Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle (2002) by NisiOisiN

Earlier this month, I posted a review of a Japanese light novel, Seimaru Amagi's Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), which can be best described to Western readers unfamiliar with anime or manga as Young Adult novels illustrated with manga artwork. Light novels cover a wide variety of genres and the detective story, popular as ever in Japan, has not been overlooked.

Murder On-Line is part of The Kindaichi Case Files series and mentioned in my review a number of light detective novels, such as Kazuki Sakuraba's Gosick: Goshikku (Gosick: The Novel, 2003), but the oddest series to be translated is undoubtedly Zaregoto – of which two titles have been published by Del Rey and were recently reissued by Vertical. The series comprises of nine novels that were originally published between 2002 and 2005. Hopefully, Vertical decided to continue publishing the series.

Zaregoto series was conceived by the palindromic "NisiOisiN," a stylized, open penname of Nisio Isin, who debuted with Zaregoto series: kubikiri saikuru (Zaregoto, Book 1: The Kubikiri Cycle, 2002) and won him the 23rd Mephisto Prize at just twenty years of age. NisiOisiN has since worked on a dozen different series and notably penned Anazā nōto – Rosanzerusu BB renzoku satsujin jiken (Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Case, 2006). A prequel to the popular Death Note series expanding on the briefly mentioned murder case of the book-title.

The Kubikiri Cycle appears on the surface to be traditionally-structured, old-fashioned detective novel, but the zany plot, quirky characters and sometimes schizoid storytelling makes it standout – somewhat comparable to Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning. This is the reason why this series is so difficult to recommend to readers who have never been exposed to mystery anime or manga series.

However, if you're just a filthy casual, like yours truly, you'll find an entertaining detective story in The Kubikiri Cycle with a couple of cleverly thought out and original impossible crimes.

Akegami Iria is "the black sheep granddaughter of the Akagami Foundation" and has been exiled to Wet Crow's Feather Island, a tiny speck in the Sea of Japan, where she has lived for five years with her four maids. She has been forbidden to leave this "godforsaken island" in "the middle of nowhere" and, to combat the encroaching loneliness and boredom, she decided to invite the geniuses of the world to her island mansion – who represent every imaginable discipline in science, art and beyond. When the story opens, there are twelve people on Wet Crow's Feather Island.

There's a wheelchair bound painter, Ibuki Kanami, who's accompanied by her personal attendent, Sakaki Shinya. A chef extraordinaire, Sashirono Yayo, and famous fortune-teller, Himena Maki, who advises "bigwig politicians and corporate clients." Sonoyama Akane is a scholar of the highest order and member of the ER3 System, a group of geniuses among geniuses, who has risen to the ranks of one of the Seven Fools of ER3. Finally, there's a blue-haired girl, Sashirono Tomo, who's a genius engineer and ex-leader of shadowy group of hackers who appeared out of nowhere during the 1990s. Tomo is accompanied by the narrator and reluctant protagonist of the series, simply known as Ii-chan, but his real name is never revealed and, while prone to downplaying his own abilities, had been enrolled in the ER3 program for five years – before dropping out and returning to Japan. And he's the one who solves the baffling murders on Wet Crow's Feather Island. For the most part anyway.

The cast is further padded out by Akegami Iria's four maids. There are three sisters, Akari, Hikari and Teruko Chiga, who are overseen by the head maid of the mansion, Handa Rei.

Admittedly, story begins rather slowly with Ii-chan interacting with the people on the island, reflecting on his situation and peppered with the occasional philosophical exchange. Normally, this is merely to establish the characters and pave the way for the plot. However, the narrator here is a little bit different and over the course of the story a picture emerges of a cold, introverted 19-year-old student who prefers to keep people at a distance and observe them. Not get involved in anything. A social hermit with a distinctly dark undercurrent. This makes him somewhat of an unreliable narrator. And, from what I understand, the personality of the narrator is more deeply explored in later installments.

The inevitable murder finally happens after an unexpected earthquake rocks the tiny island and the genius artist, Ibuki Kanami, is discovered without her head in a locked atelier, but the earthquake has toppled a shelf with paint cans – creating "a river of paint." There was no way to cross this river without stepping in the still wet paint and, forgetting the closed and locked windows for a moment, this means the murder was committed before the earthquake. Only one person was unable to produce a convincing alibi for this period, Sonoyama Akane.

