Under Siege: "The Sword of Colonel Ledyard" (2000) by Edward D. Hoch

In 1995, Edward D. Hoch introduced a new character to his gallery of detectives, Alexander Swift, who's a civilian investigator and spy for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War – appearing in thirteen short stories between 1995 and 2007. Crippen & Landru collected the entire series under the title Constant Hearses and Other Revolutionary Stories (2022). I have not read anything from this series before, but one story was recommended, sometime, somewhere by someone, as an excellent historical impossible crime mystery. So decided to start as an appetizer to the series.

"The Sword of Colonel Ledyard" was first published in the December, 2000, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and takes place in September, 1781, "nearly a year since Benedict Arnold's treasonous attempt to surrender West Point to the British." General Washington received secret intelligence Benedict Arnold, now a general in the British army, has returned and is planning expedition somewhere in Connecticut to divert a part of the American army away from Washington's campaign in Virginia. Washington dispatches Swift to find out Arnold's exact plans and alert the militia in Connecticut.

That brings Swift to the city of New London, on the Thames River, defended by Fort Trumbull on the west bank and Fort Griswold on the eastern side of the river. Fort Griswold, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William Ledyard, is where Swift spends the night, but wakes up the next morning to the news "that British troops had landed under cover of darkness" and "were attacking on both sides of the harbor" – defenses were overwhelmed and eventually crumbled. Colonel Ledyard surrenders the fort and his sword to Lieutenant Colonel Potter, a Loyalist, who immediately plunged the sword into Ledyard's chest. Swift is together with the colonel's widow, two captains and two lieutenants the only survivors who now find themselves confined to guarded colonel's quarters.

Emily Ledyard demands her husband to be avenged, "one of you four, my husband's trusted officers, take revenge for his death by killing Colonel Potter by any means possible." She suggests the four draw straws, so none of them knows who really done it, which they do. Colonel Potter ends the day on the receiving end of a sword thrust, but the four officers were imprisoned together with Swift and Emily Ledyard when Potter was murdered. More pressingly than an apparent impossibility, Arnold telling he has to solve the murder because he intends to hang the murderer before departing. And if the murderer is not found before, they will all hang. So that's quite an incentive to play detective.

"The Sword of Colonel Ledyard" has a fantastic setup, plenty of historical drama and a few memorable scenes like the siege or the murder of Colonel Ledyard, but the plot is not one of Hoch's finest. I liked the idea of turning the locked-and guarded room inside to create an alibi that stands like a fortress, but found the explanation to be disappointingly unimaginative and second-rate. So, purely as a detective story or locked room mystery, "The Sword of Colonel Ledyard" came up short, but harmless as a fun, entertaining historical yarn.

Note for the curious: Mike Grost points out on his website that the Alexander Swift series can be read as an episodic novel as "the tales build on each other" to "form a united sequence, in some ways similar to a novel." So perhaps being chronologically challenged is the problem here.

The Will o' the Wisp Mystery (2024) by Edward D. Hoch

The Will o' the Wisp Mystery (2024), introduced by Tom Mead, is the latest collection of Edward D. Hoch short stories from Crippen & Landru and covers two short, but complete, series with the first being "an incredibly audacious experiment in storytelling" – a short novel made up of short stories. Six short stories, "The Pawn," "The Rook," "The Knight," "The Bishop," "The Queen" and "The King," originally serialized in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine from April to September 1971 under the name "Mr. X." The Will o' the Wisp Mystery was reprinted in complete form a decade later in the anthology Ellery Queen's Maze of Mysteries (1982), before descending into obscurity. A shame as it's one of Hoch's more inventive pieces of detective fiction. Not only for its storytelling structure!

The one-shot detective of this unusual mystery is David Piper, the Manhunter, who works for the fictitious, ambiguously-named and underfunded Department of Apprehension. Piper's department assists other law enforcement agencies in "the capture of escaped convicts, the location of parole violators" and "even on occasion the return of runaway teenagers to their parents."

So when a prison bus transferring six criminals to jail gets hijacked, the Manhunter has to track down and apprehend the escaped prisoners. Busting a prison bus that leaves two guards dead, one injured and half a dozen criminals being pursued by man nicknamed "The Manhunter" sounds hardboiled, but there's a traditionally, fairly-clued puzzle plot – cleverly hidden underneath its timely trappings. Over the course of half a dozen stories, Piper attempts to find a connection between Nick Bruno ("underworld king"), Hugh Courtney ("impostor and murderer"), Kate Gallery ("murderess"), Charlie Hall ("swindler and card cheat"), Jack Larner ("bank robber and car thief") and Joe Reilly ("forger"). And, again, why they were busted out considering the people who organized the prison van ambush paid big money ("...my theory that they're together on some sort of big caper"). Each of the six stories has a self-contained piece of the bigger picture, tied to each of the six escapees, but every story ends on a cliffhanger. And, of course, they start bleeding into each other.

For example, the second story, "The Rook," one of the escapees turns up dead and murdered in a hotel room, which is solved, but Piper has some lingering questions regarding the circumstances of the murder ("...we're being maneuvered into making exactly the moves that someone wants us to make"). So even with the killer in custody, the murder continues to cause trouble later on in the story. That makes for a very short, very compact novel of no more than six "chapters," but, as previously mentioned, The Will o' the Wisp Mystery is not merely a mystery novelty item. Solution to what lies behind the prison bust and trail of bodies, or what the hypothesized big caper could, is original, imaginative and fairly clued. Piper even tries to buy time in the last chapter by going over all six clues. I found one clue particularly ingenious and think many of today's detective fans would agree.

Let me tell you, I did some self-congratulatory back-patting when the solution I pieced together turned out to be correct. I half expected I got hold of a juicy red herring, but the modern-day Mycroft Holmes right on the money. When a detective story is actually good, like The Will o' the Wisp Mystery, the readers always wins whether you solve it or get properly hoodwinked – because both are satisfying for different reasons. For me, anyway. Just for its titular story, The Will o' the Wisp Mystery comes highly recommended.

This collection has more to offer as it includes all seven short stories in the short, but long-lived, series about an inner city priest, Father David Noone. Mead described Father Noone as "a decidedly off-beat creation," compared to other clerical sleuths, who deals with the grittier, urban crimes of modern America. Simply put, they tend to be more character focused stories than most of Hoch's mysteries. Well, they aim for that early post-WWII realism. Hoch himself has said in an interview Father Noone is a character he kept "around for just the right type of story" appearing only sporadically in his short stories. Father Noone's first three appearances were spread out over a twenty-some year period from 1963 to 1985, while the final four were published between 2002 and 2004.

