Murder in the Tomb (1937) by Lucian Austin Osgood

Over the years, I picked up a curious collection of so-called genre curiosities, alternative classics and a couple of neglected gems along the trail of obscure, largely forgotten and out-of-print detective novels, but sometimes you find one hiding in plain sight – sporting a surprisingly up-to-date print status. Subject of today's review has been back in print for the past ten years and nobody has reviewed or even mentioned it. Not even an acknowledgment of its existence.

Back in 2016, Coachwhip reprinted Lucian Austin Osgood's Murder in the Tomb (1937) and going by the plot description on the back, you can't be blamed for assuming the book is a historical mystery with a Golden Age setting ("...by a newcomer in the field... set in the city of Minneapolis during the summer of 1932"). Murder in the Tomb was originally published in 1937 and Osgood, an American professor of English, had bigger ambitions than his one piece of now forgotten detective fiction suggests.

Murder in the Tomb was published by Unique Mystery Novels of Columbus, Mississippi, which appears to have been their first and only publication. However, the introduction, of the Coachwhip edition, mentions the back cover of the original edition announced Osgood's The Ghost of Dr. Arnette and Death by Candle Light as forthcoming. It also listed I Wish You Glad Tomorrow and Heloise by one Robert Grayle ("...a complete mystery"). So it's possible Unique Mystery Novels "may very well have been a self-publishing venture by Osgood." If it was a self-publishing project, I guess not enough copies of Murder in the Tomb were moved to make printing The Ghost of Dr. Arnette, Death by Candle Light and the two Grayle novels financial viable – adding four titles to that already too long list of lost detective fiction. The introduction unfortunately doesn't mention how Osgood's Murder in the Tomb came to their attention or how they got hold of a copy to reprint, because not many copies appear to have been in circulation. Whatever lead to its reprinting, Osgood produced a mystery novel that can certainly be called unique for its time.

I hardly know where to begin, knowing where it ends and how it got there. The story is told by Winston West, currently in the employ of Howard Ralston, who recently returned from accompanying his boss abroad to Ralston's home, called Windermere, on Park Avenue. Windermere is the twin of the house next door, Fontainebleau, connected through a porte-cochere "above which was a glassed-in hallway that permitted easy communication" between the two houses. Ralston's next door neighbor and owner of Fontainebleau is his business partner, M. Henri Cornier ("...owned an entire city block"). Cornier is the reason for their trip abroad. Ralston had told Cornier about his intention to collect three prizes, a Borgia poison ring, a Chinese vengeance dagger and the mummy of Serapion ("...terrible founder of the still more terrible Brothers of Karnak"). Three rare, near impossible to obtain, potentially dangerous items to possess. Cornier scoffs at Ralston's plan leading to a fifty thousand dollar wager between the two.

Several months later, Ralston and West return with the ring, dagger and mummy, but those "three menaces" were not obtained fairly and trouble begins knocking at their door.

Firstly, the Chinese vengeance dagger belongs to the Scarlet Dragons, "an organization said to still function in China," who have been sending notes pressing for the return of the dagger or suffer the consequences. Secondly, the surviving Brothers of Karnak expressed similar wishes and death threats regarding their stolen mummy. Although their threats have a supernatural flavor ("...summon the ka out of that mummy to punish you with horrible death"). Thirdly, Ralston "borrowed" the Borgia ring from the Duke of Vedena by swapping it with a replica during a visit. A replica made by his new protege and skilled artificer, Pietro Martini, who has also become a member of the Windermere household – complete with a mention in his mentor's will. Duke of Vedena and a Lucretia Lansing, an agent for antiquarians, turned up at Windermere to demand the return of the ring, but without much success. Than there's the domestic troubles and tension. Ralston is engaged to the much younger daughter of his late friend, Mildred Manning, who has fallen in love with Ralston's son, Paul. More than enough to set the stage for murder!

So far, Murder in the Tomb sounds fairly conventional even with pulp material already cluttering the early stages of the story and plot, but then murder happens. And things start to get really weird.

Ralston's collection, including the three menaces, is locked away in a secure, high tech room referred to as "the tomb." A push of the button can hermetically seal the room with solid steel sheets sliding down to cover every door and window. During the night, while the house is rocked by a thunderstorm, Ralston goes to the tomb to challenge the curse of the mummy, but West has also gone to the tomb. What he witnesses can be at first taken as a nightmare scene or hallucination, "the lid of the mummy case swung slowly outward" and "stiffly old Serapion stepped forth" shooting "a ghostly green ray straight at Ralston's heart" from "a fleshless finger." The confusing doesn't end there, but it ends with a dying Ralston, vengeance dagger sticking out of his back, and unconscious West lying on the floor. When he regains consciousness, West is told Ralston's body and the mummy vanished from the tomb!

Well, the impossibilities, or locked room problems, aren't as clearly stated or half as obvious as my description suggests. Osgood and Murder in the Tomb have this weird love/hate relationship with the cliches and tropes of the detective story and pulp thrillers, simultaneously embracing them and trying to keep them at arm length. Osgood tends to talk, or write, around them and that doesn't always make for the clearest way to tell and plot a detective story. For example, the tomb and the twin houses have several secret passages and hidden doorways that aren't as secret or hidden as they should be, but the problem of timing and opportunity remains (I think). So the only true impossibility standing is old Serapion acting like a prop from a 1980s science-fiction flick coming back to life (I think). But more on him in a moment.

The investigation into this murder, disappearing corpses and hallucination witnesses is as unusual as the crimes themselves parred excellently with two relatively grounded detectives. Detective Hal Denny and Ben Bailey revel in the role of dumb, flatfooted cop and clever, cunning amateur with Bailey even being called a “college sleuth” by one of the characters – which is an interesting phrase to use in a 1930s mystery novel. A high school detective or college sleuth is something that has become synonymous in my mind with the Japanese detective story. Denny and Bailey playing rival detectives is arguably the best part of the book as they're not always playing nice which gives their rivalry a bite.