So our narrator conceives a simple, but effective, plan to prevent any further murders: isolate the prime-suspect behind the locked door of the first-floor storage room. If Akane is the culprit, she isn't able to commit any other murders, but if someone else happens to be the murderer, this person is "brought to a standstill." Or so he thought.

Akane is brutally murdered in the locked storage room, her head cleanly removed from her shoulders, but the only key to the room was in possession of Hikari Chiga. There's a window, very high up in the wall, which would mean "a two-story dive" if the murderer had entered, or left, through the window. So it was "virtually impossible" for someone to climb out and "even more implausible" that someone had climbed.

A third, quasi-impossible crime is committed when someone smashes Tomo's computers to pieces, which had crime-scene photos on it, but everyone present on the island was in possession of an alibi.

The Kubikiri Cycle actually begins to resemble one of those traditionally-structured mystery novels from the Japanese shin honkaku school of detective fiction with alibis, sealed rooms and a central trick, or gimmick, nearly as great as the one from Soji Shimada's Senseijutsu satsujinjiken (The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, 1981) – which is where the plot draws is its strength from. Granted, the murder in the room "sealed" by a river of paint bare of any footprints was incredibly simple, but the beheading in the storage room is good representation of the Japanese detective story in all its glory.

A corpse in a Western detective novel or short story is (usually) nothing more than a passive, inanimate object with the plot and characters moving around it, but in Japanese mysteries they often turn out to be linchpin of the plot. Keigo Higashino's Yogisha X no kenshin (The Devotion of Suspect X, 2005) is a good example of this. Even more impressive is when a body is used to create, what appears to be, "an uncommitable crime." And it's simply astonishing when a victim turns out to tie everything together: murderer's identity, a well-hidden motive and the locked room-trick, which is exactly what NisiOisiN accomplished here. No wonder they chugged an award at him for this.

However, Ii-chan only puts together the bare bones of the plot, but it takes a world-famous detective, Aikawa Jun, to answer the last, unresolved questions and exposes another plot-layer, or two, in the process. Absolutely brilliant!

All in all, The Kubikiri Cycle was an incredibly clever, ingeniously constructed locked room mystery told in the style of an anime-detective series with manga aesthetics. The result is a very unusual, but original, piece of crime fiction. Now that I have finally reread The Kubikiri Cycle, I can move on to Zaregoto series: kubishime romanchisuto (Zaregoto, Book 2: The Kubishime Romanticist, 2002), but don't worry. My next post will be a return to the Western detective story.

By the way, Vertigo has reprinted these two Zaregoto titles as Decapitation: Kubikiri Cycle and Strangulation: Kubishime Romanticist. They were reprinted 2017 and 2018. So maybe we can expect the first translation of the third book this year. Here's hoping!

Murder On-Line (1996) by Seimaru Amagi

I suppose only a tiny fraction of my regular blog readers are aware, or have read, a Japanese "light novel." Light novels are targeted at high-and middle school aged readers (i.e. Young Adults) and have an average length of fifty thousand words with the distinguishing characteristic that the books are illustrated with manga artwork depicting various scenes or characters from the story – naturally our beloved detective story is fairly represented in light novels. Some of these light mystery novels have been translated into English.

Japanese edition

Zaregoto series: kubikiri saikuru (Zaregoto: Book 1: The Kubikiri Cycle, 2002) by the pseudonymous "NisiOisiN" is an extremely odd, but very good locked room novel, with apparently impossible decapitations on a small, isolated island in the Sea of Japan. Kazuki Sakuraba's Gosick: Goshikku (Gosick: The Novel, 2003) and Gosick II: Goshikku: Sono tsumi wa na mo naki (Gosick: The Crime That Has No Name, 2004) is set in antebellum Europe, which is laced with Ruritanian aesthetics and the series has an impossible crime or two. The Crime That Has No Name was actually somewhat reminiscent of a Paul Halter novel (c.f. The Demon of Dartmoor, 1993).

I'm sure these series convey very little to most of my readers, but during the late 1990s, Kodansha published a quadrilogy of light novels part of detective series most of you should be aware of by now.

The Kindaichi Case Files is a long-running manga series that has spawned numerous anime adaptations, live-action TV series, video games and nine light novels, which were penned by Seimaru Amagi – who's responsible for some of the best stories in the manga series (e.g. The Prison Prep School Murder Case and The Rosenkrauz Mansion Murders). These light novels were illustrated by the original artist of The Kindaichi Case Files and Detective Academy Q, Famiya Satō.