"Game of Skill," originally published in the December, 1963, issue of The Saint Mystery Magazine, introduces Father Noone as he takes over the duties of the absent Monsignor at St. Monica's. On a Monday evening, Father Noone gets a threatening phone call from a man, "I'm going to blow up your church on Sunday morning." The man calls back everyday with the same threat, but everyday with a bit more venom. Father Noone is, of course, much more interested in reaching out to this troubled soul and tries to engage with him every time the phone rings. This builds up towards the Sunday mass with, story-and character-wise, an effective ending, but otherwise not much of a detective story. Hoch's early work, especially from the 1960s, is a bit spotty as some stories were just typical, gloomy 1960s crime stories (e.g. "The Oblong Room," 1967).

The next story, "The Thing in Lovers' Lane," first appeared in the July, 1971, issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and is a slight improvement on the first story published eight years previously. Father Noone's parish is rocked to its foundation when a young priest, Father Kling, is killed, under compromising circumstances, in a lovers' lane – dying in the arms of a woman named Stella. Both were "shot to death in the front seat of her car." Understanding the true relationship between the two victims is the key to solving the case. A marginal improvement over the first story with a little bit more meat to the plot, but the "clueing" here shows Hoch was more interested in the characters than the plot (ROT13: jul qebc gur X jura Y jbhyq unir orra fb zhpu orggre, orpnhfr Fgryyn Xvat fbhaqf orggre naq n yvggyr rnfvre gb zvff guna Fgryyn Yvat, juvpu whfg fgnaqf bhg).

I reviewed the third story in the series last year, but "The Sweating Statue" (1985) is the best of the three Father Noone stories published before the 2000s. Yes, it helped that has a solid and somewhat unique impossible situation to center the story and characters around.

"One More Circus," originally published in the May, 2002, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, is the first Father Noone short story from the second, short-lived period in the series from the early 2000s. So you get a far more polished story from an older, experienced Hoch than the first two stories from the '60s and early '70s. And it shows! Father Noone is asked to take on the duties as temporary chaplain for the performers of the Breen Brothers circus out in Montana, because "the Catholic Church in America was besieged by an acute shortage of priests." Father Noone agrees as it's only a three-day job, "you wouldn't miss any Sunday Masses," but his stay at the circus ends with a terrible, tragic accident revealed to be a cleverly-disguised murder – before reverting back to being a tragedy. In some ways, “One More Circus” is a similar to "Game of Skill," but the ending is better handled and thus far more effective. Even though it's not much of a detective story.

"The Arrow of Ice," original to the anthology Murder Most Catholic: Divine Tales of Profane Crimes (2002), finds Father Noone's parish during a tumultuous period. A part of his parish, "clinging to the past," are in a uproar over the plans to renovate and modernized the church. They're demonstrating the plans and the architect, Porter Macklin, who's going to redesign the church. Meanwhile, the other parishioners are preparing for an upcoming festival featuring ice sculptures. Between all of this, the visiting architect is found murdered in the kitchen of the rectory with a sliver of ice sticking out of his bloodied throat. This is one of Hoch's lesser-known, rarely discussed stories and so hoped, based on the title, it would be some clever take on the impossible crimes with the normally trite icicle weapons, but no such thing. Just a competently put together, but unremarkable, whodunit. Same can be more or less said about the next story.

"The Hand of God," first published in the January, 2003, issue of EQMM, brings Father Noone to St. Joan of Arc college to attend a conference, but it gets cancelled when a sophomore student, Darcy Clemence, is shot and killed. A second body is soon found suggesting suicide with the victim having left behind a suicide note and confession on his computer ("I didn't mean to kill her"). So was it a murder/suicide or a double murder? I think the best aspects of "The Hand of God" is its college setting and Father Noone hitting upon the solution during a performance by college drama club of Sidney Kingsley's Detective Story. Both helped to prop up the plot and solution.

"Searching for Sammy Sand," originally published in the August, 2004, issue of EQMM, is the seventh and final story in the Father Noone series. There's still a shortage of priests and Father Noone is asked to act as chaplain at the county jail, until they have a permanent replacement. One of the prisoners, Roger Colone, claims to be innocent and asks Father Noone to help him find a man by the name of Sammy Sand. Colone is a landlord who rented one of his houses, off the book, to this Sammy Sand, but turned the place into a drug house. What's more, the refrigerator, "often contains chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs," was booby trapped with a grenade. However, it was a police officer who opened the fridge and died in the explosion. And, of course, Sammy Sand is nowhere to be found. So it was Colone who was left holding the bag. Father Noone can never ignore a plea for help and begins to snoop around. The plot behind the elusive Sammy Sand and the booby trapped fridge is not terribly complex, but Hoch created some pleasing plot-patterns out of this atypical situation for a detective story. I suppose its fitting this series ends with Noone telling the culprit, "I can hear your confession."

So how to rate The Will o' the Wisp Mystery as a whole? The titular story, or short novel, is the main attraction of the collection and worth the price of admission alone, but the Father Noone stories are the customary mixed bag. "The Sweating Statue" is the standout of the series and “Searching for Sammy Sand” is probably the only other story that'll stick in my mind, which probably not going to be true for the other stories – especially the first two. But then again, I'm probably not the right person to appreciate this series. So get the collection for The Will o' the Wisp Mystery and take the Father Noone stories as an extra.

It's About Impossible Crime (2025) by James Scott Byrnside

Last time we heard of James Scott Byrnside was a short story, "The Silent Steps of Murder," posted on his blog as an appetizer to his upcoming, then untitled collection of original short stories – nearly all were still developmental stage at the time. So it took about a year and a half for the collection to materialize, but early June finally saw the publication of It's About Impossible Crime (2025). A collection of five, relatively longish stories dedicated to MacKinlay Kantor and William Spier. The title of the collection is, of course, a nod to Kantor's short story collection It's About Crime (1960) which include his two impossible crime stories "The Strange Case of Steinkelwintz" (1929) and "The Light at Three O'Clock" (1930). Spier was the radio director who worked on The Adventures of Sam Spade and Suspense series. So the tone for these stories is set!

It's About Impossible Crime starts out with the aforementioned "The Silent Steps of Murder," but already reviewed as part of "Locked and Loaded, Part 4" after it was published on Byrnside's blog. I'm not going over the story again, however, there are a couple of differences between the original and final version of the story. Byrnside originally intended It's About Impossible Crime to have an overarching storyline, concerning an enterprising serial killer who had already strangled seven women, which got scrapped. So references to that case do not appear in this final version and the fun little challenge to the reader was scrapped as well. Other than those changes, "The Silent Steps of Murder" is true to the original version I read and enjoyed last year. Simply a great retro-GAD story.

The second story is the intriguingly-titled "Where There's Smoke, There's Pazuzu" which begins with an ominous phone call to Rowan Manory, the best private detective in 1920s Chicago. A muffled voice tells him a man, named Burt Parnell, is about to be slaughtered in his office, on the third floor of the Pinnacle Place, but warns the detective there will be nothing to solve – because "this murder will be a completely supernatural affair." Manory and his assistant, Walter Williams, go to the building to investigate. When they arrive, the fire brigade is already present to put out a fire in Parnell's office, but the door is locked from the inside and they need to get out an axe to open it. Inside the partially burned office, they find what's left of Parnell sitting behind his desk without a head and his entrails spilled out on the floor. The office was turned inside out, but "no one other than the victim was found inside."

