitual burglar," disappeared two years ago following the unsuccessful burglary of the home of an imminent university lecturer, Professor Rudolphi. The professor reported to the police nothing had been stolen, but rumors reached De Klerck claiming a valuable collection of antique coins was stolen from Professor Rudolphi's house in Ridderkerk. According to the rumors, two more people were involved in the burglary: a now dead call-girl named "NightQueenie" and her then boyfriend, Jules Olijhoek, who supposedly framed Kieviet. And not without consequences. Several dubious looking tough guys came looking for him at his regular bar, after which he disappeared without a trace. Worryingly, it suggests the respectable Professor Rudolphi is "a formidable criminal who wants to prevent his mask from falling at all costs." However, the case is in the hands of another district and De Klerck is not permitted to reopen the case or bother the influential Rudolphi ("...a friend of a friend").

The rumors regarding the burglary and collection of coins emanated from Kieviet's regular pub, 't Zotte Zwaantje, whose owner, Lowie, asks De Klerck's assistance when one of his regulars, Kjell van Boekel, dropped out of sight without a word – even turning his phone off. Inspectors De Klerck and Klaver don't have very long to give this problem their full attention, because next they're confronted with the central puzzle of the story.

A patrolling policeman found a young, soaking wet and dying man with pieces of duct tape still stuck to his face and clothes. The victim turns out to be a student, Casper Stokkentreeff, who recently got in trouble with the police for stalking his ex-girlfriend following a sudden breakup. Why was he held captive and tortured for days? Why didn't the doorbell cameras show him trying to get help? Why did he use his last breath to mumble something about building a bridge or bridge builders? A colleague of De Klerck's remarks that the murders he gets to investigate rarely resemble a simple crossword picture, but tend to be complicated cryptograms. Inspector De Klerck and the Silent Hope certainly is no exception.

I mentioned in previous reviews how this series built on the formula of the Dutch politieroman as imagined by A.C. Baantjer rather than being another imitation. Such as loosening up the formula to allow more freedom to play around with the plots, which received some much needed plot complexity. So the series not only featured the customary bizarre, multiple murders, but also sported locked room mysteries, dying messages and unbreakable alibis. But also what can be called what-happened mysteries like Rechercheur De Klerck en het duistere web (Inspector De Klerck and the Dark Web, 2022) and Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongewenste dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Unwanted Death, 2023). A non-traditional puzzle in which a jumble of confusing crimes, incidents and people need to be put in the correct order or sequence to create a complete and coherent picture of the truth. Not always easy to do, but Dieudonné pulled it off before (see Inspector De Klerck and the Unwanted Death). Regrettably, I can't say the same for the latest entry in the series.

I know Inspector De Klerck and the Silent Hope isn't intended as a traditional, fair play whodunit presented as a politieroman, but, even as a what-happened, it would have been nice to have had a shot at it – prevented by some information being dropped relatively late into the story. Important enough information to reduce every attempt preceding it to blindly groping around the dark. Same goes for, what turned out to be, the undecipherable dying message. I gave away my best impression of an armchair oracle trying to come up with a logical interpretation for those last, cryptic gurgled words. Maybe the policeman misheard him, but what sounds like "brug bouwen" (building a bridge)? Je moeder verbouwen (renovating your mom)? Surely, he couldn't have used his last breath to ask the policeman to tell his killer he was going to renovate his mom. So, as you can see, I did some serious work for nothing. That would not have been half as bad had the ending been good, but the plot felt as jumbled after the explanation as before and murderer's identity plus motive was underwhelming. I honestly would have been more impressed had Frits Kieviet pulled out as the off-page, but ever present, murderer. That really bugs me.

This series isn't a collection modern, five-star masterpieces of detective fiction posing as Dutch police procedural, but the quality is admirably maintained throughout the previous novels and why I've been fanboying about it for the past five years. Inspector De Klerck and the Silent Hope completely missed the mark, for me at least. As pleasantly written as the previous novels, but the plot is uncharacteristically messy. That's the drawback for Golden Age detective fans of following a new series, you can't cherry pick the best titles. I'm sure Dieudonné back to his old tricks for the thirteenth De Klerck novels. Fingers crossed it will be titled Rechercheur De Klerck en de dertien katten (Inspector De Klerck and the Thirteen Cats).

Note for the curious: Well, rather a question. I ended the review of Rechercheur De Klerck en de status in moord (Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder, 2024) promising to do “Hit List” ranking the first twelve titles in the series. I know the series is untranslated and not accessible to most readers of this blog, which is why they never generate much discussion. Only exception, for obvious reasons, is the third title, Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020). So... wanted to know if anyone's actually interested for top 12 of this series?

The Curse of the Reckaviles (1927) by Walter S. Masterman

Walter S. Masterman was among the early British pulp writers who diligently worked on keeping the shelves of the lending libraries stocked with popular fiction running the gamut from horror, supernatural and science-fiction to thriller and detective novels – every subgenre in between. Masterman's twenty-six novels often embraced the more fantastical and outré elements of the pulps. So his Chief Inspector Arthur Sinclair, of Scotland Yard, has an incredibly strange career for a Golden Age detective character. Sinclair first appeared in a conventional locked room mystery, The Wrong Letter (1926), but would go to encounter strange creatures and lost races on faraway adventures.

I read The Wrong Letter last year on the recommendation of Jim, of The Invisible Event, who included it in his "A Locked Room Library: One Hundred Recommended Books." Jim has been fascinated with Masterman's work for years and reviewed a dozen of the Ramble House reprints. The Wrong Letter is not bad and, where genre history is concerned, not entirely without interest. Just not a great detective novel or classic locked room mystery. Overall decent enough to not ignore the second title in the series. That second novel is a bit strange when compared to its predecessor.