The four books that were translated into English are Opera-za kan arata naru satsujin (The New Kindaichi Case Files, 1994), Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), Shanhai gyojin densetsu satsujin jiken (The Shanghai River Demon's Curse, 1997) and Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998), but copies have become increasingly rare over time. And expensive. So maybe its time someone reprinted them in an omnibus edition, because Murder On-Line proved to be a pure, plot-driven detective story with an ingenious alibi-trick worthy of Christopher Bush and Agatha Christie. A trick that made the story a quasi-impossible crime novel, but not close enough to label it such.

Murder On-Line is a mystery novel reminiscent of Yukito Ayatsuji's Jakkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987) and Peter Lovesey's Bloodhounds (1996), in which "a group of crime and suspense fiction fans" from a chap-group, the On-Line Lodge, meet each other offline at an isolated, practically deserted mountain ski-resort, Silverwood Lodge – they only know each other by their online aliases. The names they picked for themselves are "Agatha," "Watson," "Ranpo," "Patricia," "Sojo," "Spenser" and "Sid," but one of them has a third (secret) identity. An identity simply known as "Trojan Horse" and this person has murder in his or her heart.

Hajime Kindaichi and Nanase Miyuki end up Silverwood Lodge after getting lost in the snowy mountains, but when the group of mystery fans learn Kindaichi is the grandson of the celebrated detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, they insist they stay the night. And a blizzard effectively strands them there.

Kindaichi and Miyuki are the unknown quantity introduced in the murderer's carefully planned scheme, but "Trojan Horse" merely sees them as “a minor bug” in the program that can be handled. Only "two more characters" who showed up to play the game. The first murder is committed that very same day, but everyone has an alibi: "Agatha" was being intimate with "Ranpo." "Patricia," "Sid" and "Watson" were having an online conversation when they were in their private cottages, which can be proved with chat-logs. Kindaichi and Miyuki were together. There's "an alibi for everyone." Kindaichi describes the murder as an impossible crime, because it was committed in "an isolated lodge" with all of the suspects alibied.

English-language edition

However, as good as the alibi-trick is, it doesn't meet my qualifications to be regarded as either a locked room mystery or impossible crime.

Back in 2017, I posted a comment to a blog-post by Dan, of The Reader is Warned, entitled "But is it a locked room mystery? The case of the impossible alibi," which asked if an alibi-trick can be considered an impossible crime. My answer is that an impossible alibi can't solely relay on eyewitnesses or physical pieces of evidence (i.e. train tickets), but murderer should appear to have been physically incapable of having committed the crime. For example, the murderer was in police custody or appeared to have been wounded/hospitalized (e.g. Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect, 2003). There must be a serious physical limitation placed on the murderer and Christie wrote a rather well-known detective novel that used this kind of impossible alibi to perfection.

This was simply not the case here and the alibis fall apart when you consider two, or more, people working together. The chat-group alibi is not exactly rock solid either, because they all had laptops and the murderer could have been chatting from the victim's cottage. The group could even have suspected the two outsiders, Kindaichi and Miyuki. Something that was not considered or even mentioned in the story. And the clueing was a bit scant. The solution is still hinted at, but not as strong as in the best stories from the anime or manga series. However, you can probably blame the light novel format for that. Amagi didn't had the space to craft an ingenious plot like the one from The Prison Prep School Murder Case. Let alone to throw out too many complications or red herrings.

I should also note here that the last murder is quasi-locked room: a member of the chat-group was barricaded inside a cottage, but the murderer squirted two different liquids underneath the door into the cottage, which formed a deadly cyanide gas – giving the victim just enough time to leave behind a dying message. Technically, you could qualify it as a locked room crime, but it was never treated as such in the story. By the way, this is not a spoiler. The murder is shown to the reader.

So, Murder On-Line is not a locked room novel, but, as a traditionally-structured whodunit, it was brilliantly handled with an ingenious alibi-trick. The prologue gave us a glimpse of a perfect crime that was actually, well, perfect. A crime so perfect, it required private revenge to rectify it. An all too common theme in the Kindaichi series and they have done this motive to death, but the back-story to the murders was very detailed here. Usually, the series uses this motive as nothing more than to create incredibly and ambitious murderers. But this one was very well done. You can almost understand why the murderer planned on leaving six bodies at the mountain lodge.

