This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943) by Timothy Fuller

Last month, I looked at Timothy Fuller's fifth and final Jupiter Jones novel, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950), which appeared after a seven year hiatus following the publication This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943) – reads like a soft, updated reboot of the series. Well, I remember Jupiter Jones starting out in Harvard Has a Homicide (1936) and Three Thirds of a Ghost (1941) as a lighthearted, wisecracking take on the Van Dinean, Ellery Queen-style detective. But those memories have become hazy over the years. I recall just enough to notice the leap from young, fresh faced college snoop to a middle-aged man living in the suburbs with a wife and children.

Keep Cool, Mr. Jones is not a success story when it comes to trying to reinvent a Golden Age character for the second-half of the previous century or relaunching the series, but enjoyed it enough to track down a copy of This is Murder, Mr. Jones. That proved to be an unexpected surprise as I expected nothing more than a fun, lightweight mystery with a radio background and locked room murder. It certainly is a nimbly-plotted mystery novel satirizing radio dramas, but This is Murder, Mr. Jones got more out of both than appeared possible at first sight. Among some other noteworthy touches to the story and plot.

Following his outings in Harvard Has a Homicide and Three Thirds of a Ghost, Jupiter Jones is getting a reputation as an amateur detective. Jupiter's status as an amateur detective landed him an invitation from Emerson West to attend to one-year anniversary live show of his radio program, This is Murder. West, "the poor man's Woollcott," plans to mark the occasion with an reenactment of the century-old, unsolved murder at Parker Hall, in Molton, Massachusetts, where "Felicia Parker was done to death" – presumably by her husband. Robert Parker had "ample grounds to murder his wife" and a reliable enough alibi to clear him from suspicion. So the case entered the annals of crime as one of those tantalizingly unsolved mysteries that has been discussed for decades. Jupiter gladly accepts the invitation and travels with his wife, Betty, to now abandoned Parker Hall where the cast and crew has gathered to prepare and rehearse for the broadcast.

West attracted three well-known actors, Carla Blake, Gordon Dane and Katherine Moore, to play to principle players in the drama ("...amazing what blackmail can do"). The people behind the scene is the director, Rocky Davenport, Foley, the sound man, and the announcer, Burroughs. West is further assisted by his personal ghostwriter, Grant, and lovely "feminine assistant" named Miss Terry Stewart. There are also several guests, beside Jupiter and Betty Jones. Elmo T. Gillespie, "a fellow criminologist," is a collector of murder weapons who actually brought the knife from the Parker case along. A Mr. Brown, real estate agent and current owner of Parker Hall, who's brought along his wife. Finally, Mr. Jerome, a representative of the show's sponsor, who's also accompanied by his wife. Show goes off without a hitch, but when they go off the air, West announces to the group he's going to present them with the solution to the Parker case. A private showing, of sort, requiring "a short re-enactment of the crime itself" in which West locks himself away in the bathroom. But never comes back out. When they break open the door, they find West lying in a pool of blood. His throat cut with the Parker knife. What appeared to be suicide quickly proves to be an impossible murder. Not only how the murderer vanished from the bathroom, but how the knife was brought into the bathroom.

I should note here that the impossibility is quickly resolved and the bare-bones mechanics of the locked room-trick is nearly as old as time, but how this hoary, time-worn trick is employed was pleasingly original – a new wrinkle to an old trick. Basically, (SPOILER/ROT13) Jrfg unq uverq n pnecragre gb pbafgehpg n frperg qbbejnl va gur onguebbz, orpnhfr gur ubhfr jnf tbvat gb or qrzbyvfu naljnl. Fb gur cyna jnf gb cergraq ur unq sbhaq gur tncvat ubyr va Eboreg Cnexre'f onguebbz nyvov, ohg hajvggvatyl cebivqrq uvf zheqrere jvgu n tbyqra bccbeghavgl. Genuinely enjoyed that aspect of the plot, minor as it may be. What makes This is Murder, Mr. Jones a noteworthy mystery is not its locked room murder, or how it was treated, but its radio background.