If The Wrong Letter looked towards the detective story's future, The Curse of the Reckaviles (1927) returned to its past. It's a pure imitation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle divided in two section like A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Valley of Fear (1914).

The first-half of The Curse of the Reckaviles, "Book I: The Curse," begins with Jack and Ena Sefton, brother and sister, who lost their father and "were left to face the world alone" with barely a penny to their name – nor a roof over their head. A school friend of Ena offers them the use of a summer bungalow at Portham-on-Sea on the South Coast. A so-called "bungalow town" that had sprung up when a speculative builder struck a deal with the current Lord Reckavile to bypass the town council and pesky inspectors. The bungalow town is now largely abandoned and bordered up, until the summer season, which only added to the already gloomy mood of Jack and Ena. Not to mention "the gruesome crime which had fallen on the village," the impossible murder of Lord Reckavile at his desolate, largely empty castle.

The butler of the castle, Giles, and the village constable, John Brown, overheard an angry quarrel, "never, never, only over my dead body," between Lord Reckavile and an unknown visitor in the library. Only the door is locked. When they hear the sound of a blow and "a horrible cry," they break down the door to find Lord Reckavile's body with a knife between his ribs. And nobody else! The door was locked and the key is missing, but Giles and Brown were standing outside the library listening at the door. The windows were fastened on the inside and "no trap doors or secret panels that can be found." So the vanishing murderer revives old stories of the Reckavile Curse in the village, while others believe there's madness in the family ("...they are probably nearer the truth").

Chief Inspector Sinclair tasks the young Inspector Fletcher to Portham-on-Sea to sort out the mess, which brings him into contact with Jack and Ena. Jack has withdrawn and is gone most of the time, but refuses to say where's going or what's he's doing. A lonely Ena befriends a mysterious gentleman, Mr. Halley, who has secrets of his own. A missing bank manager has been seen in the neighborhood and an apparently abandoned cottage is brightly lit at night. Fletcher even has a brush with the ghost of a long-dead ancestor of Lord Reckavile. A tangle of strange incidents, closely guarded secrets and leads is handled by Fletcher with all the skill and tact of a typical Lestrade, i.e. not very well. Half way through the story, Sinclair returns to gather everyone involved for a dramatic revelation. Not of the murderer, but something else requiring to take a step back into the past.

The second-half of The Curse of the Reckaviles, "Book II: The Reckaviles," retraces the steps of several Reckaviles covering decades and several lifetimes, before ending right back where the first-half ended – which shouldn't be skipped. It's naturally a character piece without much detective interest, however, it's actually better written than the first-half. And it has its moment. I more than enjoyed the Carrian challenge to settle a dispute in a duel ("he drew up the challenge with all the formality of a century ago") and appreciated Walterman tried to breath life in his characters. And think he did a better job than most would probably expect from a pulp writer or the first-half. More importantly, the character piece making up the second-half served an important plot purpose: it made solution acceptable. If the murderer and motive had been revealed at the end of the first-half, the whole thing would have collapsed and few probably would have bothered reading the second-half. Masterman produced (SPOILER/ROT13) n fhecevfvatyl npprcgnoyr rknzcyr bs gur-ohgyre-qvq-vg, orpnhfr bs jub gheaf bhg gb or oruvaq gur ohgyre crefban. Vg qbrfa'g rira oernx gur ehyr gung gur zheqrere zhfg or vagebqhprq rneyl ba va gur fgbel nf ur jnf zragvbarq va gur guveq puncgre.

It helped that the locked room-trick offered something a little different than what was still customary at the time. I don't think it will leave many of you baffled or stumped, but it was nice to see something slightly more elaborate than secret passages, returned keys or basic wire-tricks. That alone places the book above the average 1920s (locked room) mystery novel. Let me remind you The Curse of the Reckaviles was published in the same year as Robert Brennan's The Toledo Dagger (1927) which is (ROT13) gur jbefg rknzcyr bs gur-ohgyre-qvq-vg pbzcyrgr jvgu n frperg cnffntrjnlf naq frperg gjvaf!

That being said, I have to echo one curiosity Jim pointed out in his review in how Masterman "throws out some casually brilliant ideas" during the first-half anticipating a plot point from a rather well-known detective novel. It's why I didn't discount the possibility that Constable Brown was a bastard Reckavile who was in a position to raise and pass for the ghost of a bearded, long-dead Reckavile for Fletcher. Those casually brilliant ideas all petered out as red herrings.

So, on a whole, The Curse of the Reckaviles ended better than it started, but only recommended as a very well-done homage and imitation of the Doylean detective story from the turn-of-the-century rather than as a Golden Age locked room mystery.

Murder, M.D. (1943) by Miles Burton

If you have read the 2023 post "The Hit List: Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels," you're probably aware of my fascination with detective fiction written, or taking place, during the Second World War – practically a subgenre at this point. There are even a few eerily prophetic mysteries, like Darwin L. Teilhet's The Talking Sparrow Murders (1934) and Theodore Roscoe's I'll Grind Their Bones (1936), but those written between 1939-45 remain the most fascinating. More than those prescient curiosities or the historical reconstructions. The WWII era detective story can easily fill a large, doubly stacked bookcase and half of them are still waiting to be rediscovered. So always keep an eye out for copies or reprints.

I don't recall who, when or where Murder, M.D. (1943) by "Miles Burton" was recommended to me as a noteworthy wartime village mystery. But whoever it was that recommended the book, thank you!

