Reckoning at the Riviera Royale (2022) by P.J. Fitzsimmons

P.J. Fitzsimmons' Reckoning at the Riviera Royale (2022) is the fifth, of currently nine, novels starring Anthony "Anty" Boisjoly, idler and sleuth, who accepts an invitation from his mother to join her on the Côte d'Azur – where he intends to have an awkward confrontation ("...did you arrange to pop off Papa?"). Anty travels to the Riviera Royale, "an ornate, Victorian-era hotel and casino," on the island of Cap Royale. When he arrives, Anty learns from his mother a violent death has taken and the killer is scheduled to be executed.

The victim is a clown, Malandrino the Magnificent, who was touring the Riviera by steam yacht as part of Deebee Digby's Cirque d'Azur. What remained of Malandrino, dressed in a mouse custom, was found in the cage of the circus elephant, Thumpy, where the animal had stepped on him ("repeatedly, by all evidence"). Deebee intends to recuperate the financial loss suffered from losing his center ringer by executing Thumpy in "the most spectacular fashion possible" and "sell tickets to the event." Previous novels shown Anty to be a friend to the animals, striking up a friendship with a cemetery crow in The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse (2022), who's naturally appalled at the prospect ("has this elephant received due process under French law?"). Anty is determined to proof Thumpy's innocence and prevent Deedee from being publicly executing him.

Good on him, however, have to admit the following exchange between Anty and Deedee made me laugh when Deedee tells Anty electrocution is going to be the method of execution.

 

Anty: "you can't electrocute Thumpy."

Deedee: "I wouldn't have thought so either, but the manufacturer stands by his generator. I have a written guarantee."

 

Fortunately, true to his intrepid nature as a sleuth hound, Anty uncovers clues and evidence Malandrino was "murdered by human hand" with more than enough motives to go around – not only for torturing animals. Malandrino is one of those characters whom Scott, a regular in the comments, would probably nominate for the Hall of Shame of "murderable victims" who had it coming. Just one problem: everyone with a motive also have a collective alibi. Everyone was on a yacht out on sea enjoying a seafood barbecue and fireworks ("alibis all round"). They're the bunch of strange, eccentric characters you'd expect from a detective story with a circus background. You have Malandrino's replacement act, Norton Bean, who's better known as "Beano, The Astounding Bounding Bean." A bigger hack reviewer than yours truly, Max Minefield, who considers himself to be the circus critic. Bidelia Mimpley and Myrtle Biddicomb, known as the biddies, are two spinsters and circus fans ("camp followers") who never miss a show. Anty even meets two obscure relatives, Aunt Jacqueline Quillfeather and her daughter Chadwick. So even without a second body turning up and cheating going on in the hotel casino, Anty can't get around to having that sit down with his mother

This series is billed as a series of locked room mystery novels and Fitzsimmons comments in the afterword that Reckoning at the Riviera Royale has "one of the more original impossible murders that Anty has had to untangle." I agree that the solution to the murder of Malandrino is not only original, but ingenious, daring and absolutely hilarious – which perhaps not everyone's going to buy. Something straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, almost too preposterous to even take as a joke, had it not been for Fitzsimmons trying to make it sound plausible. Not an easy task when your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek. How the trick is made to look somewhat credible does have a touch of John Dickson Carr (phffrqarff bs nyy guvatf trareny). That being said, it's not an impossible crime or anywhere near something resembling a locked room mystery. It's a howdunit, an absolute bonkers howdunit, in which alibis have to be broken down instead of locked doors. So, plot-wise, more like Christopher Bush than Carr. Well, if Bush had been a longtime resident of a mental asylum.

That's just one murder. Anty still has to deal with a second murder, the shenanigans of his newfound relatives and find a minute to have that talk with his mother about his father's untimely passing. This is done with the customary light, humorous tone and witticism from previous novels, but Reckoning at the Riviera Royale has a plot that comes closer to matching the best in the series, The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (2021). The Case of the Canterfell Codicil (2020), The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine (2021) and the already mentioned The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse all had the series trademark humor and genre spoofing, but their solutions lacked the imagination that made The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning such a promising introduction to the series. Not a criticism that can be leveled against Reckoning at the Riviera Royale. So, if you want a mystery with some color and imagination flashing out of its plot, Fitszimmons and Reckoning at the Riviera Royale have you covered!

I loved it enough to The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich (2023) up the pile, but first need to get around to a few other recently published locked room mysteries like J.L. Blackhurst's Smoke and Murders (2024) and Tom Mead's recently published The House at Devil's Neck (2025).