After the first shock, they realize they can make radio history by doing "a direct broadcast from the scene of the crime" and "put the investigation on the air." And triple their audience over night. This part of the story feels decades ahead of its time and, to my knowledge, not something that has been used during the Golden Age of Radio. By the way, Orson Wells and his 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast gets a mention ("it made Welles" and "it didn't hurt the Martians"). But my favorite part of this plan is the discussion on whether, or not, it would be appropriate to break the show for a word from their sponsors. Because, you know, one of them probably killed the show's host. So, breaking the show with this killer of a line, "well, ladies and gentlemen, any minute we may find that the lovely Carla Blake was the one who slashed Mr. West's throat, but in the meantime eat Chummies, the dandy candy," is perhaps bad optics.

That the police not only play along, but even allow the first round of questioning to be aired to a nationwide audience is preposterous. But therefore not any less fun. Not only a fun, cleverly done slant on the normally routine questioning of suspects, but really something that feels ahead of its time.

So the broadcast is howling success with the audience baying for more. And, as that second broad is prepared, the case continues to develop off-air. Those developments include two additional bodies, however, they're not page-filling corpses dropped to pad out the story, but flow directly from the first murder – provide clues to the who and why. Fuller continued to show some innovation and creativity with the ending, especially how Jupiter solves and resolves the whole case. Firstly, the way in which Jupiter finally puts together all the pieces together is not exactly conventional and "may well open up a whole new field of criminal detection." I'm sure Ronald Knox would disapprove, but it fitted the overall tone of the story and piled on another memorable feature to the story. The traditional gathering of the suspects for the denouement is conventional enough, despite taking place live on air, but became worried at this point the century-old murder case was forgotten about and doomed to remain an unresolved mystery. Right before signing off, only half a page left to go, Jupiter quickly gives his solution to the historical case and reminds the listeners/readers "to invest in War Bonds and Stamps."

I think it goes without saying This is Murder, Mr. Jones is grand fun with some clever, creative and even memorable touches to plot and a couple of old, dusty tropes. Even the motive came across as fresh and original for the time. It all added up to something surprisingly good and unexpectedly rewarding. However, I do fear my enthusiastic rambling might be misinterpreted. So don't expect This is Murder, Mr. Jones to deliver a locked room mystery from the caliber of John Dickson Carr with an Agatha Christie-style rug pull of an ending, but neither should you expect a solid second-string mystery. It's a little too good, and too original in parts, to be relegated to second-tier status. This is Murder, Mr. Jones is very much in the tradition of the better American murder-can-be-fun mysteries Rue Morgue Press specialized in reprinting like Kelley Roos, Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice. That's not a bad company to be in.

Note for the curious: I don't have a brilliant and dazzling alternative solution for the Parker murder case, but a simple possibility that was never mentioned. Now the details of the murder itself are scant and a bit sketchy, but one thing stands out. West mentioned many pet theories emerging over the years, "even heard scholarly gentlemen suggest that the good gardener perpetrated the dastardly crime," but no mention of the proverbial chink in the armor – namely the nurse who alibied Parker. So here's how I figured it (ROT13 to obscure plot details): Eboreg Cnexre jnf fvpx ng gur gvzr naq arrqrq n ahefr. Jura uvf jvsr jnf fgnoorq, Cnexre jnf va gur onguebbz jvgu gur ahefr jnvgvat bhgfvqr gur qbbe. Cnexre qvq vaqrrq fgno uvf jvsr naq rfpncrq whfgvpr jvgu uvf uloevq ybpxrq ebbz-nyvov, juvpu znxrf vg n dhrfgvba bs ubj ur qvq vg. Guvf nyfb tvirf ebbz sbe na nygreangvir rkcynangvba, orpnhfr vg zrnaf Cnexre qbrfa'g gnyx gb uvf ahefr jura ur'f va gur onguebbz. Naq fur whfg jnvgf hagvy ur pbzrf bhg. Fbzrguvat ahefr pbhyq hfr nf fur jbhyq cebonoyl xabj ubj ybat vg gnxrf ba nirentr sbe uvz gb or qbar. N ahefr gnxvat pner bs vainyvqf, be frzv-vainyvq, vf svg rabhtu gb eha orgjrra gjb sybbef, xabjf jurer gb fgno naq abg znxr n zrff bs vg. V fvzcyl nffhzrq gurl jrer univat na nssnve naq nyvovrq rnpu bgure, ohg vg jbhyq or rira orggre vs gur ahefr unq gur rknpgyl fnzr, gentvp zbgvir nf gur cerfrag-qnl zheqrere. History never repeats itself, but it rhymes from time to time.