Miles Burton is one of the pseudonyms of the detective story's plot engineer, John Street, who's best known penname is "John Rhode" from his prolific Dr. Lancelot Priestley series. Street belongs to the once unfairly maligned, so-called "humdrum" school prioritizing plotting, particularly technical plots centering on murder methods, impossible crimes and unbreakable alibis, over characterization – appealing to puzzle fiends who want a tricky problem to pick apart. So even among us Golden Age detective fans, not everyone's a fan of Street's purely technical, plot-driven and cleverly contrived mysteries. Whatever its title might suggest, Murder, M.D. is a surprisingly Crime Queenish village mystery focusing more on the characters and storytelling than picking apart an ingeniously horrifying method for murder. The plot is still one of his best!

The backdrop of Murder, M.D. is the now sparsely populated village of Exton Forcett, "so many had left to serve in various capacities elsewhere," which also had to say goodbye to their popular village physician. When the war broke out, Dr. St. John Cecil joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and currently serves in the Middle East. Dr. Cecil arranged for Dr. Kurt Wiegler, a naturalized Austrian, to act as his locum, but the highly opinionated Dr. Wiegler is "constitutionally incapable of keeping his nose out of trouble and other people's affairs." Always threatening "to expose people" or "to inflict some unpleasantness upon them," openly stating he believes ninety percent of the villages suffer from "congenital idiocy" with the other ten percent being "deliberate criminals." So, despite being better than Dr. Cecil, his locum had made himself immensely unpopular as many villagers preferred to go the doctors in the neighboring villages.

Nobody is saddened when Dr. Wiegler's body is discovered on top of a boulder at the bottom of a gravel pit in Gallows Wood. Dr. Wiegler was a passionate birdwatcher and everyone at the scene guessed he had stumbled over the edge, while looking through his binoculars and plunged to his death. The coroner and jury at the inquest agreed with an accidental verdict.

Captain Desmond Merrion, one of the chiefs of the Naval Intelligence, is in the village on a short leave and confides to his host, Sir Mark Corringham, his believe Dr. Wiegler "was, in fact, deliberately murdered" – a fact deduced "on the evidence of a coat button and a couple of pine needles." However, they're more than happy to let sleeping dogs lie and life goes on the village as usual. Only notable things to happen over the following months, besides the war, are the arrivals of the surprising new locum and an unexpected, but very pleased, heir of the late locum. During this time, the new locum begins to suspect everyone in the village knew Dr. Wiegler had been killed, but nobody seemed interested in bringing his killer to justice. That sets up the second murder.

I think this second murder is one of the things distinguishing Murder, M.D. as a first-rate Golden Age detective story, because the second murder is not merely a plot-device to reignite interest during the second-half of the book. This second murder is unexpected and shocking with actual weight behind it. While the first murder was a relief to the village, the second murder is not nor is it going to be without consequences. Desmond Merrion is called back by Sir Mark to help out Inspector Arnold in weeding out the murderer. A problem requiring to timetable and map out everyone's movement, because the place where the body was found divides the suspects between the Cecils and the rest. Interestingly, they use blackout time to help piece together the victim's final steps ("however light it may be outside, the blackout has to go up at the time ordained"). So good, old-fashioned and solid detective work. But where Street really exceeded himself is the handling of the solution with a surprisingly well-hidden murderer.

Whether writing as John Rhode, Miles Burton or Cecil Waye, Street was always more interested in the how than who or why. So even in his best detective novels, the murderers and motives tend to be obvious (e.g. The Bloody Tower, 1938). Murder, M.D. is the opposite in what you would expect to the point that it almost seems deliberate. The story and plot has done away with what can be deemed his usual strengths to work and focus on what's generally considered to be greatest weaknesses: characterization, a well-hidden murderer and a good, not so obvious motive. Street delivered on the last two like he was Agatha Christie or Christianna Brand! Impressively, (SPOILER/ROT13) gur zheqrere fubhyq unir orra qbhoyl boivbhf, orpnhfr gung glcr bs punenpgre nyjnlf vaivgrf fhfcvpvba. Nal jevgre pnfgvat n punenpgre yvxr gung va gur ebyr bs zheqrere vf tvivat gurzfryirf n unaqvpnc (trg vg?) sebz gur fgneg. Vg jnfa'g fb boivbhf urer!

The finishing touch is the original, fairly clued motive complemented by Merrion's memorable exposure of the murderer cementing Murder, M.D. as a classic of the Golden Age village mystery and simply Street's very best detective novel read to date. Murder, M.D. deserves to be reprinted as it would be right at home in the British Library Crime Classic series. Until then, I recommend you pick up a copy, if one happens to come your way.

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) by Benjamin Stevenson

I recently read Benjamin Stevenson's genre debut, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022), which perfectly blended the contemporary, character-driven crime novel with the plot complexity and fair play principles of the Golden Age detective story – starring crime fiction expert Ernest Cunningham. A reliable narrator, if there ever was one! This time, the promise to "modernize" the great detective stories of yesteryear without brutally butchering them was fully delivered on to the point where the book read like a modern continuation of the Golden Age traditions. So far from the usual pale, unfunny and cliche-ridden imitations of the Agatha Christie-style country house mysteries of the past. But neither is it a cutesy, sugary sweet cozy, or cozy adjacent, mystery as the book title and cover might suggest. It's as much a modern crime novel as it's a classically-styled detective story. I was incredibly pleased.

I was so pleased with Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone, I ordered, received and read Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) post-haste. And it's even better than the first one!

Ernest Cunningham is back from his disastrous, deadly family reunion at the Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat and has gone on to write a modestly successful book about his experience, but the experience left him with the lingering symptoms of survivor's guilt and impostor syndrome. He also signed a lucrative publishing contract to write a second, fictional book and took a large advance, but Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone was a firsthand account of his personal experiences – not complete fiction. Just a little. So without inspiration, Ernest accepts an invitation from the Australian Mystery Writers' Society to attend a crime writing festival aboard the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, the Ghan. A four day tour cutting through the Australian desert with panels, Q&As and sight seeing stops.