Naturally, Kindaichi can't allow "Trojan Horse" to take out everyone in the group and not only has to demolish the murderer's carefully staged alibi, but has to separate everyone online identity from who they really are. And has to interpret such clues as the previously mentioned dying message and a body found buried in the snow behind one of the cottages. I particularly liked how the chat-group and early internet (culture) were woven into the scheme of the overall plot. Once again, it's a perfect example of modern technology can be incorporated in a traditionally-styled detective story. More amazingly, the book was published in 1996 and this makes it a far-sighted story as far as internet culture is concerned.

So, all things considered, Murder On-Line is a good and cleverly worked out detective novel with a splendid and original alibi-trick. The setting and cast of suspects consisting of a group of crime fiction readers, who use detective-themed nicknames, makes the book highly recommendable to readers who enjoyed Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murder and Lovesey's Bloodhounds. A great companion piece to those two mystery novels.

I sincerely hope someone decides to reprint The New Kindaichi Case Files (titled in Japan Opera House – The New Murder), Murder On-Line, The Shanghai River Demon's Curse and Deadly Thunder. And, perhaps, translate the remaining five titles from this series. Do you think Ho-Ling Wong, the Carl Horn of Locked Room International, has any plans for the upcoming holidays? Translating a light novel won't be as much work as a regular novel, right? More importantly, it would make me happy. :D

Stranger at the Inlet (1946) by Martin Colt

A year ago, I reviewed The Clue of the Phantom Car (1953) and The Mystery of the Invisible Enemy (1959) by "Bruce Campbell," a penname of Sam and Beryl Epstein, who cemented their legacy as the pioneers of the present-days Young Adult genre with the acclaimed Ken Holt series – which tended to be darker and more intricately plotted than most juvenile mystery series of the period. What's not as well known is that Ken Holt has a predecessor, Roger Baxter, who appeared in a couple of novels during the late 1940s.

The series comprises of three novels, Stranger at the Inlet (1946), The Secret of Baldhead Mountain (1946) and The Riddle of the Hidden Pesos (1948), which were published under two different names, "Charles Strong" and "Martin Colt." A very short-lived series, but as highly regarded by fans as the more well-known Holt series. And not without reason!

Roger Baxter is the 14-year-old protagonist of the series who lives with his 12-year-old brother, Bill, in the small, coastal town of Seaview and they were obviously the prototypes for Ken Holt and Sandy Allen.

Roger is, very much like Ken, the meticulous, rationally-minded thinker of the two. However, the difference between Ken and Sandy, who are the same age, is due to intelligence, while the difference between Roger and Bill is clearly age, because Roger has already began to mature and Bill is still in the phase between childhood and adolescence – which can make him a little bit naive at times. Roger and Bill are two very well-drawn, believable child characters on par with the children and teenagers found in the work of Gladys Mitchell.

The story opens during the summer holiday and the boys are planning to make a windmill on top of the empty cottage, owned by their parents, which they have come to regard "more or less as their private property." Unfortunately, their mother informs them the cottage has been rented for two months to a man, Robert "Slim" Warner, who wants a quiet place to recuperate from an operation. Luckily, Slim has no problem with Roger and Bill mounting a windmill on the roof of the cottage to generate electricity for the cottage. However, they soon begin to pick up hints and clues that Slim is not who he says he is.

Slim says he came to Seaview to convalesce, but carried around heavy bag, two at a time, without any trouble or pain. He drives "an old wreck of a car," but the motor in it "sounds almost brand-new." A power generator was delivered to the cottage, but Roger knows he never send the telegram to ask for it. And then there's the mysterious, late-night visitor to the cottage and they boys overheard them talking about Smugglers' Island.

An answer to all of these questions come, roughly, a quarter into the story, which plunges Roger and Bill head first into an exciting adventure that involves an elaborate smuggling operation – who use the peaceful, out-of-the-way seaside town as a clearing point. But this is all I can say about the plot without giving away too much.

What I can say about the story is that plot has a lot of nuts and bolts, which makes it a younger relative of Freeman Wills Crofts and John Rhode. The early chapter detailing how Roger, Bill and Slim build the windmill on top of the cottage reads like a partial instruction manual and they learn how to operate "a six-volt radio." As well as getting a crash course in Morse code. A combination of the two is put to ingenious use when they find themselves in a tight corner towards the end of their adventure. Obviously, a book that was written for young boys and teenagers.