The bizarre twists, out-of-nowhere turns and other complications keep them busy enough like a mass poisoning incident when someone decides to sling various kinds of poison around the place. One of the people left incapacitated is behind a bolted door and its discovery is setup as another locked room crime, but that ended as soon as the door was broken down. Like I said, the whole story has this really weird love/hate relationship with its tropes.

So, as you probably gathered, I started to become a little bit skeptical during the second-half, but the unusual treatment of its tropes gave me hope. I hoped Murder in the Tomb would turn out to be one of those detective novels where you started to wonder how the author was going to pull it all together, only to show at the end everything had gone according to plan. You know, the Ton Vervoort approach to writing and plotting detective fiction. It was either going to be a so-called alternative classic or fall to pieces at the end. Yes, regrettably, Murder in the Tomb fell to pieces in a glorious, almost incomprehensible and, to be honest, impressive mess.

I'm not sure how everything happened, because how incredibly convoluted the solution turned out to be, but several things stood out. Firstly, Osgood employed an unusual, horrendously botched take on (SPOILER/ROT13) gur oveyfgbar tnzovg va juvpu gur cerfhzrq ivpgvz jnf fgvyy gur ivpgvz ybpxrq njnl va n uvqqra ebbz. Secondly, the (ROT13) ahzore bs crbcyr jub raqrq hc orvat vafvqr gur urezrgvpnyyl frnyrq gbzo ng gur gvzr bs gur zheqre. Jr fzvex ng zlfgrevrf sebz gjragvrf sbe univat pevzr fprarf erfrzoyvat n ohfl gubebhtusner, ohg guvf jnf whfg havagraqrq pbzrql. Thirdly, Bailey casually explaining the mummy attack in the tomb (ROT13: “Whfg n ebobg, gung'f nyy”).

So, yeah, the story shot itself to pieces at the end, but the mess honestly is impressive to behold. There was promise and some potential during the opening stages offering several directions Osgood could have taken into. After a few rounds the block, Osgood choose to just drive the whole thing off a cliff.

What more can I say? Osgood seems to have had good intentions, wanting to create a genuinely unique, baffling mystery novel, but sadly lacked the skills or talent to execute an ambitiously imagined plot like this one. In a perfect world, Osgood's Murder in a Tomb would have ended being a companion piece to Hake Talbot and Theodore Roscoe's impossible crime fiction and getting compared to John Dickson Carr and Paul Halter, but we're not in that world. So we have to do with this genre curiosity. Not recommended, unless you have an interest in obscure or alternative mysteries.

The Ark (2022) by Haruo Yuki

When compiling and cobbling together "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries," I mulled over including a disaster-themed detective novel, but was not entirely sure whether disaster detectives counted as hybrid mysteries or not – decided not to include one. It only dilutes the concept if every detective story in which a mine explodes or a submarine is sunk with survivors aboard. Not to mention the knock-on effect of wartime novels suddenly qualifying as hybrid mysteries.

However, there are disaster detectives, rare as they are, in which the disaster is central to the story rushing along the plot. I suppose Ellery Queen's The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933) is a good, early example of the disaster detective hybrid and it's impossible to ignore Nevada Barr's Firestorm (1996). So this issue needed further probing and why I looked forward to two translations Pushkin Vertigo announced last year as forthcoming.

Akane Araki's Konoyo no hate no satsujin (Murder at the End of the World, 2022) takes place during humanity's last three months as a civilization ending meteor hurls towards our planet, which should be out around late July or early August. Haruo Yuki's Hakobune (The Ark, 2022), translated by Jim Rion, had been out for a few months now and merges the classically-styled, closed circle whodunit with a survival thriller – arrival of my copy coincided with an interesting review. Countdown John reviewed Yuki's The Ark right after it was published and observed, "I think this qualifies as a hybrid mystery, in this case a cross between a classic mystery and a disaster movie." Agreed! The Ark is exactly the kind of disaster detective/thriller that works as a hybrid mystery, but let's start at the beginning.

The Ark begins when a group of former students and members of their university's hiking club reunite two years after graduating. Firstly, there's Shuichi Koshino, a system engineer, who narrates the story. Shuichi brought along his smartly dressed cousin, Shotaro, who's going to be Ellery Queen-like detective and not the infallible version. Other friends from the old hiking club are Sayaka Nouchi, a yoga teacher, Hana Takatsu, an office worker, Yuya Nishimura, vaguely doing something with fashion, Ryuhei and Mai Itoyama. They got married shortly after graduating. Yuya has hiked in the area before and had discovered an underground building in the mountains. A three floor, subterranean steel structure into a huge cavern with the whole structure following "the shape of a naturally occurring cave" giving it the form of an ark ("...like in the Old Testament?"). The place has a murky past possibly involving militant groups, cults and criminals. Yuya suggests they go explore The Ark, but has trouble finding the entrance to the tunnel. So it quite late when they finally find the entrance and bump into a family of three, the Yazakis, who were out hunting mushrooms when they got lost. They have to camp for the night inside The Ark.

During the night, the mountain is rocked by an earthquake that set the barricade boulder rolling and blocking the exit. The earthquake also caused the trickle of water that had already claimed the bottom floor to increase. So they were trapped for the time being, because there's a way out that comes with a huge moral dilemma: the boulder can be moved, but it would trap the person working the winch to be trapped alone inside a small, cavern-like room – no guarantee the rest can return in time with help. Who has to be sacrificed? Before they can even think about it, one of them is found strangled to death in a storeroom! So now they not only have to deal with being trapped, while the water is slowly rising, but one of them unquestionably being a murderer. Even more baffling is why commit murder under these dire circumstances, especially after finding out they need a sacrifice to escape?