The guest of honor and "major drawcard" is the international bestselling author of the Detective Morbund series, Henry McTavish, who's famous creation "is as close to a modern-day Holmes or Poirot as they come" with a dedicated fandom – calling themselves "Morbund's Mongrels." Scottish phenomenon is not the only writer on the card. Alan Royce is a forensic mystery writer who has written eleven books in the Dr. Jane Black series, SF Majors writes psychological thrillers, Jane Fulton wrote a widely acclaimed legal thriller twenty years ago and has been working on the sequel ever since. Wolfgang is a representative of the Australian literary crowd, "shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize," who's only link to the crime genre is "his rhyming verse novel retelling of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood." He reminded me of the characters populating Arthur W. Upfield's An Author Bites the Dust (1948) and enjoyed his confrontation with Ernest during the first panel ("...all you did was copy Capote"). Ernest represents both the debuting and non-fiction categories, because his book is a true-crime memoir, but he brought along his girlfriend Juliette Henderson. The former owner of the Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat who had also written a book about the murders that took place there ("her book had sold better than mine"). Naturally, there are some ill-feelings, bruised egos and buried secrets to be shared among the authors eventually leading to a dramatic murder.

Sounds conventional enough, so far, but Ernest takes a hands-on approach to the job of a reliable narrator with a lot of foreshadowing, fourth wall breaking and a bit of teasing. That's why Ernest is "a bit chattier than your usual detective" to ensure no "obvious truths" are concealed from the reader. For example, Ernest tells the reader that he uses the killer's name ("in all its forms") 106 times and gives a tally throughout the story of the name count. And, of course, it not even remotely close to being that easy to find the well-hidden murderer! Stevenson clearly understands that the ability to gracefully lie through your teeth without saying an untrue word is an invaluable tool when it comes to writing and plotting detective stories. It not only makes for an incredibly fun, fairly clued meta-whodunit with a bit of comedy and self-parody, but an engaging cat-and-mouse between armchair detective/reader and narrator. I appreciated the early heads up ("if you're hoping for a locked-room mystery, this isn't it").

 

 

Just like the first book, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect might still strike some as somewhat cozy adjacent, when summarily described, but another thing this series does very well is striking a balance between the classical and modern schools of the genre – which include a few sordid elements you would never come across in a Golden Age mystery. However, it's not merely the more sordid criminal elements making this series a perfect blend of the traditional and modern style, but how the world of today is incorporated into this whodunit. Particularly the plot-thread concerning (SPOILER/ROT13) Jbystnat'f vagrenpgvir neg cebwrpg Gur Qrngu bs Yvgrengher naq ubj vg'f yvaxrq gb nabgure cybg-guernq to reveal something that could only happen in today's world.

I noted in the past how the argument that advancements in technology and forensic science during the second-half of the previous century made the traditional detective story, popular during its first-half, obsolete was demolished by Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (1953/54) decades before it was put forward. It simply depends on who's doing the writing and plotting. Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect are exactly what I imagined the Grandest Game in the World could have evolved into had it been allowed to co-exist alongside the post-WWII psychological thrillers, crime novels and police procedurals. So was even more pleased than with the first book in the series and only the potential of spoilers prevents me from raving rambling on about this richly-plotted gem of a retro-Golden Age mystery, but you probably get the idea by now.

So I don't know what's more appropriate to close out this shoddy review, we're so back or nature is healing? Either way, I'm slightly pissed the third in the series is titled Everyone this Christmas has a Secret (2024) and we're not even halfway through April! I guess Christmas is coming early this year as that one is going to be cleared off the list long before December rolls around.

Background Details: Case Closed, vol. 93 by Gosho Aoyama

The 93rd volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed traditionally begins with the conclusion to the story that started in the previous volume, which finds Conan and Harley Hartwell at Coffee Poirot during a brief blackout – used as a cover for an attempted murder. When the lights turn back on, they find one of the customers crumpled up on the floor with a serious knife wound. A messy job spattering both Conan and Harley with blood. So the culprit must also be covered in blood, but none of the four suspects have so much as drop of blood on their hands or clothes. And how could the murderer have navigated a pitch-dark cafe to find the victim?

Plot-wise, the story is typical for this period, in the series, written around a trick-of-the-week which tend to have mixed results. This trick is hampered by its Frankenstein construction. I liked that the problem the stabbing presents is halfway between an impossible crime and an unbreakable alibi, but only the method the murderer employed to locate the victim is really good. I found it pleasantly surprising and had no idea that's actually possible. If you're interested, this YouTube video demonstrates it (spoilers, of course). However, it feels wasted on this story and the trick used to avoid blood splatter is clever in theory, but, considering the amount of evidence the would-be killer left behind, it comes across as delaying tactic rather than a serious attempt to get away with it. Inspector Meguire and his forensic team eventually would have stumbled to it without Conan, Harley or that barista detective.

It honestly would have made for a better, more satisfying, detective story had the murderer just used the location-trick/alibi to slip or inject the victim some poison. That being said, the story is not only about a strange stabbing at a cafe, but sets the tone for the overall volume as the individual cases basically function as stages for the bigger storylines, character-arcs and introducing new faces. This first story introduces two characters tied to a new storyline involving Harley. And it helped this otherwise average, uneven story.