So another seemingly impossible murder for the two Chicago gumshoes, but Manory knows "the solution always lies within the bounds of reality" even when demonology rears its ugly head. In this case, the ancient demon Pazuzu of The Exorcist fame who came along with a curse placed on Parnell. This case has a personal, painfully grounded aspect for Williams, a veteran of the Great War. The daughter of Parnell is engaged to the son of an old friend from the trenches. And learns from him most of their friends who made it out have fallen on hard times or passed away, which gives Williams a pang of survivor's guilt. So a jam packed story and a pretty good one at that. I only pieced together the locked room-trick, but the murderer's identity and well-hidden motive took me by surprise. Another very well-done retro-GAD locked room mystery.

"Instrument of Death" is a non-impossible crime story, but, curiously enough, probably the best piece of detective fiction Byrnside has produced so far. Violet Reynolds, outwardly happily married, who fears her husband, Bobby, no longer loves her and decides to consult a spiritual medium. Madame Dunkel has some bad news: she sees a man standing over her corpse. A big, ugly man. And it will happen very soon ("your fate is sealed"). This large, ugly man is introduced to the reader as Dickie Daubert when he's busy hiding the body of Julie McPhee in her attic. Julie is a friend of Violet, who recently came into possession of a valuable violin, which Dickie wants to get his hands on – no matter the cost. What he has to find out is whom, of Julie's friends in the orchestra, is taking care of the violin as the bodies begin to stack. There are, however, only so many bodies you can litter across Chicago, before it attracts the attention of Manory. This time assisted by Officer Kegan, because Williams is out of town.

So without an impossible crime and a big, dumb violent brute strangling and stabbing people, "Instrument of Death" sounds more like something out of an hardboiled pulp magazine than a detective story proper. But rarely has appearances been so deceiving, even in our genre. When Dickie closes in on Violet, the story begins to twist and turn with the same brutality as the murders. I didn't see that ending coming at all and that final scene was very effective. Like a hardboiled Ellery Queen or a substantially-plotted Mike Shayne story. My favorite from this collection!

"The Preminger Curse" is an unapologetic throwback to the Gothic tales of crimes and suspense from the Doylean era of the genre. Manory travels down to Cairo, Illinois, to attend the reading of the will of two ex-clients, Dolph and Sophie Preminger. Manory is mentioned in their will and takes Williams along to the rundown Preminger mansion to see what's all about, because late changes to a will is never a good sign. When they arrive, they find a tensely gathered family and the reading of the will does very little to lessen the strain. Jasper Dunn, family lawyer, tells their daughter and younger son, Beverly and Timothy, they'll receive one hundred thousand dollars each ("that's... significantly less than it used to be"). Robert, oldest son, only gets a measly twenty-five thousand dollars. Their adopted brother, Simon, gets two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for giving his adopted parents so much joy when they were abandoned by their own children. Finally, there's their only grandchild, Ernest, who was the only child of their late son Cornelius. He gets the mansion, grounds and two millions worth in assets under one peculiar condition that comes with even stranger comments.

They must remain at Preminger mansion for the next twenty-four hours and should Ernest "commit the crime of murder against any blood relative," his "inheritance shall be forfeit" and the estate to be liquidated – to be "divided equally among the surviving heirs." Reasoning behind this strange condition is the Preminger Curse. In the 1700s, the Premingers were saddled with a burdensome curse, "one of the Preminger offspring will go mad and attempt to kill the rest of the family" every other generation. It happened twice already and the last time nearly wiped out the entire family. Which is why there's only one grandchild. Cornelius was the only one who defied his parents wishes and had a child. So the whole family were terrified of Ernest and was treated abysmally as a child, which included being locked away in room with barred windows and a padlock on the door. That left him with a personality disorder.

So the conditions of the will, frayed family ties, money needs and a less idyllic atmosphere nicely sets the stage for murder, which is why Manory was asked to be present – who's guaranteed a fat fee no matter what happens. Next twenty-four hours aren't uneventful with people getting killed or disappearing from locked and watched rooms. A barefoot, messy haired and almost ghostly figure of woman was seen dancing wildly in the rain. While the locked room-tricks are simple, straightforward affairs, the strength of the story is how it all folded together in the end cleverly (SPOILER/ROT13) haoheqravat gur zheqrere sebz fhfcvpvba. "The Preminger Curse" is the longest story in this collection, but not one that overstayed its welcome for even a single page. A great, very well-done homage to those Victorian-era mysteries from Doyle's days.

The fifth, and final, story is "Cue, Murder!" begins on New Year's Eve in the apartment of Atlee Burroughs, a stage director and teacher, who's entertaining a student, Paul Chase. They interrupted by an argument coming from the apartment below, "pipes in this building carry noise," where a former, Hollywood-bound student lives. Burroughs and Chase overhear Jonathan Keltner arguing with someone who brought a knife and a plan, "when they find your corpse, the door will be locked and the key inside." So they call the police and the responding officer kicks down the door to reveal Jonathan Keltner's body, but why was his body rolled inside a rug? And why is there a pile of celluloid strips lying on the floor? A locked room murder in Chicago naturally brings Manory to the scene of the crime. I don't think the central conceit is going to trick the seasoned, cynical armchair detective, but how it was done is a little trickier with an interesting, risky (ROT13) hfr bs n pbhcyr bs hajvggvat nppbzcyvprf juvpu urer vf creuncf cersrenoyr gb n pehqr erpbeqvat bs na nethzrag orvat cynlrq. On top of that, the locked room-trick is, given the circumstances, simple and practical without being routine or old hat. And it played on a locked room principle that has always fascinated me (ROT13: znxvat na haybpxrq qbbe be jvaqbj nccrne gb or gvtugyl ybpxrq). This all placed against the seedy, backstage world and goings on of the theatrical world and its crowd makes "Cue, Murder!" a solid story to close out the collection.

So, when it comes to the overall quality, the stories collected here range from solid to superb and even with only a handful of stories that's an accomplishment. You always have to expect one, or two, duds, but not It's About Impossible Crime. They're all Golden Age worthy whodunits in which Byrnside showcases he as skilled in hiding murderers as he's at getting them out of tightly locked rooms and impossible situations. That's also my only complaint. For a collection titled It's About Impossible Crime, it hasn't all that much to say about its impossible crimes. "Where There's Smoke, There's Pazuzu" and "Cue, Murder!" are the only two stories really deliver as impossible crime stories with "Silent Steps of Murder" underplaying its impossible situation and the two locked room murders in "The Preminger Curse" being very minor. "Instrument of Death," best story of the collection, has none at all. Not that it takes anything away from them as first-rate, neo-GAD mysteries, but was looking forward to picking apart a few meaty locked room puzzles. So take the locked rooms as a little bonus on top of five excellently written and constructed detective stories. I hope to see more of Manory and Williams in the future. Don't pull a vanishing-act on us, James! Remember, you promised to write Time Seals All Rooms. :)

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!