What they need to do is find the killer and force that person to make the sacrifice, because they're going to be hanged for murder anyway. Fortunately, the Ark has a working generator with a weeks worth of fuel giving them some time to find the murderer and that's my sole gripe with The Ark. A detective story can be too much driven by coincidence, but The Ark is the only detective story driven entirely by convenience. The situation inside the Ark would have played out completely different had their been no lights or a way to keep their smartphones charges. Not to mention the left over supplies and tools scattered across the numerous room or the old, outdated, but still working security camera system guarding the blocked entrance and exit. However, convenient as the situation may for the purpose of the plot, Haruo Yuki used those plot conveniences to their full potential to tell this story.

So with about a week until fuel runs out and the water reaches them, Shuichi and Shotaro set out to find the murderer, but the first murder is just a plain murder. The storeroom "had not been locked from the inside, no article of clothing was missing for unexplained reasons, nothing in the room had been inexplicably turned upside down" and "no dying message." Only the baffling question why the murderer picked this moment to strike. While the first murder was "almost disappointingly free of puzzles," the second murder is a typical, gruesome shin honkaku slaying. Every action to killer took to be "simply mystifying." Why stab and decapitate a corpse? What happened to the head? Why dispose of the victim's belonging? And why kill when being trapped underground? Merely a few of the puzzling questions surrounding this second and third, arguably even stranger murder.

Haruo Yuki delivered some devilish clever answers to those questions, like why cut off the head of the second victim, but even better is the role the character's smartphones played though out their ordeal. I mentioned in the past how much I dislike the claim how advances in forensic science and technology in generally had made the traditionally-plotted, Golden Age-style detective novel obsolete. An argument Isaac Asimov demolished in the granddaddy of hybrid mysteries, The Caves of Steel (1953/54), but The Ark provides several practical and ingenious examples for our time. If you ever wondered what the greats from the Golden Age could have done with today's technology, The Ark should give you a pretty good idea. Where the plot and story excels is when the time has come to put everything together as Shotaro reveals the murder through an Ellery Queen-style chain of reasoning and deductions by going over identifiable action and step the killer took from the first to third murder. But then it's time to get out.

Anyone somewhat familiar with Japanese authors penchant for dark, bleak endings and tragic twists can feel something coming in the epilogue. I expected something normal and mundane. Something like the survivors emerging from the Ark to discover the earthquakes were caused by an apocalyptic event like a nuclear war or an asteroid strike, but I didn't see that twist coming. A cruel, beautiful twist making for an unforgettable ending. Even more impressive, the revelation in the epilogue serves as the finishing touch of perfection as it revealed the crimes to have been truly unique to that place and harrowing week inside the Ark. There was no other time or place where the motive for these murder could have arising except among that group of people trapped inside. So, yes, I enjoyed this one very much.

Haruo Yuki's The Ark is simply a plot-technical marvel of the 21st century detective novel with a time-honored approach to the age-old question of whodunit? Highly recommended!

I plan to do "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Translations from Pushkin Vertigo" sometime in the future, but picking just ten is, fittingly enough, going to be a bloodbath.

The Snake of Luvercy (1926/27) by Maurice Renard

John Pugmire passed away in 2024 and his death not only meant the end of Locked Room International, but also ended the steady stream of translations of Paul Halter and other, often obscure, French mystery writers – none of whom would have gotten translated without him. Just the translation of Michel Herbert and Eugène Wyl's La maison interdite (The Forbidden House, 1932) alone is as big a contribution to the genre as introducing Halter to a global audience. So, when it comes to translations of French (locked room) mystery novels, not much has been published for the past two years.

Tom Mead translated Pierre Véry's Les veillées de la Tour Pointue (The Secret of the Pointed Tower, 1937) for Crippen & Landru and currently is doing some fresh translations of previously published Paul Halter novels. So was considering to finally give Émile Gaboriau a shot or revisit Gaston Leroux's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1907) when I got fantastic news. Pushkin Vertigo is going to publish a long wished for and overdue translation of Pierre Boileau's Six crimes sans assassin (Six Crimes Without a Murderer, 1939) in November! I guess the people at Pushkin Vertigo have read "The Hit List: Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated." Maybe a translation of Rafeal Bernal's Un muerto en la tumba (A Dead Man in the Tomb, 1946) next year?

Earlier this year, Serling Lake reprinted Maurice Renard's ? Lui ? Histoire d'un mystère (Him? The Story of a Mystery, 1926/27), which appeared in English under the title The Snake of Luvercy – translated by Florence Crewe-Jones and published by E.P. Dutton & Co in 1930. Renard is best remembered today as one of the pioneering French science-fiction writers, even creating his own subgenre dubbed "Scientific Marvel Fiction," but Renard also tried his hands at detective fiction. John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, is a fan who called The Snake of Luvercy "an excellent, fast paced thriller" containing "a murder in a locked bathroom with a bizarre solution involving a baroque murder means." John also praised Renard's Les mains d'Orlac (The Hands of Orlac, 1920) for being "a brilliantly fashioned detective novel wherein a series of impossible crimes are made to appear to be the work of supernatural agencies and a spectral being." So picked up the recent reprint of The Snake of Luvercy and hunting for a copy of The Hands of Orlac, because that's what John Pugmire would have wanted.

In 1926, The Snake of Luvercy was serialized in L'Intransigeant and published as a novel the following year. So a typical French roman-feuilleton full with sensational twists, turns and spins. You can say the story as a flexible as the titular snake driven entirely by a small, tightly-knit cast of characters.