Dead to Rights: "Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer" (1974) by Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch's "Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer," originally appeared in the August, 1974, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and reprinted in Leopold's Way (1985), starts out with a routine case for Captain Leopold and Lieutenant Fletcher – a simple case "without a hint of ghosts or impossibilities." Captain Leopold is ready to go home when a fatal shooting is reported on the 15th floor of the Grant Tower.

Martha Aspeth, a cleaning woman working at the Grant Tower, was shot by her estranged husband, Kurt Aspeth ("he wanted younger ones"). Leopold and Fletcher has plenty of eyewitnesses, "five women who work with her," who all saw it happen. Kurt came up to the 15th floor, asked for Martha and "pulled out his gun and started shooting" the moment he laid eyes on her. He then made his exit through the fire escape. So all they basically have to do is send out an alert, wait for him to be picked up and hand the matter over to the prosecutor. A simple, clear cut and uncomplicated case that turns into an impossible crime over night.

Following morning, Fletches has a good news, bad news situation for Leopold. Good news is that they found they found their suspect. Kurt Aspeth had crashed his car into a bridge abutment, on the Expressway near the Grant Tower building, which killed him instantly. However, according to the evidence, the smashup happened about thirty minutes before the shooting where Kurt was "positively identified as the murderer by five witnesses" – who all knew him personally. I liked how Hoch immediately dismissed the obvious, hackneyed explanations. A discrepancy in the records appears out of the question as the accident report is backed up by the medical report. No error due to daylight-saving time or faulty clocks. Kurt's body was identified by his older brother, Felix, who has a passing, brotherly resemblance, but couldn't pass for his twin brother. Fingerprints back up the identification! Felix believes "his brother's spirit killed Martha, after the accident." 

Leopold and Fletcher are far too grounded and sober minded to take any stock in Felix's claims that "his brother's spirit killed Martha, after the accident," but then what happened during those thirty minutes?

"Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer" is one of Hoch's most John Dickson Carr-like impossible crime stories, despite not being a typical impossible crime or traditional locked room mystery. A cross between ghostly phenomenon and bi-location. Hoch brings more than his usual competent craftsmanship to the table in order to explain away this apparent miracle with an inspired solution both imaginative and completely satisfying. There is, perhaps, one coincidence some readers might find a little hard to swallow, but that's that Merrivalean cussedness of all things general for you. However, what I found even more impressive is the overall structure of the story. Hoch took an unfortunate, every day case of spousal murder without a hint of planning or touch of subtlety (i.e. manufactured alibis, locked rooms, etc) and turned it into a Carr-like impossible crime story by introducing an apparent "glitch" in the timeline. It worked. Mike Grost called "Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer" a "landmark in such time-centered mysteries" in the Chesterton-Carr tradition and I couldn't agree more. If there's ever going to be a Hoch best-of collection, "Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer" deserves to be included.

Strange Houses (2021) by Uketsu

Back in March, I reviewed Henna e (Strange Pictures, 2022) written by the pseudonymous Japanese horror and mystery Youtuber, "Uketsu," whose true identity remains a big question mark – hidden behind a white mask, black bodysuit and a digitally distorted voice. Strange Pictures received some mixed reactions, but I enjoyed and appreciated it for trying to do something different with both the traditional detective and modern crime story. So looked forward to see what Uketsu was going to do with Henna le (Strange Houses, 2021).

I thought Pushkin Vertigo was translating and publishing the "Strange Novel" series in chronological order, which is why I called Strange Pictures Uketsu's debut, but Strange Houses is actually the first in the series. Strange Pictures was considered "a more solidly structured, more confident work" appealing to a broader audience. There were also responses from people already familiar with Strange Houses through the manga and movie adaptations who were disappointed, because Strange Houses is a treat to mystery fans who love their floor plans, family trees and the odd time table. So, once again, I was looking forward to see what Uketsu was going to do with Strange Houses and compare it to Strange Pictures.

