The Frankenstein Factory (1975) by Edward D. Hoch

Edward D. Hoch was the King of Short Stories, the Man of a Thousand Tales of Mystery and Detection, but, during his five decade run, Hoch also wrote a handful of novel-length mysteries like The Shattered Raven (1969), The Blue Movie Murders (1973) and a three-novel series of science-fiction hybrid mysteries – generally known as the "Computer Cops" series. You read that right. They're the back tracing Cyber Police you were warned about!

Carl Crader and Earl Jazine work for the Computer Investigation Bureau, headquartered at the World Trade Center in New York, whose "investigations sometimes spill over into what might generally be called crimes of the new technology" in the 21st century. So the C.I.B. are the "experts on computers, lasers, holograms, cryosurgery" and "new technology" handling "crimes the regular police forces aren't equipped for." Crader is the head of the C.I.B. ("...reports directly to the President") and Jazine is his field agent. They appeared in only three novels, The Transvection Machine (1971), The Fellowship of the Hand (1973) and The Frankenstein Factory (1975).

This time, I've a good excuse/reason (take your pick) to unchronologically start at the end of the series. The Frankenstein Factory had been recommended several times over the years for its qualities as both a science-fiction mystery and clever pastiche of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (1939). That and the first two novels appear to be more science-fiction thrillers than science-fiction mysteries. The Frankenstein Factory seemed the safest choice and perhaps a candidate for that future followup to "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries."

First of all, I skipped the first two novels making it a bit confusing when, exactly, The Frankenstein Factory is supposed to take place. The first chapter refers to "these early years of the twenty-first century," but, early on in the story, there were several hints the story could take place during the 2010s or even early 2020s – based on a reference to the fading memories of "the renewed moon flights of the late 1990s." And the age of one of the characters who took part in one of those return missions. But it became a lot clearer during the second-half and home stretch that it takes place roughly twenty-five years after the mid-to late 1970s. So probably somewhere around 2004, give or take a year. It could also be a bit later based on a references to that "seventy-year-old mystery novel by the British writer Agatha Christie," but that would still place the story within the 2000s. Now with that out of the way, let's take a look at the story.

The Frankenstein Factory begins with Earl Jazine traveling by hovercraft to Horseshoe Island, somewhere off the coast of Baja California, under the guise of medical photographer. Jazine has come to the island to film and document an experimental operation.

Dr. Lawrence Hobbes is the head of International Cryogenics Institute who freeze and store people's bodies "against a future time when they could be revived," but this goes hand-in-hand with their research into operating techniques at low temperatures. So underneath the research facility is also a cold storage vault with frozen bodies inside sealed cylinders. Dr. Hobbes is ready to take the next step and revive a young man who died of a brain tumor in the 1970s, but the tumor did a lot of damage to the body and other organs. So needs several organ transplants, brain included, before they can reanimate him. Dr. Hobbes assembled a crack medical team to carry out this secret and experimental operation. Dr. Freddy O'Connor, a brain surgeon, who had great success with brain transplants in animals. Dr. Eric MacKenzie, "only military surgeon to set foot on the moon thus far," and Philip Whalen assist him. This team is rounded out by Tony Cooper, a bone specialist, and Vera Morgan, a research chemist, who only arrived the day before Jazine. There are two more people on the island, the elderly Miss Emily Watson whose money has made the whole operation possible and a maid/cook, Hilda. And, well, there's the patient, or "shell body," who they call Frank.

The operation is a success, "we have heartbeat and pulse," but, while Frank is sleeping and recovering in the operating room, things begin to happen on the island. Miss Watson goes missing from her bedroom, leaving only a smear of blood behind, but she, or her body, is not found following a thorough search of the buildings and island – she had vanished from the island. However, this is not an impossible disappearance as has been suggested elsewhere. Miss Watson simply disappeared, but not impossibly, as the murderer could have thrown her body into the sea or buried it somewhere. That's not the solution to the disappearance, but it's not an impossible crime. Just a somewhat baffling disappearance, considering the circumstances and apparent lack of motive. But then the murder strikes a second time!

This time, they find the body and the killer stops trying to hide future victims. Even worse, the group finds they have been cut off from the mainland and marooned on the island until new supplies arrive by hovercraft. Jazine takes charge until then, but body count continues to rise as survivors, suspects and supplies dwindle. All the while, the rapidly dwindling survivors become suspicious and frightened of Frank apparently still sleeping in the operating room ("Hell, I'd much rather believe that Frank down there did it than consider the possibility that I'm sitting at a table with a murderer"). So did they create a modern-day Frankenstein's monster or is there a human hand behind it all?

Before getting to the plot, the science-fiction elements deserve a mention. It goes without saying Hoch's depiction of the early 2000s in 1975 is very different from what actually happened. For one, the World Trade Center is still standing, but the most obvious difference is absence of the internet and cell phones despite characters remarking how "everything's miniaturized these days" and "almost everything's done by machine." Jazine explains late in the story the C.I.B. tackles mostly "computer frauds" such as "stock-market rigging, insurance swindles, even some gimmicking of the race-track computers," but no crimes related to, what could be called, an internet – which does not detract from the novel at all. Just interesting to compare Hoch's vision of the early 2000s to what actually happened. Hoch's version of the early 2000s appears to be a lot calmer than our early 2000s, but hints through out the story makes it clear the world outside the green, sunny island has some dystopian characteristics. Some countries promote suicide among the elderly, while other countries want to ship their criminals and surplus population to colonies on Venus ("...Venus colony is still a good many years away"). Somehow, someway, they took laser guns away from Americans shortly after their introduction in the mid '90s and cities are covered in a thick, hazy layer of ozone purifiers sprayed from helicopters. On the up side, there are the advances in medicine and plans to construct searails to span the oceans. So that's something.

The science-fiction of this hybrid science-fiction mystery, beside the cryogenic and reanimation, functions mostly as story dressing. However, it gives The Frankenstein Factory a retro-futuristic, alternate history quality that's fun to speculate about. My take is that the humans in this universe tend to be slightly more pragmatic or utilitarian, tick less sociable, which is why there more interested in Venus colonies, searails and reversing death than an internet or smart phones. Not wholly unimportant, it gave what would otherwise have been an average "trapped on an island with a killer" mystery a distinct character of its own. Not that The Frankenstein Factory is a bad whodunit. You can leave it to Hoch to pen a fair play mystery involving experimental surgery, a reanimated corpse and laser guns. It's just that without a science-fiction trappings, The Frankenstein Factory would have come across as a pale imitation of Christie's And Then There Were None.

So it's unfortunate Hoch never really integrated those science-fiction components with the story's detective plot, because that would have made The Frankenstein Factory something more than this strange, zany send-up of Christie. Hoch wrote a good, old-fashioned murder mystery and a tale of science-fiction horror taking place simultaneously with the same cast of characters. That's why I kept second guessing myself even when only two suspects remained, because expected the science-fiction elements would some part or role to play in the solution. I had reasons to believe Frank was not the first person to have been reanimated, which needed to be kept under wraps for the outside world (perhaps that person was a murderer like was suggested of the brain donor). I had one name in mind (ROT13: "...vg tnir ure gur ybbx bs n lbhat tvey sebz gur 1970f") as that person being revealed as both a reanimated person and the killer would give the story a double, morbid twist for the prize of one. No such genre crossing twists, or solution, as Hoch only roamed around the borders and never crossed the line into full-blown hybrid mystery territory. That's a missed opportunity.

The Frankenstein Factory is unlikely to secure a place on my list of best and favorite hybrid mysteries, because the bar for hybrid mysteries has been set astronomically high, but long-time Hoch fans should take note of this rare, novel-length mystery from his hands. Hoch's The Frankenstein Factory is intriguing and not unrewarding mystery as long as you don't expect a classic like Christie's And Then There Were None or Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel (1953/54).