Firstly, there are Miss Gilberta Laval and her dashing fiancé, Jean Mareuil, who's a rich dilettante who collects antique keys and old lamps. This match made in heaven spells trouble for Gilberta's aunt and cousin, Mme. de Prasse and her only son, Lionel. Mme. de Prasse plan had been for Lionel to marry Gilberta, secure the family fortune and cover up a slight financial irregularity ("...well, your gambling debts, Lionel, you know..."). Mme. de Prasse is Gilberta's legal guardian, but refreshingly, she doesn't hold the same power over her ward like her American and British counterparts ("armed with the Code, she could get rid of me and demand an accounting of her affairs..."). So they have to keep up appearances while plotting and carefully making their moves, which means acting as detectives, shadowing and poking around Jean Mareuil's private affairs hoping to find scandal and skeleton – anything to break them up. They enlist the help of the Lavals ex-butler, Aubry, who has a score to settle with Gilberta for sacking him.

While on shadowing duty, Aubry and Lionel discover a secret that could be a potential engagement breaker. Jean Mareuil moonlights as a snake charmer, Charlot the Adder, who's is an entertainment act in the dark cabarets of the Parisian underworld. But are they dealing with a double identity or dual personality? There's also a locked room murder lurking in the background of the story.

Five years ago, Guy Laval, an explorer, brought back "a number of rare serpents" from Central Africa to their home, Luvercy, but one of the deadly snakes escaped and found its way into Jeanne Laval's "almost hermetically closed" bedroom. The open windows were shuttered, however, each shutter is "pierced with a little heart-shaped opening cut in the wood for ventilation" big enough for a viper to slither through. Jeanne Laval was bitten while asleep and died. The guilt of having caused this accident killed her husband and left their daughter an orphan in the hands of her aunt, but could it have been murder? But who did it and how? The snake that killed Jeanne was never found leaving a Gilberta traumatized determined to never return to Luvercy. Getting her to return to Luvercy to confront the past becomes an ever increasing important plot point towards the end.

The Snake of Luvercy is what can be expected from a pulp-style, roman-feuilleton in the spirit of Gaston Leroux, Maurice Leblanc and a dash of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So hardly an orthodox, traditionally-plotted and clued detective novel, but credit where credit's due, the story is better written and handled than expected going by the first-half. The murderer is surprisingly well-hidden with enough nudges and hints to make a fairly educated guess, while the locked room-trick is not as open to educated guesswork. However, the method to create the locked room perfectly fitted the story's pulpy, sensationalist aesthetics and put to excellent use to help reveal, and dispose, of that murderer. I suspect that scene was also meant as a sly wink to a very famous short detective story involving a murderous snake. So, while not exactly what I'm looking for when hunting for impossible crime classics, neither left it me disappointed. On the contrary, I admired how Renard handled and controlled a story involving dual identities, an impossible snake bite and snake charmers without resorting to second-and third-rate cliches and tropes like a long-lost twin, secret passages or strange poisons. You know, unlike some writers at the time.

So, in closing, Renard simply wrote a tremendously entertaining, fast-paced flight of fancy done in the unmistakable, reality-be-damned Gallic style from Leroux's era. If you enjoyed the quality, pulp-style (locked room) mysteries by James Ronald, Noël Vindry and Alexis Gensoul and Charles Grenier, The Snake of Luvercy should be right up your alley. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward with curiosity what Serling Lake is going reprint next.

The Leopard Died Too (1957) by Nigel Brent

"Nigel Brent," a pseudonym of Cecil Gordon Eugene Wimhurst, is one of those obscure, practically forgotten writers who published a dozen medium boiled mysteries between 1953 and 1960 – all starring his private investigator, Barney Hyde. Not much else known except that he wrote a slew of dog books under his own name and penned the odd short story over the decades. "Commando Weekend" appeared in the September, 1948, issue of Scramble, "The Stolen Landscape" was published in Boys' Fun #3 (1953) and finally "Murder in Jail" from Detective Thriller Library #1 (1960). But that's where the trail turns stone cold.

So, if Wimhurst is remembered or even read today, I hazard a guess it's probably for his dog books rather than the long out-of-print, now scarce Barney Hyde series of collectibles. I likely would have never heard or given any attention to Wimhurst's run as "Nigel Brent" had The Leopard Died Too (1957), the seventh Barney Hyde, not been an impossible crime novel warranting a mention in Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019). In my mind, The Leopard Died Too gave off some He Wouldn't Kill Patience (1944) vibes, but is it anywhere near as good? Let's find out!

Barney Hyde, head of the British end of the trans-Atlantic Global Investigations, is hired by Mrs. Nicola Curlew to find the person who has been sending her husband, Dan Curlew, threatening letters.

Dan Curlew is a well-known, successful producer of animal films, "a queer kind of fella but he knows how to throw a nature film together," who has a private zoo and circus on his estate – called Witch Wood. Recently, Curlew has been receiving death threats with the last one promising "one more letter and then I shall execute you." Hyde accepts the case and travels to Witch Wood alongside his beautiful secretary Miss Emerald Dikes and his Alsatian police dog, Kurt. Finds what you would expect from a pulp-style mystery with a circus and zoo background. Curlew has hired Jag Macklon, a South African, to run his importing department supplying wild animals, but Jag and Nicola are obviously in love. Kara Jaeger is the animal trainer/lion tamer of the circus and daughter of the once famous Max Jaeger. Only animal trainer who did an act inside a mixed cage of lions, tigers, jackals and wolves, but now he's a drunk long since pass his prime. Osakombi, a West African of the Nankhanse tribe, who breeds N'gwa caterpillars for Curlew in the insect house, but is treated appallingly. Holloman Traves, a steel tycoon, is one of Curlew's oldest friends, but not really. Hyde even tells Curlew shortly after arriving that he's "surprised that you don't get your threatening letters delivered in a sack."