Only exception is the next and best story from this volume. I mentioned in previous reviews I dislike kidnap plots, because they make for lousy detective fiction or paint-by-number thrillers, but Case Closed has delivered a couple of surprisingly good, original even, mystery-thrillers with a kidnap plot – e.g. vol. 72. The kidnap victim this time is Richard Moore's ex-wife and Rachel's mother, Eva Kaden, who's a successful attorney at law with enemies. Some of her enemies banded together, kidnapped her and brought her to an abandoned building to do some uncharacteristic heinous things (for this series) to her. Fortunately, Eva manages to escape and hide somewhere in the building to contact Rachel through a messenger app on her phone, but one of kidnappers joins the group chat under Eva's name ("mom is multiplying"). So now Conan, Rachel and Richard Moore not only have to find out where Eva is held captive, but how to separate Eva's real messages from the false ones. What ensues is a three-way cat-and-mouse game between Eva, her kidnappers and Conan & Co.

Admittedly, the setup is a little bit contrived, tech-wise, as the kidnappers had to strip down their phones (removing sim card, disabling GPS, etc.) to the point where they can make calls or use an app over the internet ("a police station antenna can't pick up WI-FI signals"). But it made for an incredibly fun story. I really liked how the messenger app was used to drive and direct the story, which in turn also provided a neat twist on the related code cracking and dying message stories from this series. Loved it!

Interestingly, Conan had to take charge and direct a panicked Richard and Rachel, which forced him to act more like Jimmy Kudo than Conan Edogawa. Rachel notices Conan's deduction skills aren't "those of an ordinary first grader" and finally demands answers from Conan. The ease with which Conan sidetracks Rachel is just ridiculous so close to vol. 100. We have reached the point where Rachel can catch Conan doing the "Sleeping Moore" routine and all he would need to do distract her is flash a laser pointer or jingle keys with his free hand.

The third story takes place during one of the regular, not always bloodless, camping trips of the Junior Detective League, but Doc Agasa is sick in bed and Rumi Wakasa takes his place – who has been behaving suspiciously since her introduction in vol. 91. She has caught the eye of Superintendent Hyoe Kuroda, of the Nagano Police, who also caught on the fact Conan is pretty much "Sleeping Moore's brains." So he right there at the camping ground alongside the Junior Detective League and a small group of college basketball players. Needless to say, the last group end up providing the story with a body and murderer. One of them burns to death while alone in his tent that had been tightly "zipped and locked shut" from the inside. More importantly, the victim was seen by everyone doing squats in his tent before the tent caught fire. It appears to be an tragic accident, but Conan believes it was murder. And proves it!

Just like the first story, the answer involves a two-part trick. I liked the simple, uncomplicated solution to the locked tent and the elaborate, maybe overly elaborate, fire-trick is undoubtedly very clever, but feels entirely out of place in this story with its outdoors setting. So not bad, on a whole, but it feels very uneven. I think the presence of Hyoe Kuroda and Rumi Wakasa added more mystery to the story than the quasi-impossible murder in a locked tent. Both fit the description of a high-ranking member of the Black Organization.

This volume ends with the setup of a story that will be concluded in the next volume, but setup is a good one with a crossover bonus. Harley is participating in a high school kendo tournament with a good chance of taking home the gold, when the tournament unsurprisingly becomes the scene of a gruesome murder. Someone dressed as a kendo fighter with mask, face covering and knife slashes one of the referees to the death in front of a blind witness – who heard the murderer go into the public restroom. And he heard nobody coming out since then. So the three people inside the restroom form a nice, tight closed-circle of suspects, but they're all free of blood? The solution to that problem will be presented in the next volume, but note that the story has two cameo crossovers by characters from Yaiba ("a hit comedy-adventure series which Aoyama created before Detective Conan").

So not a terribly bad or below average volume, especially not the excellent kidnapping of Eva Kaden, but overall, the stories are very uneven and an undeniable step down from the previous volume. What happened in the background of the stories really is what helped to keep this volume above average by preventing from it becoming terribly uneventful or worse.

The Fifth Tumbler (1936) by Clyde B. Clason

Clyde B. Clason was an American copywriter, trade magazine editor and author of ten once very popular, critically acclaimed Van Dinean detective novels about a mild mannered Roman historian turned amateur sleuth, Theocritus Lucius Westborough – blessed with "the instincts of a ferret and the brain of a Holmes." Clason certainly was one of the more sophisticated, literate writers to come out of the Van Dine-Queen School driven by a genuine curiosity and knowledge of art, culture and science. Despite his weighty name and occupation, Westborough never becomes a lecturing snob like Van Dine's Philo Vance or early period Ellery Queen.

More importantly, Clason was not an incompetent plotter with a healthy interest in locked room mysteries and impossible crimes. Seven of the ten Westborough mysteries count as impossible crime novels making Clason one of the leading locked room specialists of his day, right alongside John Dickson Carr and Clayton Rawson. Clason's best locked room mysteries are admittedly fairly minor affairs compared to the best locked room trickery from Carr or Rawson. They tend to be practical tricks and smaller parts of a bigger, more complicated plot overall, not the focal point, but Clason usually delivers a cleverly constructed, often fairly clued mysteries. Clason regrettably believed "his kind of book had gone out of fashion with the emphasis on blood-and-guts hardboiled fiction during the post-World War II period" and exited the genre in the early 1940s.

Clason and his ten Westborough novels fell into obscurity for decades. Only people who remembered them were collectors of vintage hardbacks, genre scholars and feverish impossible crime addicts looking for their next fix. So, yeah, there probably was a point somewhere in the late 1970s or early '80s when only Bill Pronzini knew about Clason. Yet, Clason was among the first wave of obscure, long-forgotten mystery writers to return to print when the Rue Morgue Press reprinted his now most well-known locked room mystery, The Man from Tibet (1938), in 1998 – which slowly snowballed into a reprint renaissance and revival. Along the way, Rue Morgue Press reissued all but two of Clason's Westborough mysteries before closing down in 2015. The Death Angel (1936), second title in the series, was one of the last reprints Rue Morgue Press published.