Best Served Cold: Case Closed, vol. 96 by Gosho Aoyama

This is probably going to be a slightly shorter review than usual, because Gosho Aoyama's 96th volume of Case Closed only has one completed story, book-ended by the conclusion and setup to stories from the previous and next volume – which doesn't make for a great reading experience. Ho-Ling Wong noted the same problem in his 2019 review of vol. 96 ("...one of the worst volumes of the last decade or so"). The reader has been warned!

So this volume begins with the conclusion of the "The Female Officer Serial Murders" setup in the last two chapters of the previous volume. Normally, that's done in the opening chapter, but there three more chapters. Had it been tidied up in one, or two, chapters it would have been like any other volume in the series with one conclusion and two complete stories. Maybe even a one-chapter setup for the opening story of the next volume, but I'm padding now.

Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike, officer of the traffic department, get drag into the case when two of their colleagues are murdered. First victim was Sergeant Momosaki, found in a park, who "used her last moments to point at a swing set" as a dying message and killer struck again later that same day – throwing Lieutenant Shiori Yagi out of a building. She also used her last moments to give her colleagues a clue to the killer. But the killer left a calling card behind at both crime scenes: a bent 200-yen coin that has a depiction of cherry blossom ("...emblem of the Japanese police") engraved on it. So the murderer obviously has it out for female officers of the traffic department. There are three suspects who were involved in traffic incident, days before the murders, during which they had a heated argument with several female traffic officers. So pretty much one of those familiar who-of-the-three stories, but disliked how very similar, somewhat specific motive was tacked on all three suspects. On the other hand, I liked the idea how every cop in trouble, whether they died or survived, tried to transfer information to their colleagues in the form of a dying message. The meaning behind those dying messages form a pleasing thematic pattern, but an idea that needed a better, longer treatment than it received here. By the way, this story also provides a resolution for the Detective Chiba and Neako Miike story-arc going all the way back to vol. 75.

The first, only complete story in this volume is a self-parody of the Wile E. Coyote vs. the Road Runner feud between Jirokichi Sebastian and Kaito KID. I started out as a big fan of Jirokichi trying to ensnare KID with his elaborate, expensively baited and widely publicized traps. Their first few duels from volumes 44 and 61 were series highlights, but suppose they were hard acts to follow as their last few encounters have been a little underwhelming. So not a bad decision to go for a self-parody, because it would have been worst Jirokichi/KID caper to date. Jirokichi has new bait to tempt the KID, the Fairy's Lip, "one of the biggest conch pearls in the world," but how to present and protect it poses a problem. Fortunately, a familiar face turns up, Inspector Takaaki Morofushi, who advises to have the conch pearl exhibited frozen inside a block of ice and placed in a guarded, makeshift room of tempered glass. And some other high tech precautions that should prevent KID from getting out of the glass room with the pearl.

So far, a fairly typical setup for a Kaito KID caper, but this time you get to see KID at work and he's not disguised as Inspector Takaaki Morofushi. KID has hidden himself among the guards posted around the glass room with the block of ice, but is having second thoughts when notices "those two sleuths," Conan and Harley, "plus a cop who's not a total dummy," but an incident makes him decides to go ahead with the heist. From the start, KID is nearly caught out, but things get farcical when he takes the place of someone in Conan and Harley's group. You can see one scene coming from that very moment and this gag, sadly enough, carries the story. KID steals the ring and solution is OK-ish, but still no idea how he could have pulled it off, under those circumstances, within ten minutes. So fun enough, but nothing more than that.

The last story begins with Conan, Rachel, Sera, Serena and her boyfriend, Makoto, coming out of the theater having just watched The Avengers The Amazers movie when they stumble into a hostage situation. Makoto, a karate champion, jumps to the rescue only to discover he interrupted a shoot for the TV series 48 Detectives. And the gun toting criminal he kicked into next week was a stuntman. So now they need a stuntman and they immediately see potential in the karate champion, but Makoto's stint as a stand-in stuntman ends with two murders on set. And, according to tradition, will be concluded in the next volume.

So not much to say, except Sera trying to pry the truth out of Conan and even asks Rachel if she's ever seen Conan and Jimmy together. Very much to her surprise, Rachel tells Sera how Conan went to a school play Jimmy was in ("...Jimmy solved a mystery during the play, while the brat sat in the audience pouting"). I believe this is a reference to a story not reviewed on this blog and barely remember it, but how it's describe here makes it sound like a hilarious case of bi-location in close proximity, especially from Sera's perspective – who's convinced Conan is Jimmy ("...Conan and I picked Jimmy up from his house the next morning").

There's not much else to say about this volume, except how this series structures its serialized chapters and volumes worked against it. I simply recommend everyone reading this in the near of distant future to read volumes 95, 96 and 97 without big gaps of time between them.

Straight to Your Heart: Case Closed, vol. 95 by Gosho Aoyama

Gosho Aoyama's 95th volume of Case Closed picks up where the previous, absolutely packed volume ended that was crammed with familiar faces, storyline developments and a cliffhanger to a tantalizing murder case featuring two imaginative impossible crimes – apparently committed the long-nosed Tengu of Japanese folklore. First a short recap. Conan has temporarily returned as Jimmy Kudo to attend a class trip to Kyoto to link up with Rachel complete with will-they-won't-they overtones, but their class trip runs into a class reunion of a university film club that quickly ended in bloody murder.

Their screenwriter is brutally murdered in his hotel room with a big pool of blood and bloody footprints staining the ceiling, which suggests the killer yanked the victim up in the air to kill him and then casually walked across the ceiling. And walked, or flew, out an open window on the 15th floor. A second murder is committed in the open street with another trail of bloody footprints walking sideways along the wall. In this closing chapter, the murderer attempts a third murder with footprints from an apparently invisible man approaching him on a bridge, but, by that time, Jimmy had already closed the net around the killer.

I think this story is far better for its long-awaited developments in the overarching storyline with all its character-arcs than the fantastically-staged series of impossible slayings, which are excellent in presentation, but poor and unconvincing in execution – especially the first murder and the last attempt are unconvincing. I suppose the trick for the first murder could have a whole lot more convincing in a smaller, more intimate setting, but not here or on this scale. I didn't think much about the other impossibilities with the inexplicable appearance/disappearance of the Tengu (SPOILER/ROT13), fbeg bs, tvivat njnl gur zheqrere, orpnhfr gur crefba jub jnf greebevmrq ol vg unq ng yrnfg gb or va ba vg. Lbh pna'g uvqr fhpu n guvat vafvqr fbzrbar'f ubgry ebbz, fhqqrayl fpner uvz jvgu naq znxr vg qvfnccrne, hayrff gung crefba vf chyyvat gur fgevatf be vf na nppbzcyvfu. A commendable attempt to weave four impossible crimes into a fairly short story, but again, far better for the storyline-and character-arc developments.

The second story deals with the direct fallout of the previous story, because Jimmy Kudo, "the top teen detective of the east," resurfacing to solve a murder case involving well-known filmmakers has started a buzz. Kudo's return ("Rumors of His Death Debunked") trended on social media, became the top news story online and attracted the attention of the news media. So now Conan is in deep trouble as reporters with camera crews besiege his home and everyone who knows Jimmy Kudo, which is bound to get noticed by the Black Organization. Meanwhile, Anita and the Junior Detective League go to the home of classmate who failed to show up at school that day. When they enter the home, they find the first of a trail of clue to an indoors treasure hunt and they fear the little girl might have gotten trapped somewhere while following the clues. So they retrace their girl's step by following the clues her grandmother left behind. Yes, a very minor story intended to break away from Conan's precarious situation and the growing interest in Jimmy Kudo's return, but by no means a bad story. Where, and how, they discovered the girl involves something I always imagined would make for a first-rate locked room-trick, but, to my knowledge, it has yet to be used. So overall a better story than the previous landmark story and Conan learns the name of the Black Organization's boss. We all know who he really is, right?