A striking scene of this first part leading up to the murder is Kurt, the Alsatian dog, nearly dying fighting an escaped leopard that launched itself at Emerald. Good boy!

When the last letter arrives, Hyde gets serious and decides to place Curlew inside a practically hermetically, sealed concrete room used to edit his films and has a special lock on the door – while every other door is also locked and guarded. Curlew is locked inside the room with his pet leopard, Aisha, but, when the time arrives, Hyde hears a scream from the outside. When they finally manage to break into the room, they find Curlew and Aisha dead. Apparently, they died from poison, but how? No container or syringe is found and how do you inject a leopard with poison in small, locked room without getting shredded? A problem that gets even worse if capsules were used. However, Hyde believes it was murder, not suicide, but how did the murderer poisoned them when the room was locked and guarded on every side? And not a trace of poison to be found anywhere!

I'll address the locked room element first as it constitutes the meat of the plot. The Leopard Died Too is, what I have come to call, Tough Nuts (...hard to crack). A hard-or medium boiled, often pulpy private eye mystery containing a locked room puzzle or other kind of impossible crime, which in a P.I. novel is either relatively simple or surprisingly tricky. Either way, the locked room element tends to what gives weight to these classic P.I. novel trying their hands at the impossible crime. The Leopard Die Too is no exception, but Brent did more with the locked room poisoning than the story and plot required of it. How the locked room was setup and presented suggested only two possible solutions to me: either the editing console or a strip of film had poison smeared on it or the leopard's fur had been coated with poison, which in turn would explain how the leopard died too. If the poison had been on the console/film strip, the poison was transferred from Curlew's hand onto the leopard when stroking the animal. What does any feline do after getting touched by a smelly, bipedal slug monkey? They begin to clean themselves. So both methods explain how the leopard died alongside with Curlew, but Brent came up with a third, slightly pulpy, but fairly clued, solution to explain the locked room poisoning. It should be noted that you can't really start putting those clues together properly, until Hyde receives the autopsy results. But I liked this third, somewhat hokey, solution as it fitted the story very well.

Not something I expected considering the second-half of The Leopard Died Too moved away from this intriguing impossible murder at a private zoo and circus to become a muddled, convoluted pulp thriller – employing the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink method. Safe crackers, communists agitators and spies, Secret Service agents, tribal rituals, exotic poisons, kidnapping, complimentary bombs etc. So basically everything Brent could think of got tossed into the plot and you almost have to praise Brent for holding it all together in the end, but it obviously took away from the good work done in the first-half and solution to Curlew's inexplicable murder. So, in the end, The Leopard Died Too is best summed up as one of those 1950s transitional mysteries that fell between the cracks of two eras when attempting to get footing on both sides. I suppose that holds true for Brent and the Hyde series as a whole.

I still enjoyed this "toughy," but, unless you collect hardcover mysteries or locked room mysteries, you shouldn't sell an arm or leg to get hold of a copy.

Death Below the Dam (1936) by Esther Fonseca

Not much is known today of Esther Haven Fonseca, except for scraps and pieces of bio-and bibliographical information, but, what can be said for sure, is that she studied journalism and wrote three, now long out-of-print, detective novels – published between 1936 and 1939. Fonseca's first two novels, Death Below the Dam (1936) and The Thirteenth Bed in the Ballroom (1937), seem to have been relatively well received with the latter even being optioned for a movie adaptation. The third novel, The Affair at the Grotto (1939), looks to be her most obscure mystery. All I have been able to find is that it takes place at some luxurious health resort.

There are two obvious reason for Fonseca's obscurity: she only wrote three novels that are also standalone mysteries. It's an unfortunate fact that mystery writers without a series character tend to fall into obscurity more easily, regardless of quality (e.g. Max Murray). On the other hand, it's probably also the reason why Death Below the Dam is the least obscure, relatively speaking, of the three. There are still used, if somewhat expensive, copies for sale online and an audio edition is available through LibriVox. Why it weathered the sands of time better than Fonseca's two succeeding novels has all to do with how it combined the 1930s whodunit with the disaster thriller ("a breaking dam... raging flood waters... an isolated island... and a murderer at large").

Fonseca's Death Below the Dam takes place on Winnatchee Island, in the middle of Beaver River, connected to the mainland and nearby city by two bridges – on the east and west side of the island. There are several dams protecting the island from excessive flooding. So the island has been the home of two families, the Murrays and Pierdecks. Murrays own nearly the entire lower half of the island, live in a huge colonial house and have two children, Wanda and Hamilton. A writer and friend/love interest of Wanda, Peter Kerrigan, currently occupies a cottage to work on his book. So the upper half is the domain of Mr. and Mrs. Pierdeck. They have three children and a stepdaughter. There's the eldest daughter, Marie, who's married Jim Sears, their youngest daughter, Alice, and only son, Andy. Antonia, a young divorcée, is the Pierdeck's unhappy stepdaughter who returned to the island when her marriage ended much to the horror of her mother ("you know how old-fashioned Mother is"). Lastly, young Sidney Brown, a school friend of Alice, who comes to regret accepting the invitation to the dinner party.

Murrays and Pierdecks have not always been perfect neighbors over the years, "disputes about the use of the east driveway and about a clump of blue spruce," even a thwarted elopement between Antonia and Hamilton. Nothing serious enough for the Murrays to turn down an invitation to a dinner party at the Pierdecks, but the dinner party is interrupted by the worst storm the island has seen in decades. A freak storm that first took down the bridges and then all the electricity, gas, water and communications lines partially flooded the island ("the island was now completely isolated from the city that had seemed so close only that afternoon"). And then they hear an earth shattering roar coming from up river ("the dam!"). During the deluge, they hear the crack of a gunshot. One of them goes missing with a thorough search of the island turning up a body with a bullet hole in the back of the head. So both parties find themselves marooned at home with a dead body, an unknown murderer and the possibility of a stowaway on the island, because someone had spotted, what appeared to be, "a white blur in human form pattering off through the mud." What can they do on a half flooded island without help from the mainland for at least a few days?