Mathematical Goodbye (1996) by MORI Hiroshi

The BBB began serializing MORI Hiroshi's Warawanai sugakusha (Mathematical Goodbye, 1996), third novel in the S&M series, in the summer of 2024 with the complete edition being slated for release in late February, but technical issues with their distribution platform delayed its availability – a minor blessing in disguise. Technically, Mathematical Goodbye is a Christmas mystery. Yes, the middle of summer is still a little early, however, it's slightly more preferable than two months after the Christmas tree was unceremoniously shown the door.

That also helped making Mathematical Goodbye, translated by Ryusui Seiryoin, the most orthodox of Hiroshi's three S&M novels the BBB has published so far. According to the description, Mathematical Goodbye is the masterpiece that "cemented the popularity" of the S&M (Saikawa & Moe) series, "the most beloved master-disciple detective duo in Japanese mystery history." Let's explore!

Moe Nishinosono, a sophomore at N University, is invited by a classmate, Kazuki Katayama, to celebrate Christmas with his family at the home of his grandfather, Dr. Shozo Tennoji. The home of Dr. Tennoji, a genius mathematician, is Three Stars Mansion, originally an observatory, comprising of three domes with the planetarium serving as its central hall. It's the interior where the architectural peculiarities of Three Stars Mansion can be found. So, naturally, Sohei Saikawa, associate professor in the Department of Architecture, N University, is interested to come along to meet the famous mathematician and examine Three Stars Mansion in person. Moe, on the other hand, is interested in an unsolved mystery Kazuki told her about. When he was a child, Kazuki witnessed how his grandfather performed a magic trick that's better described as a minor domestic miracle.

Outside the mansion stands a gigantic, ten ton bronze statue of Orion big enough for the children to use the space between its legs as a soccer goal, but somehow, someway, Dr. Tennoji made the statue inexplicably disappear – before making it reappear the following morning. Dr. Tennoji promised "whoever solves this mystery will be the heir apparent to the Tennoji family." But nobody solved it. And the problem remained unsolved for the past twelve years.

So, after everyone arrived, Dr. Tennoji gathered them in the planetarium to greet them. Just not in person, because he's been living alone in the basement of the planetarium for the better part of decade. It's his voice booming from ceiling speakers who greets them. Dr. Tennoji begins the celebrations by giving them a few tough math puzzles, but Moe has a challenge/request for him, "can you make that bronze statue disappear, Doctor?" He reluctantly agrees and, when they go back outside, the statue has disappeared again ("there was nothing but concrete spread out before them"). Wait, there's more. The hermit mathematician has one more riddle for them, "what's the greatest trick in human history?" It's the seemingly disappearance of the statue giving the plot about half of its bulk with the other half coming from its reappearance.

When the Orion statue returns to its original place, it's accompanied by a body lying beneath it and second body found in the first victim's locked bedroom. This double murder, committed in close proximity of place-and time, represents something of a reverse, inside out locked room mystery with the first victim discovered outside the locked mansion with the key to the locked bedroom on their body. Saikawa and Moe have plenty to mull over without additional problems like Moe being shot at in the surrounding forest and discovering a skeleton.

 

 

As said before, Mathematical Goodbye is the most orthodox of the three S&M novels translated, so far. So it's obviously not as experimental as Subete ga F ni naru (The Perfect Insider, 1996) nor as densely-plotted, highly specialized locked room puzzle like Tsumetai misshitsu to hakase tachi (Doctors in the Isolated Room, 1996), but astonishingly solvable. I expected my crude, roughly imagined armchair solution for how the statue disappeared, and reappeared, would end up being dismissed as a ridiculous false-solution. It seemed too easy and at the same time too complicated, but that was more, or less, how it was done. So don't be discouraged when Saikawa philosophizes, "this might be a mathematical problem rather than a magic trick." Of course, the problem with vanishing-tricks involving large, hard-to-move or even immovable objects like houses, trains and statues is that there are hard limitations on what you can do – which is why there are so few of them. I wasn't too bothered about the trick, but a little annoyed nobody thought of (ROT13) fvzcyl gnxvat n fgebyy nebhaq gur cerzvfr gb frr vs vg unq orra zbirq nebhaq gur cynpr, because that's what I would have done if I found myself in such a situation (yay, I'm the world's greatest detective!).

The solution to the double murder is much more interesting and tricky, but not exactly a classically-styled locked room mystery. It's not so much about how the doors and windows were locked and closed, but why there were locked and closed. This is demonstrated when Moe gives, what appears to be, a perfectly reasonable (armchair) solution accounting for every aspect of the murders. Saikawa points out it only work if the murderer had a reason for the bedroom to be locked. Or why the murderer decided to suddenly improvise by using a vase as a weapon. So it's more along the lines of those double murders closely linked in time-and place I have come to associate with Christopher Bush's 1930s novels (e.g. The Case of the Tudor Queen, 1938) rather than a proper locked room mystery, but gave the plot some much needed weight. It's the real meat of the plot even if the who and especially the why are a trifle weak.

Mathematical Goodbye appears on the surface to be another, Yukito Ayatsuji-like "weird house" shin honkaku locked room mystery and, plot-wise, a fairly average one at that, but it's a little more than that. What really lifts up the up book, as a whole, is the theme of inversion running through every aspect of the story, from the setting and vanishing statue to the murders. Hiroshi takes the concept "not everything is as it appears" or "more than meets the eye" as used in the detective story and pulled it inside out and back together again, which created some pleasing plot patterns to ripple through the story. That made up for what it lacked in expected plot complexity/ingenuity. So, Mathematical Goodbye is perhaps not the strongest entry, plot-wise, in the S&M series, but by itself, it's a pretty solid piece of detective fiction trying to do something pleasingly different with tried and tested recipe from the first wave of shin honkaku mystery writers. If you're looking for something a little off-beat for your December reading, you can take this as an early recommendation.

A few odds and ends: Ryusui Seiryoin is improving as a translator as the translation of Mathematical Goodbye is much smoother compared to the clunky translation of The Perfect Insider, but wish the BBB would translate one of Seiryoin's own mystery novels like Kazumikku: sekimatsu tantei shinwa (Cosmic: End of Century Detective Myth, 1996). Who here wouldn't want to read an impossible crime with a figure called The Locked Room Lord threatening 1200 people would die in as many locked rooms. In the mean time, the BBB and Seiryoin are working on the translation of the fourth S&M novel, Shiteki shiteki Jack (Jack the Poetical Private, 1997), in which a serial killer is working the college circuit. Lastly, I don't know how it could be done or who should do it, but a crossover between Hiroshi's Saikawa and Moe and Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. series needs to happen. They already feel like they could take place in the same universe and a crossover between the two has all the potential to be the perfect crossover. Yeah, not likely to happen, but it would be great.