So only The Fifth Tumbler (1936) and The Whispering Ear (1938) missed out on getting reprinted that would have given us a complete, uniform set of reprints. No other publisher has picked up the series since 2015, until recently.

Chosho Publishing, an indy print-on-demand outfit, has reissued a modest selection of slightly overpriced of Golden Age detective novels over the past two, three years. I reviewed their reprint of Isabel Briggs Myers' Murder Yet to Come (1929/30) last year, but they also reprinted Clason's The Fifth Tumbler, The Man from Tibet, The Purple Parrot (1937), Murder Gone Minoan (1939) and Green Shiver (1941). Just be warned The Purple Parrot is the weak link in the series and Murder Gone Minoan too text book-y. I gladly took their reprint of The Fifth Tumbler to get one step closer to that complete set of reprints and crossing another, once rare, title off the locked room wishlist.

The Fifth Tumbler is Clason's debut as a mystery writer and introduces the genial, mild mannered history professor as one of about half a dozen guests in the west corridor, on the third floor, of the Equable Hotel in Chicago – where one of the guests dies under bizarre circumstances. Mr. Elmo Swink is not the most esteemed or popular hotel guests, referred to by various characters in the opening chapters as "that fat mug," "dirty hog" and generally considered to be a bit nasty, who's found lying doubled up in the doorway of his room. Swink died from inhaling a strong whiff of hydrocyanic gas delivered by a booby trap attached to the inside of the door. When the victim opened the door, a test tube dropped containing chemicals that would mix and release the poisonous gas. So the immediate question arising from this situation is how the murderer manage to rig up the booby trap when the door, connecting doors and windows were all locked and bolted on the inside. And the door to the hall is out, anyway, as it could been used without disturbing the booby trap or knocking down the tube ("just like one of the 'murder in a sealed room' things that you read about in detective stories").

This strange murder is officially investigated by Captain Terence O'Ryan and Lieutenant John Mack, but Westborough uses the name of his dead brother, Jim Westborough, to get to sit on the investigation as a quiet spectator. Apparently, Jim Westborough saved Mack's neck when he was framed in "as dirty a deal as was ever cooked up." Westborough gets to sit-in on the investigation and silently begins woolgathering from an armchair in the corner. Even though Mack believes "crimes aren't solved by a guy sitting around on his fanny and thinking about 'em," but simply by old-fashioned legwork to chase the facts. However, I think this division between the leg work done by the police and reasoning largely from an armchair by the amateur detective is the most attractive, well-done part of The Fifth Tumbler. I appreciated "From the Notebook of Theocritus Lucius Westborough" was included early in the story.

A thorough investigation narrows down the list of potential suspects down to the people along the west corridor of the third floor and an employee or two. Like the lovesick night clerk and chemistry student, Chris Larson. The lovely, currently unemployed stenographer, Yvonne Grant. A self-proclaimed broker named James Chilton. A commercial artist, Ronald Graham, who's staying at the hotel with his wife and son. An acid-tongued, gossip mongering hotel widow, Sarah Blakely, and a pair of questionable traveling salesmen, Fred Hammond and Ben Devon. So the problem is not a lack of suspects or even the booby trap method, but that there apparently is not "a motive worth a damn." That actually causes a problem with the solution, but I'll get back to the solution in a second.

The Fifth Tumbler is Clason's first stab at the detective story and firsts rarely translate into classics or practically unblemished gems in our genre. Clason's maiden effort is no exception. For one, it feels much more of an imitation of the Van Dinean detective story than some of the latter books, which mostly comes down to establishing an amateur detective/official police working relationship and the story almost entirely taking place at the crime scene – a staple of the early 1930s Van Dinean detective story. Very different from novels like Blind Drifts (1937), Poison Jasmine (1940) and Murder Gone Minoan. A second problem is that despite the ingenuity shown in setting up an original locked room situation and various promising plot-threads, the solutions are routine and lack imagination. Something the author admitted when Mack groaned upon hearing Westborough's explanation, "the oldest trick known to detective story writers." If this had been all, The Fifth Tumbler would have been pleasant, competently routine first stab, but Clason tried to go for an Agatha Christie-style rug pull. Well, it's kind of impressive to see a mystery writer pull the legs from underneath himself. That's a trick I hadn't seen before!

Not that it did the story any favors. The problem is the extremely well-hidden, vaguely clued motive. There are, technically, "clues" to the motive, but they're just not very helpful and motive really is the key to solution. So what should have been a "surprise twist" to explain an apparent "murder without a motive" simply falls flat. John Norris likened it in his 2011 review to a kangaroo popping out to thumb its nose at the stunned, silent and cheated reader. I found the solution to be both disappointing and somewhat of a cheat, but up until that point, I enjoyed the story that definitely had its moments. Like the gossipy Mrs. Blakely giving a stunned Mack an unexpected demonstration of her psychometric abilities (predictable solution, but fun) or the Van Dinean mini-lectures on a variety of subjects (e.g. chemistry and locks). Westborough interestingly compares the case to "the mechanism of a pin-tumbler lock" with four of his five tumblers (i.e. suspects) in place, but "an obstinate fifth prevents the lock from opening." However, the lock analogies demanded a better locked room-trick.

So the routine plot and clumsily-handled, bungled ending makes it impossible to recommend Clason's The Fifth Tumbler to anyone, except completists or connoisseurs of the obscure.