A contemporary review described the investigation as "the families organize to form a detective bureau," which is an interesting take, but not exactly what happened. The divide here is not so much across family lines and friendships, but between those who were out of the house and those who were inside when the shot was heard. Not that this divide matters as suspicion is smeared thickly around, however, this still makes it hardly a traditional detective story. The isolation from the outside world and suspicion of murder is getting to some of them, especially towards the end when one of them unravels under the stress. There's also the excursions of the island itself like the old, long since abandoned Pierdeck brewery with its storage caves and Peter Kerrigan flood damaged cottage.

It all makes for a memorable debut and helps smoothing out some of the imperfections and rough spots bound to turn up in a first detective novel. However, the only real shortcoming of the story, or rather plot, is that the cynical and experienced armchair detective will have no trouble identifying, or becoming suspicious, of the murderer, but kudos to Fonseca for making me second guess myself with a second murder – second victim is even more unexpected than the first. That threw me off the correct trail for a moment. A second flaw that would have been a real problem had the murderer been better camouflaged is that the clueing is a bit clunky, but you can strike them off against everything else the book did right in telling an engrossing story of disaster and murder. What can be held against Fonseca is missing a golden opportunity in (SPOILER/ROT13) fhttrfgvat gur zheqrere fubg gur jebat crefba, orpnhfr gur ivpgvz jnf fubg sebz oruvaq va irel, irel onq jrngure. Guvf vf, bs pbhefr, abg gur pnfr sbe gur svefg zheqre, ohg rknpgyl jung unccrarq jvgu gur frpbaq zheqre. You know, something her more famous contemporaries would have done.

But other than those smudgy details, Fonseca's Death Below the Dam is a diamond in the rough making me even more curious about her other two extremely rare, out-of-print novels. Particularly to see what Fonesca was capable of doing with the impossible crime story in The Thirteenth Bed in the Ballroom. Unfortunately, the last two are not going to be as easy to track down, unless they get reprinted. Just based on Death Below the Dam, it probably wouldn't be waste of paper and ink to reprint Fonseca's three detective novels.

The Unicorn Murders (1935) by Carter Dickson

In May, the British Library Crime Classics series of reprints is releasing a brand new, long overdue edition of John Dickson Carr's fourth Sir Henry Merrivale novel, The Unicorn Murders (1935) – published as by "Carter Dickson." I actually wanted to revisit Poison in Jest (1932) and The Plague Court Murders (1934) next or get to one of those previous few, unread Carr's like The Nine Wrong Answers (1952) or Deadly Hall (1971). But when I heard the British Library was going to reprint The Unicorn Murders, I decided to give it a second read instead.

My memories of The Unicorn Murders is fragmented, like a highlight reel, remembering being impressed with how it conducted a three-way danse macabre between the turn-of-the-century thriller, the 1930s detective story and the impossible crime tale. So let's find out how those memories stand up to a refresher with the finer details filled back in.

The Unicorn Murders begins with Ken Blake, who had previously appeared in The Plague Court Murders, on holiday in France. A lazy holiday during which he paid no attention to screaming newspaper headlines nor the public chatter about two names, Flamande and Gasquet. Believing them to be either rivaling boxers or cabinet ministers, which they're not. And not knowing lands him in a spot of trouble. But his adventure really begins when he spots a familiar face, Evelyn Cheyne. She spots him and approaches him with lines from "The Lion and the Unicorn" nursery rhyme, which he finishes and she tells him she's glad H.M. had paired her with him on this assignment. Blake has no idea what she's talking about, but plays along and learns the mission concerns Sir George Ramsden, of the Foreign Office, who's bringing “the unicorn” from France to London – nobody exactly knows what it is. Only that has garnered the interest of the Great Flamande, "the most picturesque criminal France has sported for years," but Gasquet, the Chief Inspector of the Surete, is hot on his heels. Both the arch-criminal and master detective are known as masters of disguise whose true faces are known to practically nobody ("it's wild, it's fantastic, but it's true"). Flamande, as is customary for a gentlemen thief, publicly announces he would be on the airplane with Sir George before reaching its destination.

So a duel, of sorts, between the arch-criminal and master detective complicated by the dangerous possibility Flamande made the first kill in a career of mostly whimsical capers ("...pinched the clock out of the courtroom while that Commissaire was giving evidence..."). A wounded, dying man was found in a Marseilles park with a horrondous wound between his eyes that, according to the police surgeon, could have only been caused by "the long, sharp horn of an animal." And the last words the victim spoke was the word "unicorn." Pretty soon, they find themselves in the middle of a comedy of errors fueled, madcap chase that convinces Blake both of them should "shortly be the object of one of the biggest police-hunts since Landru." This madcap chase ends in a three-way collision when Blake and Cheyne bump into H.M. nearby Chateau de l'Ile where they witness an airplane make a forced landing. Yes, that airplane!

When the stranded party seek shelter at the chateau, they find the Comte d'Andrieu expected their arrival. Flamande asked him to prepare for their arrival with the promise of "a unicorn-hunt." So the problems go from bad to worse as the causeway is washed away, no phone and a great detective who's as big a mystery as the criminal he's pursuing. And then one of them is killed under seemingly baffling circumstances.