The fallout from Jimmy Kudo's headline grabbing return continues into the third story, but also has a pretty good, self-contained detective story to offer.

Richard Moore netted an aristocratic client, Gunzo Morooka, who received a threatening note to stay clear of the Black Bunny Club ("...if you value your life"). So they meet at the Black Bunny Club to discuss the case. Black Bunny Club is a "gentleman's club" where hostesses are dressed as scantily-clad bunnies raising the question how Conan and Rachel were even allowed on the premise. When food and dinner arrives, one of the bunnies is poisoned and hospitalized with only three suspects who could have poisoned her drink. So, on the surface, it's the customary whom-of-the-three-did-it staple of this series, but how the drink was poisoned is rather ingenious and makes the story standout. Case Closed is going to be interesting study material in the future for how the traditional 20th century detective story adapted itself to the 21th century. So good story that also has Toru Amuro as Moore's disciple to look over Conan's shoulder with a cliffhanger that would been a perfect conclusion to this volume.

The last two chapters begins a story that will be concluded in the next volume and deals with "a serial killer who targets female cops." More precisely, the female cops of the traffic division and colleagues of the series regulars Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike. At the end of the last chapter, the serial killer left three bodies behind and his second victim left a cryptic dying message: a bloody finger pointing towards a swing set on a child's playground. So we'll find out what that's all about in the next volume.

So, when it comes to the individual plots, this volume was a mixed bag, but very rewarding for long-time fans of the series as the game finally appears to be afoot. Like Ho-Ling said in his 2018 review, the stories show "Aoyama is busy moving his pieces for an event which might very well be the ending of this series." It really comes across like that, but then again, this volume was originally published in 2018 and vol. 107 was published earlier this year. So maybe not yet, but look forward to the next volume.

A Challenger Appears: C.M.B. vol. 5-6 by Motohiro Katou

Three months ago, I finished Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. series with my review of vol. 50 and compiled "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 26-50" as a follow-up to "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 1-25" shortly after – decided to take a short break from Katou's detective fiction. A short break that lasted about a month longer than originally intended. Having "spammed" Q.E.D. reviews earlier in the year, I wanted to return to C.M.B. before starting on Q.E.D. iff.

The first, of two, stories from C.M.B. vol. 5, "Gutenberg Bible," brings a rare visitor to Sakaki Shinra's strange, hidden Museum of Antiquity. A young, foreign woman, Mau Sugal, who carries around a huge, briefcase-like backpack and speaks Japanese perfectly.

What she brought along is a historical treasure: a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible. She wants Shinra, holder of the "C," "M" and "B" rings, to give his expert opinion and, if possible, authenticate it. When he asks where the page came from and under which circumstances it was obtained, Sugal tells him she "cannot reveal that due to the exact wishes of the customer." Shinra flat out refuses to authenticate the page much to the annoyance of his friend, Nanase Tatsuki ("she's in trouble and needs your help"), but he can't risk the Gutenberg page being sold on the black market with his seal of authenticity stamped on it. The black market in stolen art and archaeological artifacts is at the heart of this story, because the page naturally attracts the attention from both criminals and the law. A case that also involves a rumored, hitherto unknown copy of the Gutenberg Bible locked away in a safety deposit box.

So a really fun story, but, plot-wise, impossible to spoil as the story introduces Mau Sugal with the ending revealing and setting her up as an antagonist to Shinra – more like a good natured frenemy. Mau Sugal returns in the next story.

"Spirit of the Forest," second and last story of vol. 5, sees Sugal coming back to Shinra's museum ("are you here to steal again?"). She wants him to accompany her to the jungles of Borneo to help find someone he knows, Sadaman the herbalist, who "can cure people with his knowledge of the different types of herbs growing in the forest." That talent attracted the attention of the CEO of Navaro Pharmaceuticals, Levy Noble. She saw possibilities to create new medicines to combat the bacteria that start to show immunity to current medicines, but an incident happened. Lloyd Shorts, a plant hunter, accompanied by an investigator, John Baits, were dispatched to make contact with Sadaman, but, on their second meeting, Baits was killed ("...his head was cut off") and Lloyd run into the jungle in a panic – screaming he's "gonna be killed by Sadaman as well." This murder comes with a ghostly impossibility. Right before the body was found, someone saw Baits walking across a bridge and followed him, but only bumped into Lloyd on the other side. And he hadn't seen Baits come by. So a dead man walking inexplicably vanished into thin air!

However, "Spirit of the Forest" is more like one of those character-driven puzzles from Q.E.D. in which the importance is on Shinra trying to find and understand the lessons Shadaman taught him as a kid. Not necessarily the criminal scheme playing out behind the scenes. While the ghostly disappearance on the bridge has a glimmer of originality, the solution represents one of those rare instances where the visual language of manga is not at all complimentary to trick. Normally, they show the still largely untapped potential of visual impossible crimes, but this just looked preposterous. A trick that should have been described and left to the imagination. This has not been a great year for finding gems of locked room mystery and impossible crime story.

So, on a whole, a fun enough, if unchallenging, story which also sums up this fifth volume in toto. Fun but not especially challenging, plotwise. You can write that down to being early in the series and having to introduce and setting up recurring characters and storylines. But fine for getting back into the series after a hiatus.

C.M.B. vol. 6 is made up a single, longish story, "Canopus," digging into Shinra's sometimes tragic background. The story takes place in Cairo, Egypt, where a deranged serial killer is taking a scenic tour of the historic city and generally being a bad guest in a foreign country. First stop of this serial killer is Cairo's Museum of Antiquity where a man is shot, killed and mutilated. Only other thing the killer left behind was a shell casing engraved with Egyptian hieroglyphics. However, the bullet damaged an ancient artifact that had been excavated by Shinra's late mother, Haruna. That brings a distraught Shinra to Cairo to hunt down the shooter who damaged the artifact.

Speaking of Shinra's family, "Canopus" is the other part of the crossover with Q.E.D. that began in "Pharaoh's Necklace" from vol. 28. Shinra and his cousin Sou Touma, along with Kana Mizuhara, happened to be in Cairo at the same time, which means they get to interact and exchange advise. Tatsuki uses the meeting to subtly get more background information on Shinra out of Touma and Mizuhara. Meanwhile, the serial killer continues his murder spree as more mutilated bodies and hieroglyphics shell casing turn up near Egypt's historical landmarks.

So there's plenty going on with enough room to work out the three major plot points. Firstly, the very sad, sometimes brutal backstory of Shinra's relationship with his mother and how he lost her. Secondly, while the serial killer doesn't pose a terribly complicated plot-thread, there's reason to the killer's madness to give it that good, old-fashioned whodunit tug. Thirdly, Shinra playing armchair detective to dispel the countless myths, conspiracy theories and apparent anomalies surrounding the construction of the pyramids – acknowledging his take is “just a hypothesis" with "no tangible evidence." I really enjoyed this segment short as it was! It reminded me of MORI Hiroshi's short story "Sekito no yane kazan" ("The Rooftop Ornaments of Stone Ratha," 1999) in which several armchair sleuths pore over an architectural conundrum from 7th century India. The crossover part simply is a bonus!

C.M.B. vol. 6 is a solid, single story volume doing an admirable job in balancing character-and series building with the various plot-threads, past and present. So probably going to read up to vol. 10, before starting on Q.E.D. iff and alternate between the two series. Stay tuned!