Note for the curious: because the important motive is so well-hidden, I got hold of a red herring I thought offered a simple and practical solution to the whole mess and a murderer tailor-made for the story. My entirely wrong armchair solution (ROT13) crttrq gur rk-cbyvprzna naq pheerag ubgry qrgrpgvir, Wreel Fcnatre, nf gur zheqrere, orpnhfr uvf cnfg nf n cbyvprzna pbhyq unir oebhtug uvz vagb pbagnpg jvgu Ryzb Fjvax – n pbazna naq cneg gvzr oynpxznvyre. Fb gurer pbhyq unir orra bccbeghavgl sbe oynpxznvy naq cebivqvat gur ubhfr qrgrpgvir jvgu n zbgvir sbe zheqre. Vg'f rnfvre sbe gur ubhfr qrgrpgvir gb trg ubyq bs cnff xrlf gb perngr n cngujnl gb gur ivpgvz'f ebbz guebhtu gur pbaarpgvat qbbef guna vg jbhyq or sbe bar bs gur thrfgf/bhgfvqref. Abg gur zbfg fcrpgnphyne be bevtvany fbyhgvba gb n qrgrpgvir fgbel, ohg qrprag rabhtu naq yvxrq gur vqrn bs gur ubhfr qrgrpgvir orvat gur svefg zheqrere Jrfgobebhtu pngpurf. Maybe I wouldn't cut as an Ellery Queen or Philo Vance, but I would make one hell of Simon Brimmer!

The Hit List: Top 10 Locked Room Mystery Novels That Need to Be Reprinted

In 2022, I posted an addendum to Nick Fuller's "Detective Stories to Reprint" entitled "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted" going over a lengthy list of tantalizingly obscure, out-of-print mystery novels that remained out-of-reach – even in the midst of a reprint renaissance. Some writers and novels on the list have since returned to print. Such as Anthony Gilbert's The Tragedy at Freyne (1927), Mignon G. Eberhart's From This Dark Stairway (1931) and the complete works of Eunice Mays Boyd and James Ronald, but most remain annoyingly out-of-print today.

So wanted to do a shorter, trimmed down version focusing on out-of-print locked room mysteries and impossible crime novels (because, of course). Not simply as an excuse to climb on my favorite hobbyhorse, but because I really needed a filler-post to replenish the diminished backlog of blog-posts and reviews.

However, I always try to avoid doing a standard top 10 list of favorite characters or mysteries by picking somewhat unusual, sometimes niche, topics allowing for a surprising list. For example, "Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels" starts with a novel from 1934 and ends with one from 2008. "Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated" lists ten mysteries from four continents, written in six different languages, peeking over the language-barrier at us. "Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction That Have Been Lost to History" goes over the list of unpublished manuscripts from some very well-known, celebrated mystery writers that were lost or destroyed – consigned to the phantom library in the sky. On a more positive note is the "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance." So didn't simply want to go over my personal locked room mystery wishlist and pick ten titles.

This list is basically split in two, mashed together halves. There are five titles directly plucked from my wishlist, while the other five have been reviewed before on this blog. But they all deserve or need to be reprinted for one reason or another. So publishers take note! Hope everyone else finds it an entertaining and interesting list with hopefully a few picks that'll surprise you.

The Case of the Gold Coins (1933) by Anthony Wynne

Robert McNair Wilson, a Scottish-born physician, is the man behind the "Anthony Wynne" pseudonym and, before John Dickson Carr, was the first Golden Age writer to specialize in novel-length locked room mysteries – producing twenty-one impossible crime novels and some short stories. The quality of Wynne's Dr. Eustace Hailey series is uneven, but The Case of the Gold Coins is considered to be one of his most ingenious takes on the impossible crime problem: a body found on a beach without any footprints. John Norris called the solution "simple and rather brilliant" and Curt Evans thought the explanation "worthy of John Dickson Carr." The Case of the Gold Coins sounds like a perfect, long overdue follow up to the British Library reprint edition of Wynne's Murder of a Lady (1931; a.k.a. The Silver Scale Mystery).

Three Dead, One Hurt (1934) by Scobie Mackenzie

Robert Adey highlighted Mackenzie's Three Dead, One Hurt in his introduction of Locked Room Murders (1991) as "something a little different." Something he described as a Buchanesque tale about a group of people marooned on a Scottish island with "a clever locked room situation." In 2022, Martin Edwards reviewed Three Dead, One Hurt and thought it "a notch or two above many others that were being written at the time." But, as he pointed out, the book has never been reprinted since its original publication over 90 years (!) ago.

Terror at Compass Lake (1935) by Tech Davis

Brian Skupin highlighted Tech Davis' Terror at Compass Lake in Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019) as an intriguing mystery in which Aubrey Nash investigates the deaths of a chauffeur and his employer in upstate New York. The death of the chauffeur apparently that was "neither murder, suicide nor natural death" and the murder of his boss offers "a new twist on the locked room mystery." You should know that a review from 1990 by the late William F. Deeck points out that the book is better plotted than written ("recommended for locked room fanciers, and other problem solvers").

The Whispering Ear (1938) by Clyde B. Clason

Clyde B. Clason wrote only ten detective novels, over a five year period, but they're among the most sophisticated, well-written and often soundly plotted the American detective story produced during the Golden Age – making his obscurity all the more baffling. Rue Morgue Press reprinted eight of Clason's Theocritus Lucius Westborough mysteries in the 2000s and 2010s. The second novel in that series, The Dark Angel (1936), was one of the last reprints they published before closing their doors. So we missed out on a complete set of reprints that would have included The Fifth Tumbler (1936) and The Whispering Ear. Recently, Chosho Publishing reprinted The Fifth Tumbler, The Purple Parrot (1937), The Man from Tibet (1938), Murder Gone Minoan (1939) and Green Shiver (1941). The Whispering Ear remains the only title in the series that has not been reprinted since the 1930s or '40s. It could very well be Clason's most substantial impossible crime novel concerning "an impersonation problem in which a bad twin, taking the place of his famous brother, gets the latter's money and is killed" – shot in a locked bathroom. A 1938 review called it a "fair enough puzzler."