The sole weakness of this excellently written novel is that the chase was more exciting, and fun, than the eventual capture of the culprits, which hardly came as a surprise. Something that enervates most juvenile mysteries for older readers.

Nonetheless, Stranger at the Inlet is a beautifully written, characterized and adventurous mystery novel with an equally beautiful, well-imagined backdrop. The writers evidently knew and respected their young audience, which they would come to perfect in the Ken Holt series when their plots became really trick and far more serious – fraught with very real, dangerous situations and consequences. So these two series are without question a cut above other juvenile series and can be enjoyed by young and old alike. Just for that, they deserve to be rediscovered.

Clue Club: The Real Gone Gondola (1976)

Previously, I reviewed a book recommended by "JJ" of The Invisible Event, namely Impossible Bliss (2001), which was written by Lee Sheldon, a game designer and scriptwriter, who published the book independently, but the overall quality of the story is notably better than your average self-published novel – particularly the splendid detective-character, Herman Bliss. Sheldon stumbled across JJ's review and left some interesting comments.

In one of his comments, Sheldon posted a list of all the impossible crime fiction he has written and tacked on some brief, but enticing, plot-description. A story-line from the mystery-themed soap opera, The Edge of Night, has a "murder by strangulation with a chain in a gazebo surrounded by snow" with "only the victim's footprints leading to the gazebo." There are a number of episodes from Blacke's Magic listed and an unpublished, untitled short story about a murder inside "a glass revolving door" with only "the victim inside and police both inside and out." Surprisingly, the one that intrigued me the most came from an obscure, 1970s cartoon show.

The Real Gone Gondola (1976) is the third episode of the Hanna-Barbera produced Clue Club, a bargain basement Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, which has an elderly, wheelchair bound woman evaporating from a closely observed ski-lift gondola as it rises up a mountain – commenting that he's certain that "the solution to this one has never been used." I'm afraid I have some bad news about that, but I'll get to that later.

Clue Club originally aired on CBS from August 14, 1976 to September 3, 1977 and had replaced Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! in the Saturday morning lineup.

The one-season series had sixteen episodes that followed the escapades of a group of teenage detectives, Larry, Pepper, D.D. and Dottie, who are accompanied by two dogs, Woofer and Whimper. The dogs here can only talk with each other, but the whole setup really can only be described as a discount Scooby-Doo. This made the cleverly constructed puzzle of a vanishing woman from a moving, closely observed gondola stand out like a sore thumb. Who would expect an authentic impossible disappearance with actual clues in an obscure cartoon show like this?

Mrs. Coldwell is the elderly, wheelchair bound woman and owner of the Blizzard Mountain ski resort, but lately, she has been receiving threatening letters from "some cook," signing his letters as Vortex, demanding two million dollars – or else "he'll disintegrate her." Sheriff Bagley and Larry of the Clue Club watch how Mrs. Coldwell is wheeled into the gondola by her nephew, Tom Coldwell, who goes back to fetch her a blanket, but she already started the gondola when he comes running back. And when it reached the top of the mountain, Sheriff Bagley and Larry are greeted by an empty wheelchair with a hat and a pile of clothes on it! Vortex had made good on his promise!

Admittedly, this is a grand premise for an impossible crime and this series has no right to something as good as this, but it didn't stop with a neatly posed and baffling disappearance.

A false solution is (briefly) raised when it was suggested Mrs. Coldwell could have been moved into an adjacent gondola traveling downward, which is not a bad idea had the door of the downward gondola not have been on the opposite side. Even then, you probably would not have enough time to make the switch. There are clues to the two, separate parts of the vanishing-trick. The clue to the first part of the trick is one of those tell-tale clues that practically tell you all that you need to know and showed that the obvious suspect was indeed guilty, but the target audience probably wouldn't be able to figure out the second part – which is more technical in nature. So the impossible problem really stands as something exceptionally good in an otherwise mediocre, knock-off cartoon.

A second, quasi-impossible situation occurs when the Clue Club encounters a snow mobile patrolling the area, but without a driver on it. You can easily guess the solution to this one. However, it was a nice little extra and sort of is another nod at the guilt of the culprit. The rest of the episode is fluff and filler with the two dogs acting as comedy fodder. Mrs. Coldwell's disappearance from a closed, moving and watched gondola is the only reason to watch this episode. So only to be recommended to locked room and impossible crime addicts.