The Aluminum Turtle (1960) by Baynard Kendrick

Baynard Kendrick's The Aluminum Turtle (1960), alternatively titled The Spear Gun Murders, is the eleventh, and penultimate, novel in the Captain Duncan Maclain series published early in the post-Golden Age era of the genre – which tries to keep up with the rapidly changing times. An old school detective story with a new class of criminals and attitudes to crime. It's not only the ever-changing times that makes The Aluminum Turtle distinctly different from the 1930s and '40s novels taking place in a darker, pulpier version of New York City. The Aluminum Turtle brings Captain Maclain and his entire entourage to the sunnier climes of Florida. Captain Maclain has a good reason to return to Florida.

Seven years ago, Ronald Dayland was brutally killed in a presumably robbery gone wrong somewhere between Tampa Airport and Courtney Campbell Parkway. Dayland had been battered with "almost maniacal ferocity" and his wallet had been emptied, but why didn't robber take a valuable gold watch and a diamond ring? Sheriff Dave Riker, of Poinsettia County, doesn't believe this is a simple robbery gone wrong and turned his attention to a club of teenage delinquents calling themselves the Water Rovers. They started out as an outlet for bored teenagers, boat races and skin divers, before broadening their activities to drinking parties, drag racing with the family car and eventually small, costly crime sprees. Everything from rowboats, cruisers and outboard motors to anchors, tools and other gear were "slickly stolen." But did they extend their activities to robbery and murder? Sheriff Riker never got the proof and the unsolved murder had terrible consequences for Dayland's then twelve year old son, Ronnie.

Dayland is the owner of the successful Dayland Fruit Company, which ensured his wife and son had everything they wanted, but the emotionally neglected Ronnie has always craved the attention of his parents and went out of his way to get it – like arson and crashing a boat. In the years following his father's murder and second marriage of his mother, Ronnie went "down the sliding board from marihuana to pills and the needle" to become "an expert snowbird and doomed entirely."

Captain Maclain is an old friend of the Daylands whose work in New York and the lack of an official invitation prevented him from probing the murder of his old, long-time friend. Ronnie intends to use their fishing trip to ask Captain Maclain for help with his addiction, because it was easier to ask someone "who couldn't see the terror in his face" or "read the truth of his weakness." Very different to how Kendrick handled the "funny cigarettes" in The Last Express (1937) decades earlier. Their one-on-one aboard Ronnie's fishing boat, the A-bomb, sets the tone and pieces for the overall story.

Firstly, Ronnie's plan to ask for help is shelved when he fishes up a curious looking object: an aluminum turtle with rubber flippers, head and tail. Ronnie believes he had "lucked on to an underwater buoy that marked some sunken treasure." Something that's going to propel to plot later on. Secondly, Captain Maclain is firmly in fallible detective mode. Not only for neglecting the murder of his friend for seven years ("wasn't it more of an obligation to do his best to solve the murder of a friend... than to take a fee to investigate the murder of some person he had never known?"), but trying to understand Ronnie and his generation ("their jargon is as uncomprehensible as their music") and generally getting older. That's why he's unsure what's happening half of the time ("there were undercurrents he couldn't fathom") with the developing case rubbing it in his face how depended he still is on Sybella, Spud Savage, Rena and his two dogs, Schnucke and Dreist.

The developing case comes to a head when Captain Maclain joins the boating party returning to the spot where Ronnie discovered the aluminum turtle. Ronnie dives into the water with an hour's supply of air, but never resurfaces and ninety minutes later they call the coast guard. Not long thereafter his body is recovered, but Ronnie didn't drown. He was shot with a spear gun. Suddenly, the sea is crawling with potential suspects. Two members of the Water Rovers were spotted nearby with one entering the water carrying a spear gun and boat that recovered the body is manned by cut-throat treasure hunters. Not to mention a fleet of shrimpers, run by an ex-mobster, known to be a cover for a huge smuggling operation. There are more spear gun killings, past and present, discovered and committed along the way.

However, the plot of The Aluminum Turtle lacks the puzzling complexity of earlier novels like The Whistling Hangman (1937) and Blind Man's Bluff (1943). The murder method has echoes of those two novels (ROT13: perngvat gur vyyhfvba bs qvfgnapr orgjrra zheqrere naq ivpgvz), but nothing is done with it, plot-wise, before being explained away between a few sentences. Only real plot-complexity, to speak of, is the school of red herrings trying to obscure a routine plot and rather obviously murderer. So the focus of The Aluminum Turtle is not on the traditional who, why and how, but how Captain Maclain grapples with this case and himself. If you have only read the pre-1950s novels, The Aluminum Turtle feels like a threadbare affair with too much drama and not enough plot. More like Brett Halliday than Ellery Queen. Fortunately, I really like Captain Maclain and appreciated what Kendrick attempted to do here, which I think fans of the character will agree with. But, purely as a detective novel, The Aluminum Turtle is a far cry from the first five, or so, novels. I highly recommend you start there before skipping this far ahead.

That being said, The Aluminum Turtle has made me curious about the last title in the series, Frankincense and Murder (1961), which sounds like a hyper conventional drawing room mystery. The kind of drawing room mystery most of Kendrick's contemporaries debuted with in the '20s and '30s. You might see a review of that one before too long.

Murder in the House of Omari (2021) by Taku Ashibe

Taku Ashibe, a former journalist, became a full-time mystery writer in 1994 and member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan who penned nearly forty novels and numerous short story collection – only one novel and a short story have been translated over the years. In 2012, Kurodahan Press published a translation of Ashibe's Koromu no satsujin (Murder in the Red Chamber, 2004) and "Shikku suru joker" ("The Dashing Joker," 2001) appeared in the September/October, 2020, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In May, Pushkin Vertigo added a third translation to that shamefully short list, Oomarike satsujin jiken (Murder in the House of Omari, 2021), translated by Bryan Karetnyk.

Murder in the House of Omari, a true retro-GAD whodunit, is a fairly recent work, but Ho-Ling Wong pointed out in his review that it's very representative of Ashibe's work. According to Ho-Ling, Ashibe has three story themes/personalized tropes running through his work, of which the first two are historical and literary references. For example, Murder in the Red Chamber is set in the world of Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber (1791) and populated with many of its characters. The third theme is old Osaka and the bustling commercial hub it became following industrialization, which provides the historical setting for the wholesale slaughter of the House of Omari.

House of Omari is a family business, manufacturing and selling pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and other luxury goods, but the once household name is on the decline with the outbreak of World War II and a string of murders doing it no favors.