Strange Houses, translated by Jim Rion, comprises of four, longish chapters in which the first three introduce and investigate three different mysteries concerning bizarre floor plans of strange houses.

The first chapter, "A Strange House," introduces its nameless narrator, a freelance writer, whose specializes in stories of the macabre and people come to him with their personal stories of "the eerie and unpleasant." Strangest story came his way when a friend asked for advice. The friend in question is house hunting and found a place that's both spacious and bright, but a curious detail about the floor plan bothers him. There's "a mysterious dead space between the kitchen and living room" on the first floor. So the freelance writer promises to look over the floor plans with another friend, Kurihara, who's an architectural draughtsman. When they pore over the floor plans together, they notice more odd features to the house with the biggest, puzzling feature being the child's room on the second floor. A central, inner room without windows, a double-door vestibule and its own toilet – resembling "some kind of solitary confinement cell." The house, of course, hides more secrets than can be directly read from the floor plan.

Finding all those architectural oddities and hidden secret fires up Kurihara's imagination, "this house was built for murder," but the author's friend tells them he has lost interest in buying the house. A chopped-up body found in a thicket near the house felt like a bad omen. So he worked the story of this strange house into article which was read by Yuzuki Miyae.

Three years ago, Miyae's husband vanished without a trace and only recently his body, minus a left hand, was found on a mountainside in Saitama. Miyae believes his disappearance and death is linked to house similar to the house described in the article. She even dug up a floor plan of the house. So this second chapter, "Another Warped Floor Plan," examines another house with prison-like child's room, hidden features and a curious, triangular room that was later addition to the original house. Just as important is figuring out who lived in those two houses and where they're now. That brings Strange Houses to its third chapter, "Drawn from Memory," which takes a detour into the past to tell the story of a tragic family gathering told through floor plans sketched from childhood memories. So, this far into the story, I have to remain as sketchy about the details, but it's undoubtedly the best, most memorable portion of the Strange Houses – not merely because it included a locked room puzzle, of sorts. But it always helps. And while (ROT13) V abeznyyl sebja hcba frperg cnffntrf be uvqvat ubyrf svthevat va gur fbyhgvba gb n ybpxrq ebbz zlfgrel, guvf vf gur frpbaq orfg hfr bs n frperg cnffntr V unir pbzr npebff.

Uketsu pulls the threads together in the final chapter, "House of Chains," which is the wordiest chapter of the book as it has to do without the numerous floor plans and only has the odd family tree. It's also the chapter clearly demonstrating the fundamental difference between Strange Pictures and Strange Houses.

I think most mystery fans prefer the examination of the floor plans and architectural anomalies over the armchair psycho-analyzing of drawings, which really is a treat for every detective fan who love maps and floor plans in their mysteries. My shoddy review barely gives you an idea just how many floor plans there are. But it's a lot. However, the answers behind these strange houses with their architectural anomalies is more along the lines of a horror mystery than a mystery with horror elements. Strange Pictures also straddles the detective and horror genres, but it worked as a detective story. Not the most orthodox of detective stories, but a detective story nonetheless. Strange Houses offers something out of a Wes Craven movie with an ambiguous ending, which is also more in keeping with the horror genre. Now a hybrid mystery, of sorts, is not the problem, but the horror elements driving the plot is unconvincing. And, to be honest, somewhat preposterous. Not helped by the fact that one of Kurihara's wild, illogical flight of fancies was closer to the truth than it had any right to be. That's bound to annoy or disappoint some mystery fans.

So was left with mixed feelings. I didn't expect Strange Houses to be a typical, traditionally-plotted shin honkaku mystery, but expected it to be ever so slightly more traditional and grounded, plot-wise, than Strange Pictures. Somehow, I figured floor plans would lend themselves better to this new type of visual medium horror-mysteries than a series of drawings. The floor plan puzzles were fun with the third one ingeniously using its hand drawn floor plan, but the reason for creating these houses underwhelmed. So, yeah, I think Strange Pictures is the better novel and Pushkin Vertigo made the right call, but both succeed in offering the reader something little different without being outright novelties or gimmicks. They're simply too good, not perfect, but too good to be ranked along past novelty and gimmick mysteries like the dossier novels or photograph mysteries. So look forward to Uketsu's third novel scheduled to be published sometime early next year. I'll be there!