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

The traditional, Golden Age-style detective story has seen a tremendous resurgence over the past ten years spurred on by the fortunate concurrence of the reprint renaissance gaining full momentum with the outbreak of the translation wave – which occurred a decade ago this year. A confluence of discovery, and rediscovery, leading to a rebirth of the classically-styled, fair play detective novel. Not to mention a locked room revival that came as a byproduct of the reprint renaissance and translation wave. Happy little accidents, indeed!

So times have definitely changed over the past twenty years, particularly the last ten, which even gave rise to a strong, independent scene of traditional and borderline experimental impossible crime experts. After all, a rising tide lifts up all ships.

I'm still flinchy when it comes to modern detective fiction presented as clever, hilarious send-ups of the Golden Age country house whodunit or clever, hilarious modern reinterpretations of the classic British mysteries. More often that not, they aren't clever (e.g. Catherine Aird's The Stately Home Murder, 1969) nor hilarious (e.g. Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, 2006). At their worst, they trot out old, dusty tropes and cliches presented as clever, subversive takes on the "surprise" solution (the butler did it by way of a secret passage). Like I said on a previous review, I've been tricked too many times with false promises of contemporary, Golden Age-style mysteries not to be flinchy – hence why I was skeptical about today's subject. Nearly everyone raved about Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Australian stand-up comedian Benjamin Stevenson upon its release, but the packaging and presentation was cause for hesitation.

I honestly forgot it existed until John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, returned from hiatus in January and recommended Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone as "the best one" with "a couple of impossible crimes." Yeah, it's embarrassing how easy it really is to reel me in. The promise of a couple of impossible crimes usually does the trick.

Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone is the first entry in the Ernest Cunningham series, which currently counts three novels comprising of Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) and Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024). The titles in combination with their covers immediately pushes them in the cozy corner of the genre, but John Norris turned out to be correct when he called them puzzling, engaging meta-mysteries – both honoring and spoofing the fair play principles of the traditional detective story ("Knox would have me drawn and quartered..."). That still sounds a bit cozy adjacent. Regardless of its traditional trappings and narrative, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone is a dark, gritty crime novel with all the plot-complexity of a classic mystery. There are, however, no impossible crimes or locked room murders.

Ernest Cunningham is a writer who writes books on how to write a book and something of an expert on crime-and detective fiction. Cunningham is also the narrator who promises the reader to be a reliable narrator, contrary to the customary reliable narrator, but "not competent." Everything he tells is the truth or what he believed the truth to be at the time. Cunningham regularly addresses the reader or foreshadow what's to come like referring in the opening to the chapters where the readers can expect the "gory details" or acknowledging "there is only one plot-hole you could drive a truck through." There are layers and double meanings to everything. Cunningham's narrative recounting the events gives this otherwise dark, modern crime tale its classical whodunit structure festooned with clues and red herrings.

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone takes place during the Cunningham family reunion at the remote Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat, which sounds conventional enough, but everyone in Cunningham's family has killed someone. Some of his relatives, "the high achievers," killed more than once. So the family is well-known to the police and media, especially after the murder Ernest's brother is serving time for. Three years previously, Michael turned up at Ernest's doorstep with a bag of money and a dying man in the backseat. Michael asks him to help bury the man and Ernest complies at first, but witnesses something wishing he hadn't and turned him to the police – even testifying against him. That betrayal turned their mother, Audrey, against Ernest. Her current husband and their stepfather, Marcelo Garcia, who's a lawyer and defended Michael in court. It only got him a three year sentence.

So the family comes back together for a reunion and greet Michael back a free man at the Sky Lodge, which honestly would have been enough to fuel the entire as the unraveling of the family's backstory demonstrates. Not only the various, individual backstories giving the book its title, but the overarching backstory in how the killing three years ago is connected to the death of Ernest and Michael's father. A small-time criminal who died in a shootout with the police decades ago. Neither the murder three years ago nor the shootout are quite what they seem as everything obfuscated by layers of lies, misunderstanding and misconceptions. All wrapped up as meta-mystery penned by someone who understands how to gracefully lie through your teeth without uttering a single untrue word. A talent that separated the likes of John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie and Christianna Brand from their contemporaries.

Normally, a crime novel or even a more traditionally-styled detective story focusing entirely on backstories is a huge red flag, as it rarely bodes well for the quality of the plot, but Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone simply turned the collection of backstories into the various, interconnected pieces of an intricately-designed, fairly clued puzzle plot. Impressively, it recreated the traditional whodunit without dragging out bodies-in-libraries or subversively secret passages, but the sordid, downright reprehensible crimes not often associated with the good, old-fashioned whodunit. So peeling away the layers surrounding the Cunningham family secrets alone would have been a compelling modern take on the classic mystery novel, but it's not just the past throwing up questions and mysteries. The reunion is interrupted when the unidentified body of a man, an outsider, is found under mysterious circumstances. A death that could be the handiwork of an active serial killer, "The Black Tongue," who already made three victims by employing a very unusual, terrifying murder method.

This only touches a fraction of the deeply rooted, widely branched family plot buried at the core of Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone streaked through with thrills and a couple of close calls. There was, in fact, so much going on I became skeptical how Stevenson intended to pull all the twisted, intertwined plot-threads together in such a way that had my fellow detective aficionados raving. Well, I suppose my fears were put aside when Ernest turned to the reader to give a list of all the clues, "to keep Ronald Knox happy," he used to put every piece in place. So everyone still alive gathers in the library where Ernest explains everything. Admittedly, there's a lot to explain and unpack, technically and emotionally, which slows down the pace a little. But absolutely necessary to digest everything properly. One, or two, things stretched things a little (ROT13: gur zvpebqbgf nxn “fcl fuvg”), but nothing detrimental to the plot, story or characters. I rather have a plot that's a little over indulgent in some places than threadbare. I really liked who the murderer turned out to be. I certainly had my suspicions against that person, but not that. Very, very cheeky!

So it can be said Stevenson succeeded Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone in creating a genuine, character-driven modernization of the plot-oriented Golden Age detective story, but I like to see it as a long overdue continuation of the traditional, fair play detective story. There have been glimpses over the decades of what the Golden Age detective story could have turned into had it not been slowly snuffed out during the post-WWII decades, which were often short-lived or somewhat hidden, but it looks like its time has finally come. Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone comes recommended as not only a superb detective novel, but as another step towards that Second Golden Age. I very much look forward to Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023), which is going to be short-tracked to the top of the big pile.

The House of Snow and the Six Tricks (2022) by Danro Kamosaki

Last year, the first round of nominations for the updated "Locked Room Library," hosted by Alexander of The Detection Collection, introduced me to the fanlations from Mitsuda Madoy and "cosmmiicnana" – whose work got several novels on the nomination list. Kie Houjou's Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022) became instant favorites, Takekuni Kitayama's Rurijou satsujin jiken (The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders, 2002) is close on their heels. All three are modern masterpieces of the hybrid mystery with incredibly imaginative, visionary even, plots and original locked room mysteries. I also enjoyed their translation of Jun Kurachi's excellent, non-impossible crime mystery Hoshifuri sansou no satsujin (Murders in the Mountain Lodges Beneath the Shooting Stars, 1996). This duo also translated two novels from a series with a very alluring premise.

Danro Kamosaki wordily titled Misshitsu ougon jidai no satsujin – Yuko no yakata to muttsu no trick (Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms – The House of Snow and the Six Tricks, 2022) is the first entry in the "Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms" series. I'll simply refer to it as The House of Snow and the Six Tricks.