Before getting to the killings, Murder in the House of Omari hops around the timeline beginning with a prologue taking place in the 2020s as construction workers uncover an unfilled, long forgotten air raid shelter revealing a treasure – "a complete set of the Ryuko-Shoin world detective-fiction series." This stash of detective novels is wrapped in a cloth emblazoned with a faded, old-fashioned logo with the name "House of Omari." At the same time, not far away from the demolition site, an identified, dying person mentions that forgotten shop in a startling death bed confession ("so that's why I killed the lot of them..."). The story than goes back to 1906, when the family business was securely on top of their market, but the first tragedy occurs when the young heir presumptive, Sentaro Omari, disappears during a visit to the Panorama Museum. So, in 1914, the head clerk of the business, Shigezo, takes his place by marrying his younger sister, Kiyoe. They initially continued the success of the House of Omari, however, the trade began to decline during the late 1920s and were forced to scale down. When the Second Sino-Japanese War turned into a World War, their business model was decimated as their Westernized, non-essential luxury products could "label a person unpatriotic." So now they're trying to stay afloat by selling comfort bags to be mailed to soldiers on the front line.

This preamble to murder roughly covers the first hundred, or so, pages, but never flags and full of historical interest. A noteworthy point is the appearance of wood and charcoal powered cars. These so-called "charcoal engines" were introduced to conserve petrol, but "were notoriously slow and lacking in horsepower" making them "incapable of handling slopes." Not exactly the romantic picture steampunk envisioned.

The detective story proper picks up in 1945, towards the end of the war, when the two sons of Shigezo and Kiyoe are serving abroad. Taichiro Omari as an army surgeon and Shigehiko Omari soldiering on the front line. So the already depleted household and dwindling business begin to suffer a string of gruesome, personal tragedies. Firstly, Tsukiko Omari, eldest daughter of Kiyoe and Shigezo, is attacked and wounded, but the circumstances are strange indeed. Tsukiko has "real wounds" that "appeared to be bleeding fake blood." Secondly, Shigezo is found hanging from a rope in his bedroom and the evidence points towards murder. Shigezo is not the last of the Omaris to be killed under bizarre circumstances. Strange, downright bizarre circumstances pile up alongside the bodies. Like one of the bodies being found stuffed, upside down, inside a barrel of sake or the sightings of a household spirit dancing through the dark, deserted corridors of the Omari house in the dead of night. Not to mention the storybook appearance of the "Great Detective," Koshiro Hojo, who lugs around a copy of Hans Gross' Criminal Investigations: A Practical Textbook.

Murder in the House of Omari becomes tricky to discuss, in detail, pass the halfway mark with its various plot-strands, complications and new developments practically every other chapter – right up until the moment the war catches up with the characters. What can be discussed, however, is the admirable way in which Ashibe handled this dense, maze-like plot to weave an engrossing tale of a merchant family that finds itself under siege from all side. Not to be overlooked is how the story is structured like a period-accurate, Western-inspired honkaku detective novel by Akimitsu Takagi or Seishi Yokomizo. So very different from what most have perhaps come to expect from shin honkaku translations. However, Murder in the House of Omari also differs from other shin honkaku translations in that Ashibe lavished all his attention on his personalized tropes and not the usual tricks and tropes. That makes it a more accessible title for readers who find the usual shin honkaku style with its eccentric architecture, grisly corpse-puzzles, gruesome locked room slayings and elaborate deductions heavy going. Murder in the House of Omari is a pure whodunit without any impossible crimes, unbreakable alibis or untranslatable codes. A incredibly tricky, complicated and densely-plotted whodunit in which Ashibe admirably weaves his love of literature/detective fiction, history and old Osaka into logically patterned whodunit. How the (meta-ish) ending is handled ensured it a place on my list of favorites.

I admittedly started to become skeptical when starting on the last two parts of the final chapter, "1946: Amid the Ruins, Part I" and "Amid the Ruins, Part II," because the pages quickly began to diminish with still so much left to explain. If it wasn't for the curious twist the denouement scene makes, it would have been a big chunk to digest. Ashibe mostly pulls it off with only the explanation for the dancing household spirit leaving me unimpressed. I thought the sightings was a clue that one of the sons had sneaked back home and was hiding in the air raid shelter with a pet monkey he brought back from abroad. Other than that disappointing minor plot-thread, Ashibe delivered a first-rate, classically-styled family whodunit in which old sins cast large, all-consuming shadows while American bombers begin to appear on the distant horizon. Hopefully, Murder in the House of Omari is going to be first (well, the second) of many more of Ashibe's detective novels to make it pass the language barrier. In the meanwhile, Murder in the House of Omari comes highly recommended to fans of Takagi, Yokomizo and the historical retro-GAD writers like Tom Mead and James Scott Byrnside.

Visitors to the Isolated Island (2020) by Kie Houjou

Last year, Kie Houjou became one of my favorite mystery writers on the strength of two novels, Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022), which are respectively the first and third title in the "Ryuuzen Clan" series – translated by Mitsuda Madoy and "cosmiicnana." Technically, they're hybrid mysteries. The Time Traveler's Hourglass weaves time travel into an intricate, immaculately-plotted detective novel and Delicious Death for Detectives entrenched its plot in an immerse, futuristic Virtual Reality game. However, they're so very well done, well rounded and incredibly innovative mysteries, it would be more accurate to call them the detective series of tomorrow. I especially can see Delicious Death for Detectives becoming the classic detective novel from the first-half of this century (i.e. comparable to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, 1939).

I had a sneaking suspicion the second book in the series, Katou no raihousha (Visitors to the Isolated Island, 2020), could become my favorite. A suspicion that proved to be not far off the mark!

Kie Houjou's Visitors to the Isolated Island is the second title in the "Ryuuzen Clan" series, but Meister Hora only appears in the foreword to assure the reader that although "the events of the story seem absurd, there is no need for you to fear" as it will remain a detective story at heart ("I value fair play above all else"). Kamo Touma is only mentioned as the author of an article on the titular island in the Unsolved Mysteries magazine. Instead, the story focuses on Kamo's brother-in-law, Ryuuzen Yuki, who's the Assistant Director at J. Production en route to the lush, now uninhabited Kakuriyo Island to shoot a TV special for the World's Mysteries Detective Club show – which is going to spotlight the 1974 "Beast of Kakuriyo Island" incident. A mass murder robbing the island of the last of its last inhabitants.

Kakuriyo Island, "a perpetual summer paradise," actually consists two islands. A bigger, oval shaped island and a smaller tidal island, known as the Divine Land, which is connected to the main island during low tide when a gravel path appears. In 1974, the entire population (12), in addition to a visiting professor researching folklore, was wiped out in a single night with bodies found in different locations. All the victims had one thing in common: they had been stabbed in the heart by "a cone-shaped object." The police concluded the visiting scholar, Professor Sasakura, killed the islanders when caught digging up the cemetery looking for buried treasure. And died himself in a struggle with the last victim. Furthermore, the police believe the dogs kept on the island were responsible for savaging Professor Saskura's body. A conclusion that doesn't satisfy or hold up, as outlined in Kamo's article, but that's where the case stood for nearly half a century.

