Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling (2023) by P.J. Fitzsimmons

P.J. Fitzsimmons' Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling (2023) is the seventh historical locked room comedy in the Anthony "Anty" Boisjoly series, sporting a title that could have been used for an episode of Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, but "longer and more involved" than previous entries – which "took appreciably longer to complete." Fitzsimmons noted in the afterword it took long enough to start receiving messages asking if he had given up writing. So Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling was not quite the quick read as the previous novels, but therefore no less amusing and entertaining.

Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling finds Anty Boisjoly, Vickers and apprentice valet Pendurby staying as guests at Ficklehouse House overlooking the forestry town of Ficklehouse Felling. Anty's cousin, Ripley Quillfeather, is engaged to Fabricia Ficklehouse and there something of a family get together at the ancestral seat of the Ficklehouse forestry firm that include Facricia's brother Tucker, their grandfather Ogden and his sister Maud. A special guest for the occasion is Professor Smudge, a psychic medium, to satisfy Ogden's latest interest in spiritualism. So the first chapter has them gathered around a table in the darkened library, holding hands, as Professor Smudge predicts "one of us will die in most strange and tragic circumstances" before night falls again. Anty believes Professor Smudge to be "a feckless, shameless swindler with the ethics of dry rot," only for the prediction to come true with eerie accuracy!

Maude Ficklehouse is found crushed to death underneath an immense, wrought-iron chandelier in the high-ceilinged gallery room ("...must have plunged some twelve feet..."). That just brought a smile to my face. I've always said a falling chandelier is the gentleman's weapon of choice and surprisingly rare for something that's supposed to be a trope. Anty and Inspector Ivor Wittersham argue whether, or not, this is an impossible murder and, honestly, only tagged this review as a locked room mystery on Anty's say so – because both impossible crimes lacked something essential. More on that in moment. So from the opening séance and prediction of impending death to Meade getting crushed by a chandelier under supposedly impossible circumstances, it sets certain expectations for locked room fans, but Fitzsimmons approaches the classically-styled detective story a little different from the today's locked room specialists like Paul Halter and Tom Mead. Getting a laugh is as important as the plot in this series.

Such as Ogden's determination to write his memoirs, assisted by Fabricia as in-house editor, filled with "ribald anecdotes" from his younger days ("Maude was determined to stop it ever being published, you know"). Some of which involve the shenanigans of Anty's grandfather and a young Vickers. Fitzsimmons, if you ever happen to come across this review, please give us a one-off with Tolbert Boisjoly and a young Vickers set in the 1870s! Anyway, the manuscript has the curious ability to duplicate itself, but is far from the only troublesome aspect plaguing Anty and Wittersham. Professor Smudge starts to believe his own hype. A prodigal, penniless son suddenly turns up out of the blue. Ogden's art collection that had gone up for sale without his knowledge and a one-legged duck, named Lefty, roaming Ficklehouse Felling. An age-old rivalry between Vickers and the aging Ficklehouse butler, Thistletine. The lingering question whether Maude even was the intended victim and whether more murders can be expected.

That is, of course, exactly what ends up happening. A poisoning behind a locked door and locked windows ("...largely typical for windows"), but, once again, Anty and Wittersham argue over its status as a locked room mystery. So, while I appreciated dropping a chandelier on the first victim and the second murder has a clever idea lurking behind it, what it sorely needed was a simple floor plan of Ficklehouse House. A lack of floor plans and maps is a general short coming of this series, especially when it helps for clarity and fairness' sake. Like that second locked room poisoning, but, like I said, there's a clever idea behind the how. I also couldn't help being amused at the revelation the murderer's whole scheme can be summed up as (ROT13) n snvyher nppbzcyvfurq. I thought that was funny and not irrelevant to the plot as it provided one of these clever ideas making Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling one of the better entries into the series. Even though it came up short in the locked room department.

Fortunately, I have come to appreciate this series for its characters and lighthearted humor, making them perfect palette cleansers, with every good locked room or deeper plot merely being a bonus. That being said, I hope there's another The Case of the Ghost Christmas Morning (2021) or Reckoning at the Riviera Royale (2022) among the currently four remaining Anty mysteries.

Note for the curious: the eleventh novel in the Anty Boisjoly series, Massacre at Market Middling (2026), was released in April.