Three years previously, the first ever, real-life locked room murder was committed in Japan. Fortunately, the murderer was arrested, put on trial and acquitted, because nobody could break down the killer's locked room-trick – protecting the murderer like an unbreakable alibi. So the locked room murder and impossible crime, "that common fiction trope so looked down upon for its unreality," became "preeminently practical" over night. Just a month after the trial, the police were faced with four more locked room murders and the numbers climbed over the following months ("locked rooms spread throughout society like a disease"). The counter stands at 302 at the opening of the story meaning "30% of the total number of murders committed in Japan in an average year are locked room murders."

Over the course of the story, the reader learns just how much this epidemic of impossible crimes have changed police work and given rise to new jobs. There are now specialized detectives to handle complicated locked room murders that do not involve any of the routine tricks, "like using string to turn the key in the inside lock or hiding inside the room," but a murderer with a fresh idea or using new, cutting-edge tricks. The so called locked room detectives aren't the only newly created experts to combat the rash of impossible crimes. Locked room appraisal companies specialize in finding secret passages, hidden doors and other such hiding places with ultrasound and x-rays. A service provided to both the police and private citizens to make sure their crime scene or house they intend to buy is free of any hoary, nineteenth century plot device. That and much more you have to read for yourself.

So that's the country 17-year-old high school student, Kasumi Kuzushiro, finds himself in when he's dragged along by his friend, Yozuki Asahina, to the famous House of Snow. Apparently, the hunt for UMA (Unidentified Mysterious Animal), but the House of Snow, currently a hotel, used to be the home of the celebrated mystery writer, the late Byakuya Yukishiro. A locked room specialist who was years ahead of the locked room boom when he created one of his own. However, the locked room was a challenge, not a crime, thrown down during a house party.

Ten years ago, Yukishiro hosted a party where his guests, comprising of some well-known mystery writers and critics, were surprised with a mocked murder – which they would declare later that night a perfect locked room mystery. A doll with a knife in its chest is found a room with the door locked from the inside, windows either do not open or have lattices to prevent them from being used, but the finishing touch is that the sole key to the room was inside a bottle with the lid closed tight! This prompted a lively, all-night debate and "an impromptu deduction competition," but nobody that night had been able to solve the mystery. Nobody else had since. So the House of Snow Locked Room Case, "Yukishiro's true masterpiece," became an attraction when he died and his home was turned into a hotel.

 

 

When they arrive, Kasumi Kuzushiro and Yozuki Asahina find an odd collection of guests gathering at the hotel. Eiji Sagurioka, a Locked Room Detective, who came to the hotel to try and find a solution to Yukishiro's mystery for a magazine. Riria Hasemi, a famous teenage actress, who's accompanied by her downtrodden manager, Toshiro Manei. Fenrir Alicehazard, a British woman, who claims to have come to the hotel to hunt for another UMA ("I heard there are skyfish near here"). Satoru Kanzaki, a priest of the Tower of Dawn, representing a religious sect who worship and purify crime scenes with prayer ("...one they held in highest regard was the scene of a locked room murder"). Dr. Hironobu Ishikawa and Haruki Yashiro, president of a trading company, are the more normal guests. Kuzushiro is surprised to find a familiar face among the guests, Shitsuri Mitsumura, who was his classmate in middle school and were the only members of the literature club. She has talent for solving locked room puzzles. Something that comes in handy when people begin to turn up dead under seemingly impossible circumstances.

The first of the murders is practically a copy of Yukishiro's locked room challenge, but, instead of a doll, the knife is now sticking out of a corpse and a unique, hand painted playing card is found – linking the murder to unsolved case known as "The Playing Card Serial Murder Case." On top of that, the murderer cut the phone lines and torched the bridge to trap them in the remote hotel during the dead of winter.

Kuzushiro and Mitsumura have all the time to pick both locked rooms, past and present, over the course of several chapters. Mitsumura pieces together the correct solution and her reconstruction sets the tone for what's to come. The locked room-trick is a complicated, but original, one in both presentation and resolution coming with a clear cut diagram to show the trick worked. Danro Kamosaki loves technical and physical tricks, which is here on full display, but this merely the first of half a dozen impossible murders.

I commented before on these multiple impossible crime mysteries and that they tend to run into one of two problems. They either have one, or two, good locked room-tricks with the remaining being either filler, to put kindly, or downright bad and disappointing. Or they feel to crammed with all the good ideas not given enough room to breath. The magical number to perfectly balance quality and quantity appears to be three or four. The House of Snow and the Six Tricks goes over that margin, however, it maintains a pretty decent quality overall. Only two of them failed to impress me.

There's a rather gruesome stabbing in the dining hall at the time the only entrance was under constant observation. The solution is, visually, unintentionally hilarious and should have been used in a Takemaru Abiko story or some dark, comedic-style mystery (what a way (ROT13) gb hfr n uvqqra, nhgbzngvp qbbe gb n frperg cnffntr!). I hated the third locked room murder, a shooting in a bedroom, which is bad enough to actually slightly detract from the story's overall quality. One of the clearest examples of smearing lipstick on a pig trying to make it look more impossible than it really is. Had the trick gone off as planned, it would have still posed a similar problem in distance. The fourth impossible situation places the body inside a locked room surrounded by "a square arrangement of dominoes" extending towards the door continuing right up to the last one. So nobody could have left the room without toppling the stones. A clever enough solution and the situation demanded a dash of originality, but found the trick contrived and unconvincing.

Even after all they explain all the locked rooms and apprehend the killer, another murderer strikes with a fifth and final impossible murder. A truly ingenious variation on Yukishiro's masterpiece with added difficulties. This time, the only key to the room is found inside a jam jar and the thumb turn, "used to lock the door from the inside," covered with a gachapon capsule ("...the lid of a capsule toy from a gachapon machine") – which immediately eliminates several potential tricks. Kuzushiro, not Mitsumura, finally gets to solve one with a fresh treatment of John Dickson Carr's "Locked Room Lecture" (see The Three Coffins, 1935). Kuzushiro uses the Locked Room Classification List, created by the Ministry of Justice, which lists all "fifteen different types of locked room tricks in existence.” One by one, Kuzushiro's Ellery Queen-style reasoning eliminates every trick on the list, before revealing "an extremely simple trick that doesn't fit into any existing category." I think this fifth is the best of the half a dozen, or so, impossible crimes with clues to its solution dropped throughout the story and doesn't need a diagram to provide a clear visual image of the trick.

If you haven't had your fill of miracle crimes, the murder that started the locked room boom comes into play as it's linked to one of the characters. That murder is revealed to have been something of nestling doll. Locked rooms within locked rooms! A murder in a mansion surrounded by a high wall with the only entrance under CCTV surveillance. The body was found in the customary locked room with the key to the door locked away in a drawer and the key to the drawer was found in the victim's pocket.

So, yes, the love of locked rooms and physical tricks is front and center of The House of Snow and the Six Tricks, but it's not all tricks, tricks and tricks. Just mostly. There's the intriguing backstory of the Japan's first locked room murder and how it's linked up to the main characters, but also a bit of gruesome meta-playfulness with the playing cards and their true meaning. It helped to make this densely-plotted, very technical and detailed locked room mystery fun and readable. Even though the story sometimes tried to be a little too clever for it's own good, The House of Snow and the Six Tricks comes highly recommended to rabid locked room fanatics and everyone who simply enjoys a meaty puzzle plot. You can expect a review of the sequel sometime in the not so distant future.

Midsummer Murder (1937) by Clifford Witting

Midsummer Murder (1937) is Clifford Witting's second novel starring Inspector Harry Charlton, attached to the Downshire County Constabulary, who has to put aside his daily, small-town problems to turn his attention to a curious murder – committed in the town square of Paulsfield. The murder happened during a chaotic moment on a market day, in July, when a bull "intent on its one brief hour of glorious life" got loose and turned the whole market in an uproar. So the sound of a gunshot largely went unnoticed in the pandemonium. What didn't went unnoticed is the man who had been cleaning the statue of a former Lord Shawford dropping dead between the railings and the plinth with a bullet in his head.