Fast forward to 2019, Yuki has come to Kakuriyo Island not only as the assistant director, but to get revenge for a friend whose death can be blamed on certain members of the production company.

However, Yuki plans to break with long-standing (shin) honkaku traditions by opting for practical methods rather than "crimes patterned on old legends or nursery rhymes and serial killings in villas," because locked room murders, fabricated alibis and other fictional crimes "were often useless in real life" – preferring to arouse as little suspicion and panic as possible. Only the appearance of a great detective, which is why invited a well-known researcher of subtropical ecosystems and detective fiction enthusiast, Motegi Shinji, to "reveal a false truth prepared by Yuki." So imagine his annoyance when one of his prospective victims is impossibly killed in a way mirroring the 1974 murders. Unno Nisaburo, the director, is found stabbed through the heart on top of a bush with only his muddy footprints leading to the spot.

So the plot, up till this point, still sounds fairly conventional shin honkaku mystery with the customary closed circle of characters stuck on an isolated island when a murderer begins leaving bodies in bizarre or impossible circumstances. It could describe the plot of Yukito Ayatsuji's Jukkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987), MORI Hiroshi's Subete ga F ni naru (The Perfect Insider, 1996), NisiOisiN's Zaregoto series: kubikiri saikuru (Zaregoto, Book 1: The Kubikiri Cycle, 2002) or half the titles from The Kindaichi Case Files series. Not to forget Danro Kamosaki's recently reviewed Misshitsu kyouran jidai no satsujin – Zekkai no katou to nanatsu no trick (The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks, 2022). Where Visitors to the Isolated Island begins to differ is when Yuki proves Sherlock Holmes' adage, "when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," correct. Yuki deduces from the circumstances in which the director was killed that "the so-called Beast of Kakuriyo Island actually exists." A creature not native to the island, our planet and perhaps not even from this reality!

 

 

Yuki's outlandish theory is quickly proven correct and places entirely new complexion on both their situation and that of the detective story. Now the problem is not trying to fit motive and opportunity to one of the suspects, but applying the art of deduction to unraveling the nature of the creature ("...so little information and so many unknowns..."). Where did it come from? What can it do? What are its limitations? How intelligent is it? How can they possibly protect themselves from it? One thing that's obvious from the start is the creature, called a Visitor, is halfway between a Chupacabra and a Skinwalker. It sucks living creatures, preferably humans, dry like a juice box. More disturbingly, it can take on the form of its victim in addition to some other distinctly non-human traits and abilities, but its “mimicry” poses a direct treat to the group. Visitor has the ability to replace someone in the group and this danger even extends to animals no smaller than a cat. So they not only have to find answers and trying to draw conclusions from the gathered information, but strategize in order to survive and prevent the Visitor from escaping the island.

A comparison can be drawn with the zombie hoard encircling the villa in Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin (Death Among the Undead, 2017), but the Visitor presents the Yuki and the reader with a genuine, ultimate unknown – an intelligent, non-human interloper. An invasive species knocking humanity down a place on the food chain. And with every new discovery about the Visitor, it throws another complication on their various problems while the bodycount and suspicion steadily rises. So not exactly the same obstacle presented by the zombies from Death Among the Undead, but towards the end, the traits and abilities of the Visitors come into play when someone is bumped off while alone in a watched room with a dog guarding the hallway. Solutions to this impossible murder and Yuki's explanation twists and coils right up until the final pages with some wonderful, highly imaginative applications of the Visitor's abilities to the traditional, fair play detective story.

How fairly the game was played here is more impressive than how Kie Houjou handled the ultimate unknown within the confines of the traditional detective story. A good, non-spoilerish example is the coded message the original inhabitants left behind revealing the hiding place of a treasure trove of information on the Visitors. In my experience, Japanese code cracking stories, or subplots, rarely work in translation, but Yuki pointed out that "this code was made to be solved by a complete outsider to the island" – including the reader. Not only is the code 100% solvable, it's solution is a clue in itself. Houjou played it so fairly, she included two relatively short chapters from the perspective of the Visitor. I was, in fact, able to anticipate an important part of the solution without getting all the way. But it was fun trying to find my way in what's new territory for the detective story.

That's another noteworthy aspect of Visitors to the Isolated Island. It demonstrates why hybrid mysteries have become the next frontier for Japanese mystery writers. When done correctly, the hybrid mystery allows to break new ground and create new possibilities, while staying well within the framework of the classically-styled, fair play detective story. Visitors to the Isolated Island is a superb example of the fair play, hybrid mystery done right. Only drawback is how unrealistically perfect, almost dreamlike, all three novels are. Like a collective wish-fulfillment of detective fans come true!

So what else to say, except that The Time Traveler's Hourglass, Visitors to the Isolated Island and Delicious Death for Detectives deserve an official release in as many different languages as possible, because these three detective novels are going to be the classics of the 21st century. To quote Mitsuda Madoy, "they phenomenal, absolute masterpieces" and "boringly perfect" to boot. Highly recommended!

Note for the curious: yes, I know, I rambled on long enough, but something else I liked is how Visitors to the Isolated Island, an experimental hybrid mystery, embodies the past, present and future of the genre. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) was not only the first modern detective story and first official locked room mystery, but also the first hybrid mystery combining horror with a tale of ratiocination. A line can be drawn from Poe to this book and the direction the genre (in Japan) seems to be headed in the years ahead.

The Devil's Pet Baits: "A Melee of Diamonds" (1972) by Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch's "A Melee of Diamonds," originally published in the April, 1972, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and collected in Leopold's Way (1985), begins with a crude, everyday crime – a simple smash-and-grab job. A man wielding a silver-headed cane smashes the store window of the Midtown Diamond Exchange to pocket a modest fortune in diamond rings and unset stones, but a patrolling police officer is immediately on the scene. And gets knocked down with the cane. Fortunately, a bystander chases the thief, wrestles him to the ground and hands him over to the police. So case closed, except for one small, all-important, detail: what happened to the diamonds?

The thief, Rudy Hoffman from New York, took $58,000 worth of diamonds from the broken store window before getting apprehended half a block away. From the time Hoffman smashed the store window to the moment he was tackled to the ground, "he was in sight of at least one person every instant until they arrested him." However, Hoffman didn't have a single diamond on him. The police searched him, the street and they "even searched the patrol car he was in after his arrest" without finding a single diamond ring or unset stone. Hoffman isn't talking.

So when Captain Leopold hears a report the following days, he asks to have him brought down "to show you guys how it's done" with similar results. This apparently simple smash-and-grab from a store window is not one of Captain Leopold's finest hours as he's in full fallible detective mode ("this is my night for being wrong"). Even when the missing diamonds and the solution are literally gifted to him on a silver platter.