 

 

This impossible murder is undoubtedly one of Carr's most creative, original and trickiest take on the impossible crime, especially in the subcategory known as "invisible killers," but not another simple, disappointing redressing of G.K. Chesterton's "The Invisible Man" (1911) – on the contrary! Like the victim in Marseilles, the second victim ended up with a mysterious, inexplicable wound in his forehead, but this murder was witnessed by several people. In the gallery, they saw the victim grab his head, "something horrible was happening to his head," scream and tumble down two flight of stairs. When they examine the body, even a layman can see "something had been pulled out of that wound," but there simply was no time to pull out a weapon without being seen.

Or, to sum the situation up more accurately, "if he was killed at the top of the stairs, he was either stabbed by an invisible man" or "shot with a bullet which pulls itself out of the wound and flies away."

Carr created one of his densest impossible murders with multiple moving parts relaying on various aspects of the plot and the floor plan here is not merely ornamental. If anything, the story probably needed a few more floor plans of the chateau towards the end with the explanation demanding your full attention. Where a lesser writer would have killed, or bogged down, the ending with a long, tedious explanation in minute detail, Carr's talent to make the utterly fantastic and fanciful seem plausible shines throughout. Certainly helped Carr had a knack for wrapping clues, red herrings and a good dose foreshadowing in an appealing, unputdownable narrative keeping you glued to the pages. Even when it gets tricky or a bit technical. I liked how the nature of that strange, apparently invisible weapon was handled with some of Carr's patented brazen clues and foreshadowing you can only truly appreciate upon a second read.

I think the central impossible crime forms a solid foundation for the rest of the story to stand on, which is often even more fantastic with its dueling masters of disguise, impersonations and rivaling detectives, invisible unicorns with homicidal tendencies and bizarre incidents – like someone tossing his suitcase out of a window. The tightly-drawn, executed impossible crime not only did its parts in keeping this whole three-ring circus consistent, it also allowed the story to succeed as half parody, half serious detective story. Carr obviously intended The Unicorn Murders to be a parody, or homage, to the greats of the early French crime-and detective fiction, Maurice Leblanc and Gaston Leroux. Leblanc is mentioned in the story, but the story itself unmistakably was inspired by Leroux's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1907) and La parfum de la dame en noir (The Perfume of the Lady in Black, 1908). Rivaling detectives and impossible crime from the former and the one-man siege of a chateau from the latter.

So you can say Carr made things really difficult by trying to juggle the characters, rivaling detectives and criminals with an outlandish situation "straight out of a farce or a dream," while balancing between the thriller and a tricky, complicated detective story – while also balancing between farce and a serious detective story. Like I said, a lesser writer would have made a mess out of it, but Carr made it work because he took it seriously despite the humorous, often farcical tone. So, in many ways, The Unicorn Murder is almost more impressive a wire-walking act than The Three Coffins (1935) or the previously mentioned The Plague Court Murders. So a perfect vehicle for H.M. who's the only true rival to Gasquet and the doom of Flamande, but getting there is not without some dangerous and sometimes amusing obstacles. I really enjoyed Gasquet's false-solution putting part of the blame on H.M. ("...his senile dotage").

H.M. doesn't always have to be on page to be amusing. Blake recalled in the first chapter meeting H.M. at Whitehall, "lumbering along with his head down, shaking his fist and cursing certain government officials with an audible fluency which nearly got him mobbed as pro-German." When the times come, H.M. demonstrates he's very far from a comic relief sleuth, but no less an entertaining one!

The Unicorn Murders finds Carr and H.M. at the top of their game and at their most fun, however, it's also one of Carr's least plausible and realistic detective novels. Pure fantasy with all the logic of a mad dream, but you really have to put your mind in the right frame and go along in order to fully enjoy The Unicorn Murders. If that's no problem, I don't think I could recommend The Unicorn Murder more. Very glad I took this one off the shelf for refresher.

Note for the curious: other people have noted H.M. utters the phrase "oh, Archons of Athens," which is usually uttered by Carr's other famous creation, Dr. Gideon Fell. Some have wondered if this was a slip on Carr's part, but always suspected it was a hint. The Unicorn Murders was published when John Dickson Carr and Carter Dickson were two separate entities. It was speculated about, but not officially confirmed. Maybe it was a way to let the keen eyed readers know it was him writing the H.M. series.

Tragedy at the Unicorn (1928) by John Rhode

Tragedy at the Unicorn (1928) is only the fifth novel, of more than seventy, in the Dr. Lancelot Priestley series by "John Rhode," a pseudonym of John Street, which used to be one of his many out-of-print, hard to get and expensive titles to get a hold-of – until Spitfire Publishers reprinted it last year. Rhode's Tragedy at the Unicorn also used to be one of those rare, out-of-print impossible crime novels from a well-known mystery writer and the reason why it had been on my locked room wishlist for ages. So this is another obscure title that can be crossed off the list.

Tragedy at the Unicorn takes place in-and around the Unicorn Hotel in the seaport town of Clayport, "one of the best-known yachting centres on the south coast," which is run by Mrs. Burgess and her two daughters, Joan and Phyllis. Clayport is the home port of the Levity, a ketch, belonging to Bob Weldon, the skipper. Levity's crew comprises of Richard Gateman, Percy Hunter and the story's narrator, Mr. Attercliffe, who are all frequent guests at the Unicorn Hotel. But they're not the only guests who checked in on that late summer afternoon. There's Edward Motimer, a yachtsman, who owns a motor cruised named Dreamland, the detestable Dr. Victor Grinling and his valet, Ferguson. And, of course, it's the caustic Dr. Grinling who's going to end up causing trouble for everyone.