The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) by Richard Foster

Back in February, I reviewed Kendell "Ken" Foster Crossen's The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints (1945), a fun and pulpy impossible crime yarn, which Crossen brazen employed as a vehicle to promote his novel The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) – published as by "Richard Foster." Foster's The Laughing Buddha Murders is about to be published in The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints and an advanced copy, gone missing, figures in the investigation. Vulcan Publications even gets involved! Someone who has read it provides the story with a teaser, "a Buddha, weighing a ton, which apparently vanished from a locked room." Shameless piece of self-promotion, barely disguised as a plot-thread, but hey, it worked on me!

The Laughing Buddha Murders is the first, of only two, mystery novels starring the American-Tibetan detective and Charlie Chan of the Pulps, Chin Kwang Kham. The story takes place in Cuyahoga County, somewhere in Cleveland, Ohio, where an inquest is held on the body of the recently murdered millionaire, Horace Bailey Lawton. Nearly every face at the inquest "indicated satisfaction that Horace Bailey Lawton had ceased to live among them." Not without reason.

Lawton was a rich businessman, fanatical collector of Chinese art and somewhat of a cartoonish villain who was found slumped over his desk with an ornamental dagger sticking out of his back. Someone had knifed him from behind while dictating instructions to his secretary into his dictaphone and the recording is played in court, which gives the reader an idea why Lawton isn't mourned. Like instructing his lawyer to practically disinherit his daughter, Betty, if she dares to marry Theodore Challet. In case of a marriage, she'll still receive the princely sum of one dollar annually, "payable each year on the anniversary of her wedding," but everyone gets a good, old-fashioned shellacking from his neighbor and the local newspaper to his own servants – who regularly get their salaries docked for minor infractions and little oversights. So plenty of motives to go around!

However, the murder of the hated collector is not the only problem stumping Lieutenant John Payne. Entering the Lawton house is "was almost like stepping into another world" with Eastern art and Buddhas everywhere "ranging from a tiny ivory-dust Buddha on the desk to those three or four feet tall that were placed around the room." A prized piece in the collection is the solid gold statue of the Kum Bum Buddha, "one of the three most renowned early Buddhist sculptures in existence," which weighs a ton and has somehow gone missing from the crime scene. It didn't exactly vanish from a locked room, but removing a one-ton gold statue without being seen or heard poses something of an impossibility ("something that weighs a ton doesn't just vanish").

Chin Kwang Kham, a lecturer on Tibetan culture, was invited by Lawton to take a look at the now missing Buddha and subtly slips into the role of amateur sleuth when he begins to notice things. Not quite subtle enough not to be noticed himself and receives a warning surprisingly written in the obscure Pali language, which starts with the greeting "Kham, Pakkhandin." Kham explains pakkhandin roughly translates to "one who meddles in other people's business." So the greeting can be read as "Kham, Meddler." I thought that was worth mentioning and should also mention here that the story skips between the inquest, flashbacks to the investigation on the night of the murder and the ongoing investigation that includes a second murder – among other things. That all makes for a decent, if routine, pulp mystery with a murderer who stands out and a fairly underwhelming solution to the vanishing Buddha. So it really ends up being Kham who carries The Laughing Buddha Murders. And then only towards the end.

Firstly, the two murders and vanishing statue attracted some media attention bringing a larger than usual crowd bringing to Kham's lectures. When noticing all the potential suspects sitting in the audience, Kham decides to lecture on murder, "one of oldest habits of man," to lure out the murderer. And not wholly unsuccessfully. But it's not until the inquest resumes, Kham gets another opportunity to nail the killer... under somewhat legally dubious circumstances. Franklyn Williams, the Coroner, appoints Kham to deputy coroner of the county of Cuyahoga and tells the jury, "the questioning of witnesses will be conducted by Mr. Chin Kham." Going from Charlie Chan to a modern-day Judge Dee. During this last round of questions, Kham unmasks the murderer in front of a captivated audience. It regrettably sounds better than it ended up being and the only reason why it didn't really work is because there was not much plot to prop it up.

Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes notes that Kham is "a thoroughly unstereotypical" Asian detective whose only two recorded cases "stand apart as an attempt at something new." I agree, however, attempt is the keyword. This short-lived series was a well-intended attempt, but simply lacked the quality to deliver on its potential with The Invisible Man Murders (1945) reportedly not being an improvement on The Laughing Buddha Murders. More of the same with a little gratuitous torture scenes added to the mix. Ah, the pulps! So, yeah, unless you like obscure pulps or a locked room completist, you can give this one a pass.

Men for Pieces (1949) by Brian Flynn

Brian Flynn's Men for Pieces (1949), thirty-sixth entry in the Anthony Bathurst series, marks Flynn's second return to print after Dean Street Press temporarily shut down following the death of Rupert Heath, but started back up last December – reprinting the first five of Sara Woods' legal mysteries. Recently, Dean Street Press resumed their reprints of Brian Flynn. Men for Pieces, Black Agent (1950), And Cauldron Bubble (1951), Where There Was Smoke (1951) and The Ring of Innocent (1952) are the first Flynn reprints to appear since the last badge was published in October, 2022.

I mentioned in previous reviews how you can never be quite sure what you get when you open one of Flynn's mysteries, because the style shifts from book to book. Bathurst can be unraveling a classically-styled locked room mystery in one book and the next finds him smack in the middle of a courtroom drama or turn-of-the-century thriller paying homage to the ghost of Conan Doyle. Men for Pieces is simply an old-fashioned detective story with a baffling crime, or rather a potential crime, allowing Bathurst and DCI Andrew MacMorran to take opposite views. So play up their roles as the theorizing amateur and practically-minded professional.

Their problem centers around a young man, named Peter Oliver, who works at the Lombard Street branch of Delaney's bank and recently got engaged to the beautiful cashier in Lambert's restaurant, Stella Forrest – giving him no reason to disappear without a word. First to notice his absence is the bank manager when he fails to keep their appointment to go over an important file and neither did he show up for his lunch with Stella. She begins to fear the worst when her investigation raises more questions than answers. Fortunately, she spots Bathurst and MacMorran at the restaurant and decides to plead for their help. They listen to her story and decide to look around his place themselves, but when they, more or less illegally, enter his house they make macabre discovery. Oliver's body, in full evening dress, lying on the bathroom floor with his throat cut from ear to ear and "in the dead man's left hand was an open, white-handled razor of the old-fashioned type." Oliver was left handed and "the cut is just what a 'southpaw' would inflict on himself."

For the practical-minded MacMorran, everything points towards suicide with the wound being the clincher ("it's that left-handed cut on the throat I can't get over"). Beside, the house was deserted at the time. Oliver's father is in Scotland to attend family business, his mother and sister are in Bournemouth holidaying and his younger brother is on a hiking tour somewhere. Bathurst believes it was murder without much to support his theory, until Oliver's sister Margaret returns home screaming blue murder that her brother had been deliberately killed. Reason why she believes that has all to do with her brother's bathing habits, the position of the bath plug and the water tap ("...the person who used this bath on Monday evening was not my brother Peter... it was my brother Peter's murderer"). Bathurst agrees, however, his evidence remains as infinitesimally small as the tiny piece of fabric discovered in the groove of the razor handle. A microscopic point for Bathurst, but not enough to sway MacMorran. Not yet, anyway.

So the friendly mental sparring and verbal bantering between Bathurst and MacMorran makes for a fun, first-half with an intriguingly-posed central puzzle, but the case doesn't remain static forever as new, unexpected developments begin to pile on – tipping the scales in favor of Bathurst's views. A noteworthy development is the disappearance, and reappearance, of £20,000 worth of San Jonquilo bonds from Delaney's bank. San Jonquilo is the fictitious South American country Flynn introduced nearly twenty years previously in The Orange Axe (1931). Bathurst mentions Sir Beverley Pelham and the Presidency of Sebastian Loredana in passing. This is one of those minor, but attractive, parts of Flynn's detective fiction. While the series wildly differ from book to book, jumping from a chase thriller or hunting for pulp-style serial killer to an old-fashioned drawing room mystery, Flynn always let his readers know they take place in the same universe. For example, the side-characters from his first novel, The Billiard-Room Mystery (1927), turned up or were mentioned in subsequent novels. One of those small touches to help the illusion the series takes place in a universe of its own. Not to mention how it was used to show how Bathurst's reputation grow by word of mouth.