Inspector Charlton begins to investigate this strange shooting with all the accustomed thoroughness and plodding vigor of the British police.

They begin to gather evidence, which isn't much, trying to determine the general direction from which the bullet came or hoping to match the extracted bullet to locally issued firearm permits. A whole crowd of witnesses need to be questioned and close attention is being paid to the shopkeepers occupying the part of the square from where the shot was presumably fired. And there's the question of motive. Why shoot "an ordinary working man" who's cleaning a statue? A somewhat unusual case, but an isolated one and nothing too sensational until the murderer decides to make murder a habit.

On the following morning, the murderer kills a second man in the then deserted square and, later in the day, a third man is shot and seriously wounded while sitting in his car – only links are the bullets and opportunistic nature of the shootings. Every time the shooter pulled the trigger, it was during "the psychological moment." Like a bull rampaging overturning market stalls, a passing thunder storm or a deserted street with "no one awake but a nodding night-watchman." More shots would be fired in the town square "before the sniper's reign of terror came to an end." So the newspapers begin to screaming about the Paulsfield Sniper spreading terror in town and making veiled comments regarding the lack of progress the police has made in apprehending this homicidal maniac. Charlton remains undeterred and investigates each crime, "separately and also in relation to the others," with that same thorough and plodding vigor.

Midsummer Murder is not the first Golden Age mystery to revolve around a serial killer, but Witting certainly penned one of the earlier examples and a pretty odd one at that.

The serial killer from the pre-World War II detective novel has always been an odd, often out-of-place character compared to its modern-day counterpart. There are generally three types of serial killers in the classic detective novel: a rational murderer who uses the serial killings as a smokescreen for their through motives/objectives or a genuine homicidal maniac, which always feels out-of-place in a Golden Age mystery – a third type is a combination of the first two. So closer to the serial killers of modern crime fiction. One thing they all have in common is that they lean into the thriller-ish elements of having a serial killer present as panic spreads across the community stoked by sensational headlines blaring about the latest murder. For example, Francis Beeding's Death Walks in Eastrepp (1931) and Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails (1949) do this very well. However, Midsummer Murder reads like a charming, leisurely paced small-town mystery with a thick dollop of local color, quirky, but well-drawn, characters and some lighthearted humor. There are blaring headlines and the people of Paulsfield began to favor the parts of town "free, as yet, from the murderous attentions of the Sniper," but within a week "everything had returned to normal" as they began to drift back into the square. Even though the newspapers about alarm and panic, the actual description of "that 'orrible to-do in the Square" is very little more than an annoyance to the locals. Like the shopkeepers around the scene of the shootings.

Now I appreciated the calm, levelheaded approach of the police and the town to the presence of a sniper indiscriminately picking people off in the market square, but it strikes a false note. And a missed opportunity. Witting put on the local color thickly and it would have made for a great read to see a rural town, where "everything seemed so ideally peaceful" under the midsummer sun, getting paralyzed as everyone locked themselves away in their sweltering homes. But without that element of spreading fear and terror, Midsummer Murder comes across as an overwritten, drawn out novel that badly needed trimming in order to expand the ending. Midsummer Murder ends abruptly and not in a good way. Nor something that justifies taking the long way round to get there. The story begged for something better and more substantial to end on.

I don't think the story's shortcomings would have bothered me half as much had Witting not been so cute by constantly acknowledging those shortcomings with such lines as "it will be as well if local colour is not laid on too thickly at this early stage in the story" or "overstock this story with characters." Even worse is the sudden ending in combination with that closing line (ROT13), "jr xabj gung gur Qrgrpgvba Pyho, haqre gur cerfvqrapl bs Ze. R. P. Oragyrl, qb abg yvxr znq zheqreref, ohg gurer vg vf." Without those comments, I would have taken Midsummer Murder as an interesting, well-intended curio of the Golden Age serial killer novel similar to Brian Flynn's experiments in The Edge of Terror (1932) and Reverse the Charges (1943). Witting knew what the story lacked and simply didn't appear to care. Just wanting to write the story, whether it worked or not, and joking about it. I can forgive a lot from a mystery writer when they have something to show in the end, but not being cute and empty handed. So the conclusion annoyed me to no end.

That being said, I did enjoy Charlton trying to grapple with the problem of a serial killer, "these are not natural crimes," while admitting ordinary police methods can have its limits with an indiscriminate killer. And trying to anticipate in which direction the solution is headed. Other than that, the least satisfying of the Witting reprints so far. Catt Out of the Bag (1939), Subject—Murder (1945) and Let X Be the Murderer (1947) are all infinitely better detective novels. Murder in Blue (1937) is better written than plotted, but would even place that one above Midsummer Murder. Well, you get the idea. I'll try to pick something good for the next time.

Blackstone Fell (2022) by Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards' Blackstone Fell (2022), alternatively published as The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge, is the third title in the Rachel Savernake series that can best be described as historical, pulp-style retro-thrillers with elaborately-webbed, tangled puzzle plots hidden underneath – comparable only to Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit series. A technique known as webwork plotting ("...the art of creating a single story out of random multiple narrative threads") and Edwards cleverly exploited to write one series that satisfies two different groups of readers. Those who enjoy a dark, eventful thriller with characters and those who want their crime fiction supported by a good, solid plot.

I belong to the latter and definitely appreciated the first two Savernake retro-pulp novels, Gallows Court (2018) and Mortmain Hall (2022), which combined the best of the detective story and thriller. Edwards ended both with a "Cluefinder" referring back to the pages and lines where the clues and hints to the solution were hidden in plain sight. Something I can always appreciate, but particularly looked forward to getting to Blackstone Fell as it contains not one, but two, impossible disappearances!

Back in 2022, Edwards wrote on his blog that he had been rewatching "the complete run of episodes of David Renwick's Jonathan Creek," as well as “working on John Dickson Carr titles for the British Library," while Blackstone Fell was still in its conceptional phase – deciding "it would be fun to have a genuine locked room mystery in the book." Edwards has written short impossible crime stories before, "Waiting for Godstow" (2000) and "The House of the Red Candle" (2004), but Blackstone Fell is his first novel-length locked room mystery. Just like it's two predecessors, Blackstone Fell has a plot resembling a deep, densely-webbed structure with maze-like properties. And like the previous novel, this third title in the series has a body count Paul Doherty would approve of.

Blackstone Fell is set in October, 1930, beginning with the arrival of the investigative journalist Nell Fagan in the small, remote Yorkshire village of Blackstone Fell "masquerading as a photographer named Grace" – trying to worm information from the locals about the local sanatorium. Vernon Murray contacted Nell to ask her help to bring whoever murdered his mother to justice, Ursula Murray. A widow who remarried a young, virtually unknown playwright, Thomas Baker ("no, none of the theatre critics have heard of him, either"), who packed her off to Blackstone Sanatorium to recover from a "nervous collapse." There she died from supposedly natural causes, but Vernon refuses to accept that verdict. And, out of desperation, turned to the crime reporter.

Nell took the tenancy of the historical, long vacant Blackstone Lodge as Cornelia Grace and tried poking around, but the close-knit community is not very keen on nosy outsiders and simply refuse to open up ("certainly not to an ungainly Londoner who reeked of tobacco and gin..."). However, Nell's prying disturbed someone as she's almost killed coming down the Fell by a boulder. Realizing she needs help, Nell reaches out to Rachel Savernake through Jacob Flint, because Nell is a persona non grata in Gaunt House. So she has to bait the hook with an offer for Jacob and an enticing mystery for Rachel. A historical locked room mystery centering on the gatehouse known as Blackstone Lodge!