Captain Leopold pulls an impossible vanishing-act with the diamonds himself, in order to manipulate an accomplice in drawing out the main culprit, but it horribly misfires and, to use his own words, "I was trying to pull off a neat trick, and I got a guy killed" – "I bungled, that's what happened, Fletcher." Captain Leopold got it wrong one more time that night, before he can finally and successfully close the case.

So, while Captain Leopold was stuck in fallible detective mode, I played Mycroft Holmes and deduced the correct solution to the first impossibility. And, what exactly, happened the moment the store window got smashed. A not wholly unoriginal trick complimented by the smash-and-grab setup that allowed me to anticipate the identity of the main culprit. On the other hand, Leopold's trick honestly had me stumped and it's not even half as good or original as the first vanishing-trick. But it served its purpose. So, while not a perfect detective story, "A Melee of Diamonds" stands as another pretty solid, competently-plotted effort from the prolific Hoch enjoyably demonstrating the versatility of the impossible crime story outside the customary locked room and fields of virgin snow. Recommended!

Note for the curious: I also reviewed the short story collection The Killer Everyone Knew and Other Captain Leopold Stories (2023) and the Captain Leopold short story "The Oblong Room" (1967).

The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse (2022) by P.J. Fitzsimmons

Last time, I looked at P.J. Fitzsimmons' The Case of the Canterfell Codicil (2020), first in the Anthony "Anty" Boisjoly series, which just like The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (2021) and The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine (2021) proved to be another entertaining send-up of the Golden Age detective story – recalling Leo Bruce, Edmund Crispin and P.G. Wodehouse. And better plotted than you would expect from a series labeled "locked room cosies." But the devil is always in the details. The execution of the plot, as a whole, left me in two minds. So decided to immediately move on to the fourth title in the series to see how much priority I should give to Reckoning at the Riviera Royale (2022), The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich (2023) and Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling (2023).

Like previously said, Fitzsimmons is not a writer to be caught in the act of being boring and The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse (2022) is no exception. It reads like a send-up of Paul Halter's Le diable de Dartmoor (The Demon of Dartmoor, 1993) and L'homme qui aimait les nuages (The Man Who Loved Clouds, 1999).

The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse takes place in 1929 and, similar to the first novel, starts with a telegram delivered to the Juniper Gentleman's Club. A telegram with an ominous warning, "THE CURSE IS ONCE AGAIN UPON THE CARNABY FAMILY-(STOP)-DO NOT RETURN TO HOY-(STOP)-ONLY DEATH AWAITS YOU," addressed to W. Carnaby of the Juniper Club. However, Carnaby is not a member of the club, but "London's finest club steward" who has failed to return from his holiday. Anty decides to launch a rescue campaign and travels with Vickers to the village of Hoy in the Peak District to have at least one question answered, "how is it that Carnaby the club steward's ancestral home is, apparently, a castle?"

Hoy is an ancient place populated with Carnabys, two distinct family lines, divided in two groups, Castle Carnabys and Town Carnabys, of which the first is comprised of the direct descendants of Ranulf Carnaby – whom own Carnaby Castle and surrounding land. However, they only have use of the castle with the eldest descendant holding executive powers "limited to maintenance, upkeep and persecuting witches." That persecuting-of-witches thing saddled the Castle Carnabys with a curse for the past four hundred years targeting the young brides who might bring the Castle Carnabys its next heir. A curse that had been suspended by employing a local witch to counter the curse. Cecil Carnaby, "castle despot," recently returned home with his Italian bride, Ludovica. Cecil is determined to shake things up at the castle and showed his resident witch the door.

Some time later, Ludovica is seen walking on the promontory above Hoy Scarp when "the mists rose from the river, raised her in the air, and flung her into the gorge." Six people witnessed it happen and swear no one was near Ludovica when "the mists carried her right over Hoy Scarp" ("...like the curse used to do in the old days..."). Anty learns of this impossible murder from Inspector Ivor Wittersham, of Scotland Yard, who bump into each other on the train en route to Hoy and Carnaby Castle, but, of course, it's not the only complication facing them. First of all, there's the intricate, crossed family relationships of the Carnabys twisted and intertwined through every aspect of the case. Secondly, Ludovica is a widow with a dead and a missing husband, which is why the other Carnabys considered her a mere gold digger. But her former stepson turned up believing she disappeared his father. And, before the mist carried her away, another member of the family had several near fatal accidents ("you'd almost think that the castle or someone in it was trying to kill her"). Not to mention a string of thefts from locked bedrooms and uncovering a rabbit warren of secreted doors, hidden passageways and underground catacombs.

The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse is as entertaining and breezy a read as the previous three of Anty's outings, but the plot is regrettably thin and feels less fair. I spotted the murderer early on and tried to be too complicated in trying to find an explanation for Ludovica's impossible murder, which turned out to be something of a letdown. I honestly would have been happy if the solution turned out to be that Ludovica was hit in the back by a crossbow bolt with a rounded, padded tip – making it appear as if she was lifted and flung over the edge. The solution for the thefts from the locked bedrooms practically suggested itself, but perfectly serviceable for a minor subplot. Fortunately, there's a third impossibility somewhat redeeming the book as a locked room mystery. A second murder behind a locked door, what else, but inside is a normally hidden, now open doorway leading to several rooms in the castle. All occupied during the murder and nobody was seen creeping out of one of these hidden doorways! If this impossible murder had a slightly more ambitious locked room-trick, I would likely have placed the book alongside The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning on its strength alone.

You can chalk part of my disappoint up to having come across more than one locked room mystery this year toying and playfully subverting secret passages. Normally a big no-no for both the traditional detective story and me personally. So when the scene presented itself, I hoped the book would (plot-wise) pull itself together and deliver a noteworthy impossible crime during the final stretch.

So, once again, Anty sleuthing shenanigans leaves me in two minds. The humorous characters, storytelling and generally having a run of the place remain the series' strong points. And the primary reason to pick up this series. A highlight of The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse is Anty forging an endearing friendship with a cemetery crow he christens Buns. Even having a few small adventures together along the way ("poor weather for aviation, Buns old man"). But the plots remain uneven and some good ideas undeveloped. Such as the second impossible murder here with its open secret passage or the first locked room murder from the first novel. This time, the who and why all felt a bit muddled and, on a whole, decidedly less fair.

The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse regrettably stands as the weakest in the series, so far, but think I'll stick with the series for at least two, three more novels. I simply enjoy Anty, Vickers and the humor too much to dump this soon, however, I do hope at least one of them has a plot that can measure up to the second novel. First, I'll return to a few other contemporary locked room specialists. I still have Gigi Pandian's The Raven Thief (2024) and J.L. Blackhurst's Smoke and Murders (2024) on the big pile with the new James Scott Byrnside and Tom Mead looming on the horizon. Next up is a return to the Golden Age!