Anyway, the ending and reveal of the very well-hidden, relatively fairly clued murderer was handled with Flynn customary deftness. Only two plot-points left me a little dissatisfied. Firstly, the real motive is hidden too well. You can still identify the murderer, if you pay attention, but most will probably look in a very different direction for the motive. Secondly, I wish there was a single clue to the "quary note" found on Oliver's body (ROT13: whfg fubj uvf ebbz unf n obbxpnfr penzzrq jvgu qrgrpgvir abiryf). That last one is a minor quibble that can be ignored. So other than the perhaps too well-hidden motive, Men for Pieces is an inconspicuously solid entry in the series showing Flynn was still going strong as the Golden Age detective story was about to enter its twilight years. So look forward to going over the other reprints!

Job Hunting: "The Man Who Talked with Spirits" (1943) by Herbert Brean

Last month, I reread Herbert Brean's Wilders Walk Away (1948), which disappointed the first time round, but turned out to be quite good when read on its terms without the unreasonable, highly stacked expectations build up over the decades – demanding a John Dickson Carr-like masterpiece. So wanted to return to Brean's work by sampling one of his obscure, rarely reprinted short stories.

Brean's "The Man Who Talked with Spirits" originally appeared in the September, 1943, issue of Thrilling Detective and reprinted, only once, in the July, 1954, issue of Thrilling Detective (UK).

The story opens with "Tick" Johnson and his partner/narrator, Fred Murphy, wake up in their one-room hotel apartment by "the devil's own door-pounding" coming from the hall outside their door. There they find a patrol man, a plainclothes detective and the hotel manager trying to break down the door to another apartment. When the door is broken down, they see the body of a man spread crosswise on the bed with a bullet wound in his heart and a .32 revolver lying on his chest. Sergeant McClelland is ready to call it a suicide, "door was locked and there's no other entrance," when Tick buds into the investigation and begins pointing out all the inconsistencies – which all tell him "that lad didn't kill himself." Tick introduces himself and his partner as a pair of private detectives, but Murphy confides to the reader they're not private detectives. They're disgraced newspaper reporters "hunting jobs on a new paper in a new town." Tick's decision to insert themselves into the investigation, to get an inside scoop, has consequences.

Not only was the hotel room locked from the inside, but the only other tenants on that floor when the murder was committed. The elevator boy swore nobody had come on or departed from that floor and "no killer escaped down those stairs," because they were being painted at the time. So now they have to find a solution in order to preserve their own necks.

That brings us to Mr. Sanda, murder victim and spiritualist, who on the previous night had conducted a séance on the floor above. Sanda had not been since he retreated to his room, until the door was broken down. So the potential suspects include Madam Vera Pool, consulting medium, who wanders around the hotel in a white garb and claims Sanda's ghost told her who killed him. But promised she would never tell. Ivan Karanovich, the Wire-Walker, who has a long-dragging feud with Sanda dating back to their days at the circus. William Holbrook, a young playboy and son of the late Senator Holbrook, had his own reasons to dislike Sanda. Who did it and how? Tick reveals all when he and Murphy crash a séance to hand the murderer over to Sergeant McClelland neatly wrapped in evidence. But how good is it?

First of all, the locked room-trick itself to get away from the crime scene is nothing special, or groundbreaking, but how it was employed under the given circumstances and allowed for a cleverly-hidden murderer was not half bad. I also liked how the locked room-trick ultimately proved to be the murderer's undoing. So, plot-wise, a decent enough short detective story, but it's the characters of "Tick" Johnson and Fred Murphy who steal the show. They recall Craig Rice's screwball mysteries about Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak, traveling photographers/conmen, who first appeared in The Sunday Pigeon Murders (1942). So if you like those American screwball mysteries of the murder-can-be-fun school, Brean's "The Man Who Talked with Spirits" is definitely worth a read.