Blackstone Lodge is a damp, drafty gatehouse dating back to the 17th century standing on the grounds of the now crumbling, overgrown Blackstone Tower estate of Harold Lejeune – whose family built and lived in the Tower for centuries. The tower gatehouse stood vacant for nearly as long on account of its dark history of inexplicable disappearances. In 1606, Edmund Mellor was the first guest to be welcomed at the recently completed Blackstone Tower and, one day, was seen by the rector entering the gatehouse, locking the door behind and "not a living soul ever clapped eyes on him again." Mellor had not only vanished into thin air from a locked gatehouse, but a locked gatehouse under observation as "the rector was adamant that he never budged from the spot." Three centuries later, it happened again 1914 when Alfred Lejeune, older brother of Harold, disappeared under similar circumstances from the gatehouse. Never to be seen again and declared dead in 1921. So coupled with the possibility that a killer is on the loose in the village, "perhaps more than one," makes for a pretty mystery to offer to Rachel as a peace offering, but she also had to give Jacob something.

Jacob editor is on a crusade against spiritualism, mediums and other supposedly supernatural mumbo-jumbo, which include "London's most renowned medium," but Ottilie Curle is not easily exposed as she conducted her sessions one-on-one – only to the credulous or the converted. Skeptics and the press are kept at a distance. Nell can arrange a place for Jacob at Curle's séance table under false pretenses, which is too good to turn down and the third main plot-thread of Blackstone Fell. This is only the beginning as people begin to die, left and right, before Rachel can begin her investigation in earnest. An investigation that brings even more deaths from the past to light.

Similar to Gallows Court and Mortmain Hall, you can't really discuss the unfolding events past the setup as things tend to become complicated really fast. Just like the first two books, the complicated web of characters, maze-like plot and potential motives are expertly handled. And beautifully tied together.

First of all, I knew Edwards intended the historical locked room puzzle of Blackstone Lodge to "a sub-ploy rather than the mainspring of the story," but couldn't help being a little disappointed my initial idea proved to be correct. I hoped Edwards' first novel-length locked room mystery would give me something to write about, even only as a minor subplot. The other two plot-threads are better handled with the deaths linked to the sanatorium being retro-pulp at its best ("...n fvtacbfg cbvagvat cebfcrpgvir zheqreref gb Oynpxfgbar Sryy"), while Ottilie Curle's storyline diverges from the usual involving spiritual mediums and dodgy séances. Edwards saved the best for last and concludes with a masterstroke (ROT13) erirnyvat gur guerr, vagrepbaarpgrq pnfrf ner n onpxqebc sbe n sbhegu, zbfgyl snve TNQ-fglyr jubqhavg uvqvat va cynva fvtug. Bravo! It's exactly what I hope to find in a modern mystery styled after the classics of yesteryear.

Just one little nitpick. I was completely satisfied with the ending and immediately turned over to the "Cluefinder," which "enjoyed a vogue during 'the Golden Age of murder' between the world wars" and Edwards decided to resurrect it for this series. It worked wonders for the previous two novels, but not in this case as it showed the clues ("a selection of pointers to the solution of the various mysteries") are not as strong as my impression was from the concluding chapters. Aside from that nagging, fanboyish bit of nitpicking, Blackstone Fell is another page-turner with a captivating, complicated plot and an immersive story that never stop moving. It's a worthy and excellent addition to both this series and the Golden Age revival. I just hope we'll get a genuine novel-length, John Dickson Carr-style locked room mystery from Edwards in the future. Until then, I have Sepulchre Street (2023) awaiting on the big pile.

My Late Wives: "She Wouldn't Kill Patience" (2002) by Ooyama Seiichiro

Ooyama Seiichiro is a Japanese mystery writer specialized in themes series and short story collections, best known today for the "Alibi Cracking, At Your Service" series, who debuted on the e-NOVELS website with a pastiche of John Dickson Carr's Dr. Gideon Fell – entitled "Kanojo ga Patience wo korosu hazu ga nai" ("She Wouldn't Kill Patience," 2002). The short story obviously is a homage to He Wouldn't Kill Patience (1944; as by "Carter Dickson"), which was Carr's answer to Clayton Rawson's challenge to craft a locked room mystery where the crime scene is sealed on the inside with tape. Rawson provided his own answer in the short story "From Another World" (1948) and recently A. Carver tackled the problem of a murderer inexplicably escaping from multiple, tape-shut rooms with The Author is Dead (2022). Ooyama Seiichiro's "She Wouldn't Kill Patience" is a fascinating addition to this sub-category of the locked room mystery.

"She Wouldn't Kill Patience" opens one evening in the study of Dr. Fell, Number I Adelphi Terrace, where he's entertaining Superintendent Hadley, Sergeant Higgins and the solicitor Frank Morstan. Dr. Fell notices something is on the solicitor's mind.

Frank Morstan has recently gotten engaged to Marjorie Copperfield, but so has her mother and his future mother-in-law, the long-widowed and wealthy Mrs. Marie Copperfield – which came as a surprise, or shock, to everyone. The man in question is a middle-aged, French historian and lecturer, Georges Lefebvre, who's ten years her junior and viewed with suspicion ("perhaps he is after the Mrs. Copperfield's money"). Not without reason. Superintendent Hadley recognizes a French serial killer and fugitive, named Charles Raspail, in Morstan's description of Georges Lefebvre. Hadley calls Raspail "the rebirth of Henri Désiré Landru from his homeland, or George Joseph Smith of England," who had three wives die under mysterious circumstances. Only difference between him and those two is Raspail is "much more clever and cunning" as he varied his methods and techniques. An overdose of sleeping medication or a fall from a third-floor balcony. So it took some time for the authorities to catch on, but, when they finally cottoned on, Raspail fled to England and simply disappeared.

So, knowing what they know now, Mrs. Copperfield is certainly going to be targeted next. Hadley orders Higgins to keep an eye on the current M. Lefebvre, which they go get the file at Scotland Yard to convince Mrs. Copperfield. However, they arrive too late. Mrs. Copperfield is discovered dead in her bedroom with the gas-tap screwed open to a maximum with the door and windows "sealed tightly by long, thin strips of vellum pasted along the gaps." Obviously suicide. However, Mrs. Copperfield is not the only body in the gas-filled room. Near the gas-tap stood the birdcage with Mrs. Copperfield's parrot, Patience, lying at the bottom pining for the fjords. Marjorie is sure the dead parrot proves her mother was murdered as "my mother wouldn't kill Patience" ("...she hoped it would live the rest of it out in peace"). But how? Even Dr. Fell has to admit, "I know many methods to lock a room from the outside, but this is the first time I see it sealed."

The locked room-trick is a real humdinger! Sure, you can call the trick a new wrinkle on an old chestnut, but really enjoyed how this idea was applied to the puzzle of the tape-sealed room. More importantly, "She Wouldn't Kill Patience" is not an impossible crime tale where the murderer is easily spotted and the trick carrying the whole plot. Ooyama Seiichiro refused to go with the obvious throughout the story, which made for an excellent denouement as Dr. Fell exposed both the truth and pointing out the killer. My only complaint is that motive felt a trifle weak when held next to the rather ingenious and involved method, which required a weightier motive to justify it. Other than that, "She Wouldn't Kill Patience" is a first-class locked room mystery and exactly what pastiches should aspire to be. A story written with love and respect for the original.

Note for the curious: you're probably wondering where you can find and read this story. Someone emailed me this unofficial translation to read and review, if I wanted to review the story. I decided to review it simply to try and generate some attention for Ooyama Seiichiro, because I would love to see official translations of "The Red Museum" and "The Locked Room Collector" series.