Sheldon had said he was certain the solution to this impossible situation has never been used and mentioned here above that I had some bad news. Well, it has been used before. More than once. There's a short story from the same period as this episode that uses exactly the same trick and a locked room novel from 1942 uses an interesting variation. Another variation on this idea can be found in locked room novel from 1940.

So not exactly a first, but still a well done impossible crime story that deserved a better medium than this show to be told in.

Lastly, Sheldon wrote another locked room mystery for Clue Club, entitled The Walking House Caper (1976), in which an "impregnable safe built in a room vanishes" even though "it is too large to pass through any doors or windows." So I might return to this series for just that one episode, but first I want to see if I can track down those Edge of Midnight episodes.

The Locked Safe Mystery (1954) by Norvin Pallas

Norvin Pallas was "a free-lance writer" whose "day job was part-time accounting" and is remembered today, if he's remembered at all, as the author of a series of intelligently written, well-characterized juvenile mysteries with "complicated, logical, adult-style plots" starring a high-school newspaper reporter, Ted Wilford – inviting comparisons with the Ken Holt series by Bruce Campbell. Campbell and Pallas not only had similar series-detectives, but also had "a high regard for children" and "their thinking abilities."

Pallas knew he was writing for children and, to use his own words, "respected them for it" and did not talk down to them. On the contrary, Pallas appeared to have treated his readership as his intellectual equals and that might have actually been a serious flaw in the series.

Mathematical puzzles, games and codes were Pallas' "consuming interest," writing such non-fiction books as Calculator Puzzles, Tricks and Games (1976) and Games with Codes and Ciphers (1994), which is reflected in the complicated plots of the Ted Wilford stories – designed like puzzles with "clues and bits of germane information." Apparently, even older readers were not always successful in anticipating the solution. This, coupled with a complete lack of action and excitement, probably made this series a little bit too dry and cerebral for its intended audience.

Nonetheless, I was intrigued when I learned of this series and one title, in particular, beckoned for my attention. You can probably deduce from the post-title what attracted my attention. What can I say? I have an unhealthy love for locked room puzzles.

But before I take a look at the book in question, I would like to point out that all of the background information was scraped from a single (PDF) article, "A Dark Horse Series: The Ted Wilfords," written by David M. Baumann and is perhaps the only credible, in-depth source of information to be found on this series – discussing the author, characters, plots and honestly assessing the strength and weaknesses of the series. A really well-written, informative and honest article. It's definitely worth a read if you're interested in juvenile detective fiction and this obscure series in particular.

The Locked Safe Mystery (1954) is the second title in a series of fifteen books, beginning with The Secret of Thunder Mountain (1951) and concluding with The Greenhouse Mystery (1967), which follows the exploits of a high-school student, Ted Wilford. Reportedly, he "grows older from one book to the next" and graduates from high-school halfway through the series with the last books taking place during his college years. This second title shows him taking his first, tentative steps over the threshold of adulthood and gets taste of the perks, and challenges, that come with the responsibilities trust upon him as a young adult.

The story begins with Ted receiving some bad news from his doctor: a nagging ankle injury makes him ineligible for the high-school football team, because his ankle is still vulnerable and not ready for the strain of a football game. So this naturally puts a damper on his mood. However, the Forestdale High School newspaper, the Statesman, unanimously elects him as their new editor-in-chief and his hometown's twice-weekly paper, The Town Crier, took him on as a special high-school correspondent – following in the footsteps of his older brother, Ronald Wilford. Over the course of the story, Ted learns (as editor) that you can't please anyone and (as a cub-correspondent) that you have to begin at the bottom of the ladder. But this is not all he has on his plate.

Ted is asked by the new assistant principle of the school, Mr. Clayton, to assist him with the annual charity fund raiser during the Fall Festival and the event netted a sum of $13,000, which is placed in a strong-box and locked inside the school safe. However, the money disappears from the safe and only three people knew the combination: the high-school principle, the assistant principle and a secretary, but only one of those three people, namely Mr. Clayton, has inexplicably disappeared. Ted is the only person who really believes him to be innocent and writes an editorial, accidentally published in The Town Crier, making a case in his favor. Something, in itself, that will prove to be valuable lesson to the aspiring newspaper reporter.