The Longstreet Legacy (1951) by Douglas Ashe

So the first of the previously read and reviewed titles on this list. Ashe's The Longstreet Legacy, alternatively published as A Shroud for Grandmama, was discussed earlier this year by Martin Edwards, "a classic whodunit with macabre trimmings," who linked to my review. Not only is this a classic whodunit from the twilight years of the Golden Age, but an imaginative and original impossible crime novel. The elderly victim, Ella Longstreet, is found lying at the bottom of staircase dressed in a bikini and surrounded by a circle of dusty, waltzing footprints with the rest of the hallway inexplicably free of footprints. Regrettably, The Longstreet Legacy is likely to remain out-of-print for the foreseeable future. John Norris tried to get the books reprinted in 2014, but the author's son is "sort of contentious and is holding on tight to the rights."

The Glass Spear (1950) by S.H. Courtier

This is going to be contentious entry! Wynne's The Case of the Gold Coins, Davis' Terror at Compass Lake and Clason's The Whispering Ear appear a little dubious when it comes to the overall quality (i.e. writing, characterization and plot), but they appear to be fully-fledged locked room mysteries. And two of them are reportedly excellent when it comes to the locked room-tricks. Courtier's The Glass Spear is, what John Norris called, an anthropological detective novel and a fine one at that. Simply as a regional detective novel it succeeded in what a regional detective novel is supposed to do: create a story, plot and crime that feels native to the setting. Something that feels like it could not have taken place anywhere else, except in the setting of the story. There's a locked room murder, but it's immediately solved and the locked room-trick routine. I decided to include it as a reminder Courtier is still waiting to be reprinted.

Note for the curious: John Norris (what, him again!?) reviewed Courtier's Let the Man Die (1961) earlier this year, describing it as "remarkable retro" and "truly feels like a love letter to the plot heavy books of the 1930s and 1940s." Something tells me the traditional, Australian detective story has been criminally overlooked by the rest of the world.

Withered Murder (1956) by A. & P. Shaffer

Many of the once extremely rare, prohibitively expensive and out-of-print (locked room) mystery novels returned to print in recent years. A notable example is Christianna Brand's Death of Jezebel (1948). It used to be one of the most wanted, next to impossible to obtain impossible crime novels in the genre as secondhand copies were scarce and often expensive. That list of ridiculous rare, out-of-print mysteries with the quality to match their legendary reputation has been thinned out considerably. I think the most famous title to top that list today is Shaffer's Withered Murder. Nick Fuller praised Withered Murder for being "as flamboyantly fantastical and fearsome as a Father Brown case" and "as brilliantly clued and surprising as a Carr." So you understand us locked room fanatics need a reprint of Withered Murder almost as much as oxygen.

Diving Death (1962) by Charles Forsyte

There were a few unsuccessful, short-lived attempts during the 1960s to continue and modernize the fair play, Golden Age-style detective novel. One of these short-lived attempts came from the husband-and-wife team of Gordon and Vicky Philo, writing as "Charles Forsyte," who penned a handful of classically-styled whodunits. Three of them feature their series-detective, Inspector Richard Left, who's confronted in Diving Death with a seemingly impossible murder during an archaeological expedition at sea. A reprint of this wonderful detective novel full with impossible murders, false-solutions, waterproof alibis and a fallible detective would be greatly appreciated by fellow mystery aficionados.

Black Aura (1974) by John Sladek

Sladek's wrote two famous and beloved, classically-styled detective novels featuring his equally popular detective, Thackeray Phin, whose specialty is solving locked room murders and other seemingly impossible crimes. Black Aura and Invisible Green (1977) are fan favorites often mentioned in same breath as John Dickson Carr and Hake Talbot. We've been arguing for years, some even decades, about which of the two Thackeray Phin novels is better. Fortunately, copies of Black Aura and Invisible Green are neither absurdly rare nor ridiculously expensive, but what's absurd and ridiculous is that neither have been reprinted since 1983.

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

I wanted to include a translation, any translation, of a non-English locked room mystery in need of fresh printing-ink, but choices proved to be limited. I could pick between S.A. Steeman's Six hommes morts (Six Dead Men, 1930/31) or Chin Shunshin's Pekin yūyūkan (Murder in a Peking Studio, 1976). I then remembered there's another option, Seimaru Amagi, who in my opinion is the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story. Amagi co-created the anime/manga franchise The Kindaichi Case Files and penned a series of “light novels” about Hajime Kindaichi and his cohorts. A light novel is a relatively short-ish, illustrated novels and four of Amagi's Kindaichi light novels received English translations. However, Ho-Ling Wong pointed out the translations were intended for educational purposes and the reason why every edition has a long English-Japanese vocabulary list. So they were translated to help improve the English of Japanese readers.

That being said, they are generally excellent, shin honkaku-style detective stories with ready-made translations. Originally titled Opera House, the New Murder, the much more mundanely-titled The New Kindaichi Files is the best of the four. A theatrical mystery set on an island theater where an actress ends up underneath a crystal chandelier behind the locked doors of a theater. My second favorite is the fascinating Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998) with its strange setting and bizarre impossible murder. Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996) is a solid detective story distinguished by incorporating early internet and internet culture into a classically-styled whodunit. Only Shanhai gyojin densetsu satsujin jiken (The Shanghai River Demon's Curse, 1997) failed to impress. Considering the current interest in Japanese detective fiction, these ready-made translations can be bundled together as an omnibus and all that needs to be added is an introduction to the characters and history of the series. Because it would a shame to have them waste away in obscurity when, now more than ever before, there's an actual audience for them.