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) by Francis Beeding

"Francis Beeding" was the shared pseudonym of two writers, John Palmer and Hilary St. George Saunders, who collaborated on more than thirty crime, detective and thriller novels – published over twenty-one year period from 1925 to 1946. The successful collaboration ended with Palmer's death in 1944. Saunders made a one-time return to the genre with an authorized and localized reworking of Pierre Boileau's Le repos de Bacchus (The Rest of Bacchus, 1937) published in English as The Sleeping Bacchus (1951). An excellent impossible crime caper in the Arsène Lupin mold, but the novel for which Saunders and the Francis Beeding collaboration is mostly remembered today is something entirely different.

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931), the tenth novel that appeared under the Francis Beeding penname, enjoyed tremendous popularity and status as a genre classic for decades. Some of its fame had began to fade towards the end of the previous century, but the reprint renaissance restored it to its former prestige when it was reprinted in 2011. And its reputation is not wholly undeserved.

Beeding's Death Walks in Eastrepps is not the first mystery novel to feature a serial killer or a string of apparently random, unconnected murders. Anthony Berkeley's The Silk Stocking Murders (1928), S.S. van Dine's The Bishop Murder Case (1928) and John Rhode's The Murders in Praed Street (1928) all preceded it, but Death Walks in Eastrepps is the first to explore more than just the hidden-link between random victims and what can be done with a serial killer on the loose inside the pages of a detective story – essentially creating one of the first genuine, Golden Age mystery-thrillers. Over the decades, a who's who of writers tried their hands at a serial killer mystery-thriller, most of which tend to lean towards one or the other. Philip MacDonald's Murder Gone Mad (1931) and Brian Flynn's The Edge of Terror (1932) leaned towards the thriller, while Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders (1936) and Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails (1949) headed in the opposite direction. Death Walks in Eastrepps has received credit and praise for other elements of the story, but I'll get to them in a moment.

Robert Eldridge is a successful, financially secure businessman who occupies a small villa in Oakfield Terrace, Eastrepps, traveling to London once or twice a week to keep an eye on things at the office. This outwardly respectable businessman has dark, long buried secret. Robert Eldridge is really the notorious James Selby of Anaconda Ltd.

In 1914, James Selby absconded with a large sum ("the amount was over one hundred and ninety thousand pounds") of the company's funds and bolted to South America. And left behind ruined victims numbering in the hundreds. After sixteen years, Selby's physical appearance had undergone a drastic change, "tactfully obliterated by time and the razor," which helped to cover his tracks "so completely that no one could possibly suspect." So voyaged back home under a new name, settled down in Eastrepps and began a secret affair with a married woman, Margaret Withers, who needs grounds to divorce her husband and not the other way round – or risk losing her daughter. Eldridge does some clever maneuvering to put together a weekly alibi, appearing to be in London, to spend a night with Margaret. Appearing at the local station the next morning as the first London train drew in ("and nobody any the wiser"). While this affair is going on, the murders begin to happen.

The first victim is a spinster, Mary Hewitt, who's body is found in Coatt's Spinney strangely stabbed through the right temporal bone without any signs of a struggle ("it could hardly have been inflicted by surprise, and yet the victim apparently made no resistance"). A murder that poses a problem for the local police, Inspector Protheroe and Sergeant Ruddock, because Eastrepps has "no crime whatever in the real sense of the word." Inspector Protheroe believes "this murder in Coatt's Spinney could only be regarded as a bright exception" and even an opportunity to finally get noticed in order to get transferred to a busier district. And then a second body is found. And a third. And a fourth. Every victim is killed on the same day in exactly the same, peculiar way.

One thing that becomes very apparent after the second and third body is discovered is that the murders are not merely padding for the story, and bodycount, but has very real consequences for the investigating police and the community. A community made up of numerous, distinctly individual characters who are all affected differently by the murders.

Firstly, Eastrepps is a small, seaside town attracting a rowdy crowd of tourists, young men in blazers and young women in white pleated skirts, which Eastrepps did not encourage, but the third murder cleared the town of its visitors – a blow to the local economy ("there isn't a boarding-house in the town that isn't hit as badly..."). The tourists who were already in town quickly packed their bags and rooms booked in advanced were canceled. Only the press has an outside presence in town and dubbed the murderer "the Eastrepps Evil." Secondly, the murders have a very real, noticeable effect on the day-to-day life of the local residents as everything is "curiously calm." There are few people in the shops and still fewer on out in the streets. Even at ten-thirty on a Saturday morning and when the evening falls, the streets are deserted as the citizenry locked themselves into their houses ("a city of the dead"). One person who ventured outside wore a crash helmet for protection. When the murders mercilessly continue, the panic grows resulting in the formation of the Eastrepps Vigilance Association and calls for placing the town under martial law. Thirdly, every new murder increases the pressure on the police to get results and criticism grows every day without results ("...swarming about all over the place and letting folk be murdered in their beds?"). A wrong, bungled arrest and several more murders is not making their jobs any easier. There are even questions being asked in the House, which leads to a huge row and suspension of one of its Honourable Members. A funny little scene that allowed the story to catch its breath.

I think this is the biggest contribution the book made to the Golden Age serial killer thriller. The murders aren't merely padding to give the serial killer a bodycount to match the title nor are the victims just pawns with a name-tag. They were well-known, sometimes highly respected and beloved whose violent deaths are both mourned and have very real consequences for the town, investigators and everyone who gets caught up in their investigation. A second arrest is made and this time the suspect goes to trial with a long courtroom scene preceding the dramatic ending. Beeding even went for a grand surprise, a final twist, which undoubtedly was as surprising to readers in 1931 as Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) was five years earlier, but the passage of time has severely blunted it. This idea, or trick, has been done to death ever since with even Christie giving it the good, old college try. Although it has been touted as a first, it has been done before in the 1800s and early 1900s. However, it's undeniable Beeding really worked on the idea and refined it to the point where most readers today can probably instinctively identity the murderer. And make an educated guess about the somewhat ambiguous, but well-handled motive.

There are, however, one or two things to nitpick about. First of all, the false arrest came as a result of the presence of a mentally unbalanced, young man, "partial to female society," who sneaks out of his locked bedroom to stalk woman in the street and tip his head at them. A little too convenient to have such a character in the vicinity coming on top of the Robert Eldridge plot-thread positioning so many of his former victims as next door neighbors. This simply came across as cheap and second-rate, but mercifully, only a small part of the story. Secondly, the book suffers from happy-ending syndrome trying to sugarcoat its dark, grim ending in an “all's well that ends well” wrap-up. However, the damage the murderer has done by that point has been so extensive that the only way to salvage anything good from the human wreckage is for the murderer to have gotten away with it. I suppose it's not something that would have gone down well in 1931, but it would have been the most fitting, least painful ending to the story as it never addresses (sugarcoated) the consequences of the real murderer getting revealed, arrested, convicted and finally executed. Such as (SPOILER/ROT13) gur unatvat bs na vaabprag zna sbe gur zheqref, gur choyvp uhzvyvngvba bs Znetnerg jub yvxryl ybfg phfgbql bs ure qnhtugre va gur qvibepr naq gur frevbhf qnzntr qbar gb gur erchgngvba naq cerfgvtr bs gur cbyvpr naq pbhegf, juvpu erdhver fbzr urnqf gb ebyy.

Regardless of those little stylistic annoyances, Death Walks in Eastrepps comes highly recommended as an exciting and thrilling read with some genuine clever touches to the plotting and storytelling. A truly vintage mystery-thriller with real stakes that holds up well more than ninety years after its original publication. I enjoyed it so much, I moved Beeding's The Norwich Victims (1931) to the top of the pile.