So the problem of the theft of the charity money from the locked school safe, if you believe those three aforementioned people to be innocent, presents the reader with a quasi-impossible situation.

Unfortunately, this problem is resolved during a dry-as-dust courtroom scene when a lock-expert gives a technical explanation for this problem that you expect to find in Freeman Wills Crofts or John Rhode. You can hardly blame children, or even (older) teenagers, for not figuring out this trick. Which is a pity, since I can think of at least two tricks this particular thief could have used to open the safe. On the upside, this explanation revealed a second layer to the problem that's a genuine, full-fledged locked room puzzle. I can't say too much about it, because this development comes very late in the story, but the locked room trick was decent enough. A trick of the same caliber as Bruce Campbell's The Mystery of the Invisible Enemy (1959) and William Arden's The Mystery of the Shrinking House (1972).

Well, this is all I can really say about The Locked Safe Mystery. The story is skillfully-written, cleverly plotted and realistically presented, especially the life and personality of the main-character, Ted, but the pace is incredibly slow and the story is completely devoid of action or excitement – actually making this some kind of crossword puzzle in prose form. Personally, as a plot-oriented mystery reader, I didn't mind too much, but I have to wonder how this approach was able to attract younger readers.

I have mentioned above how this series has been compared to the Ken Holt series, but Sam and Beryl Epstein, who were behind the Campbell penname, were far more successful in balancing intelligent plotting with exciting writing and more realistic characterization to craft engaging detective stories (e.g. The Clue of the Phantom Car, 1953). The Locked Safe Mystery had intellect and a heart that was in the right place, but had no energy and was missing that all-important spark of life. Something that's absolutely necessary in a juvenile detective novel.

Still, this was an interesting read and is yet another impossible crime novel from the juvenile corner of the genre that has been overlooked by such locked room experts as Robert Adey. I hope John Pugmire, of LRI, adds them to the forthcoming supplemental edition of Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) in 2019. They deserve to be finally acknowledged.

The Mystery of the Invisible Thief (1950) by Enid Blyton

Back in 2015, I reviewed Robert Arthur's The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), an early title from the prodigious The Three Investigator series, which I read purely out of curiosity, but this excursion sparked an interest within me for juvenile mysteries and have since gone through an entire pile of them – comprising of such writers as William Arden, Bruce Campbell, Manly Wade Wellman and Capwell Wyckoff. JJ of The Invisible Event joined me and has since uncovered many interesting titles. One of his discoveries, in particularly, attracted my attention.

Enid Blyton's The Mystery of the Invisible Thief (1950) is the eight book in The Five Find-Outers series, which began with The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage (1943) and ended with The Mystery of the Banshee Towers (1961), described by JJ as "classically-styled a piece of Genius Amateur Detection as you can get." On top of that, the plot partly revolves around "a legit impossible disappearance." So it was fast-tracked to my to-be-read pile. And honestly, it didn't disappoint.

The head of The Five Find-Outers and Dog, as they're officially known, is Frederick Algernon Trotteville, simply called Fatty by everyone, who's the brains of the team and has a talent for disguises and imitations – making him the most well-rounded character of the group. Fatty somewhat reminded me of Jupiter Jones from The Three Investigators. Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets are, as JJ pointed out, just sort of there, but lacked (here at least) personalities and their characters, as well as their roles in the story, were easily interchangeable. Lastly, the group is rounded out by Fatty's jet-black Scottish Terrier, Buster. When the series began, the age-rage of the group was 8-13 years, but, from what I understood, they age (slightly) through out the series.

They live in the fictitious village of Peterswood, a quiet country place, where, according to Constable Tonks, "the only thing that happens is a dog that chases sheep" or "a man that doesn't buy his wireless license." Or so he thinks. Inspector Jenks knew better and is "a great friend” of The Find-Outers, because of "the many curious mysteries they had solved" during their school holidays in Peterswood.

However, the village policeman, Constable Theophilus Goon, refers to the children as toads or pests and always suspects them, especially Fatty, of playing dirty tricks on him – which is usually the only time when he's right. The interplay between the five children and Goon kind of reminded me of The Exploits of Quick and Flupke.

So there you have the groundwork for a series that ran for nearly twenty years and fifteen novels, but let's take a look at the title that JJ called "an unexpected delight."

The Mystery of the Invisible Thief takes place in the middle of summer holiday and the Five Find-Outers have nothing to find out, nothing to solve and only four weeks left in the holiday. Buster is terribly close to overheating and their old nemesis, Constable Goon, is temporarily away on "some kind of refresher course." So it looks to be a hot, uneventful holiday when, all of sudden, Inspector Jenks is called to Norton House, in Peterswood, where a daylight burglary has taken place. And the intruder appears to have vanished into thin air.

Jinny, the housekeeper, was alone at Norton House and half-asleep-like with her knitting work on her knees when "a sort of thudding noise" in the garden startled her. This was followed by a quickly stifled cough upstairs. Jinny notices that the gardener's ladder was standing underneath one of the windows outside and, as she was standing in the hallway of the house, also had an excellent view of the stairs, but nobody came down from either side and, when help arrived, nobody was found upstairs – all of the escape routes were eliminated as the windows were either securely closed or looked out over a dangerous, nearly fatal drop. So how did the burglar escaped from the house without being seen or caught?

Well, the clues, red herrings and red herrings that become clues once you know they're red herrings are indeed something to behold!

The burglar left behind several large glove-and boot-prints, indicating a very large man, while outside in the garden a curious print-mark was found in the soil outside. A large, roundish mark with criss-cross lines showing here and there. These clues and red herrings, in combination with the details of the burglary and statements of suspects, will immediately spell out the entire solution to older, more experienced mystery readers, but poses a genuine and fair challenge to its intended audience.

Everything fits together logically and encourages its young readers to take all of "the different clues" and fit them together "like a jigsaw puzzle" in order to create "a definite picture of the thief," which not only makes this a clever and entertaining detective story, but perhaps even educational one – as it encourages logical thinking and reasoning. All the clues are there and, for those who lagged behind, a late chapter is included in which Pip plays a trick on Fatty. A trick, or rather joke, that helps everyone understand how to properly view all of the clues. This should help everyone to see who was responsible and how the impossible disappearance was accomplished. Absolutely marvelous!

The locked room trick is not exactly, what you call, an original one, but what made it more than acceptable is how well the locked room was presented and handled. And further improved by the first-class clueing!

Anyway, the story between the opening and closing chapters contains a few more burglaries, but the high-light of these parts, besides the excellent clueing, is the parallel investigations of the five and Constable Goon. Fatty and Goon are even engaged in a battle-of-disguises, which the latter hopelessly lose. Despite getting free reign to chase a burglar, Blyton still portrayed The Five Find-Outers as genuine children on an adventure during their school holiday. Even after JJ's glowing review, this made for a leisure, but excellent, summer reading.

I'll never cease to be amazed at how many locked room and impossible crime stories there are to be found in the juvenile corner of the genre, which tend to be pretty decent tricks or even turn out to be very innovative for the time, but readers with a special interest in locked room fiction are barely aware of them – none of them made it into Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991).

Dutch edition

So, perhaps, it would be a good idea if someone, like John Pugmire's Locked Room International, published an omnibus edition of some of these relatively short juvenile locked room novels. There are more than enough potential candidates to fill such an omnibus edition: Blyton's The Mystery of the Invisible Thief, Bruce Campbell's The Clue of the Phantom Car (1953), Robert Arthur's The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965) and William Arden's The Mystery of the Shrinking House (1972). You could pepper such a collection with one or two short stories. Theodore Roscoe's "I Was the Kid With the Drum" (Four Corners, 2015) and John Russell Fearn's "The Thief of Claygate Farm" (The Haunted Gallery, 2011) immediately come to mind, but JJ also found a number of modern-day short stories in a post titled "Trifecta Perfecta – A Trio of Locked Room Riddles for Younger Readers."

I think these titles would make for a great omnibus and introduce locked room readers to a side of the impossible crime genre they're probably not too familiar with.

All in all, The Mystery of the Invisible Thief proved to be a minor gem of a detective story and is not only, plot-wise, one of the better juvenile mysteries I have read to date, but could easily serve as a textbook for mystery writers on how to properly handle clues and red herrings. Because this is what John Dickson Carr meant when he said that a good detective story has a ladder of evidence, or a pattern of evidence, which, when properly applied, can fool even the experienced reader – until, in the blaze of the surprise ending, he sees the whole pattern. Sure, the difficulty setting here was on easy, but an intelligent writer/plotter should have no problem in applying this technique, beautifully put on display here, to an adult audience. Highly recommended!