Next morning, Ferguson is unable to wake his master ("let sleeping Grinlings lie") and it takes a while before they can unlock the bedroom, but, when they finally go inside, they find Dr. Grinling lying "stone dead" in his bed. An empty syringe is found on the bedside table alongside a phial with small tablets of heroin ("one-sixth of a grain"). So remember the previous review in which I pointed out Helen McCloy's Dance of Death (1938) was written during a period when heroin was an over-the-counter drug? I couldn't have randomly picked a better book to make that point as Dr. Gringling was in the habit of taking "heroin injections for sleeplessness," remarking "he would have no difficulty obtaining the stuff" and "would know it would do him no harm" – "unless he took an overdose." If I were a publisher, I probably would have inserted a bunch of vintage ads for heroin cough drops and cocaine-laced "patent medicines" ("COCAINE TOOTHACHE DROPS, NOW WITH EVEN MORE COCAINE!"). That's not all.

A postmortem reveals had injected heroin, but what killed him was a second injection with morphia. Not the heroin. There were morphine tablets mixed with his heroin tablets, "all similar in appearance," which could make an accidental overdose, suicide or murder ("MRS. WINSLOW'S SOOTHING SYRUP FOR TEETHING CHILDREN, NOW WITH EVEN MORE MORPHINE!!"). Superintendent Collins is the first to take a crack at the case, but Dr. Priestley arrives right before the halfway mark to take charge of the investigation. This is, of course, one of Dr. Priestley's earlier cases and has yet to become the sedentary armchair oracle of later books. So the chapter following his arrival sees him all over the hotel to inspect and oil locks and hinges. Unfortunately, this proves to be short-lived as Tragedy at the Unicorn regrettably ended up being a flawed, undefined work of its time and an author who still has to find his footing in the genre.

The 1920s was a decade when the Golden Age detective story of the 1930s and '40s was taking shape and solidifying, which naturally came with some growing pains. Tragedy at the Unicorn goes from a promising, early Golden Age whodunit during the first-half to an uninspired, routine thriller in the second-half – involving a smuggling operation (of course). That's not a spoiler. It's patently obvious from the start smuggling is going on the background and it became the focal point of the second-half. Funnily enough, the smuggling operation is partly run by a Dutch gang peddling drugs between Clayport and Rotterdam, because why not ("THE NETHERLANDS, NOW WITH EVEN MORE CANNABIS!!!"). Dr. Priestley even translates a telegram in Dutch, even though his "knowledge of Dutch is not very extensive." Other than that, it has nothing noteworthy or anything particular to recommend. Just a smugglers doing what smugglers do.

So what about the murder of Dr. Grinling? The locked room setup looked promising: a solid door locked from the inside with the key still in the lock that "turns very stiffly." Only window was shut and fastened. The connecting door was locked with the key hanging on a board Joan's bedroom and blocked on both sides of the door by heavy washing stands. More than enough room to work out a halfway decent locked room-trick, but Rhode kept the locked room-trickery very rudimentary and very, very disappointing. Rhode at least tried to do something with the murderer's identity and motive, but the result is not exactly the stuff of classics. Both obvious and disappointing. So, simply as a detective novel or locked room mystery, Rhode's Tragedy at the Unicorn has nothing to offer or recommend. Unless you're a John Street completist or one of those nuts trying to go through every title Robert Adey listed in Locked Room Murders (1991). Rhode was much more successful with the impossible crime story in novels like Invisible Weapons (1938), Death in Harley Street (1946) and the "Miles Burton" novel Death in the Tunnel (1936). So I'll recommend them instead.

Note for the curious: why not end with a halfway decent solution, for 1928, to the locked room that occurred to me after the murder was discovered. What if Dr. Grinling told his killer to come to his room after he retired, but instructed the killer to come through the connecting door. Yes, the killer has a way to unlock the door. So they move aside the washstands, the killer unlocks the connecting door and enters to conduct their shady business. The killer is, of course, well aware of Dr. Grinling's habit to take a shot of heroin before going to sleep and brought along a syringe loaded with morphia. When the doctor was distracted, the killer swapped the heroin syringe for the morphia one. The killer left the room, locked the connecting door, washing stands returned to their original place and Dr. Grinling took his deadly injection in a perfectly locked room. This brilliant piece of armchair reasoning fell apart when it was shown he had taken both the heroin and morphia injections. At least I enjoyed cranking out this review.

This review was brought to you by: BAYERS HEROIN, THE SEDATIVE FOR COUGHS, NOW WITH EVEN MORE HEROIN!!!!

Last One to Leave (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

Benjamin Stevenson's first two Ernest Cunningham novels, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2024), are not only the two highlights of 2025, but represent another step towards a Second Golden Age for the detective story – only the holiday theme kept from dipping into the third novel. I realize it has been a newly established tradition for Christmas to come earlier, and earlier, each year, but figured a review of Everyone this Christmas has a Secret (2024) would still be on early side.

So decided to hold off on Everyone this Christmas has a Secret, until at least the leaves start to turn brownish. Fortunately, the Ernest Cunningham series is not Stevenson's first stab at the detective story. Stevenson wrote two novels about disgraced TV producer Jack Quick, She Lies in the Vines (2019) and Either Side of Midnight (2020), of which the second is an impossible crime novel concerning a shooting on live television ("One million witnesses... One impossible murder"). That one is currently on the big pile, but there are also two short novels, Find Us (2021) and Last One to Leave (2022), collected under the title Fool Me Twice (2024). Last One to Leave sounded like an intriguing take on the classically-styled detective story with a modern framing. Or, to be more precise, the premise struck me as specifically tailored for playing the Grandest Game in the World.

Ryan Jaegan is a widowed father of a 12-year-old daughter, Lydia, who entered his name for competition thrown by a notorious Youtube channel, CashSmashers. A channel with millions of subscribers, hundreds of millions of views and a major sponsorship from a gambling company, providing them with ample resources to pull some outrageous stunts – like dropping parachutes with sacks of money from a helicopter ("they were chasing clicks and views, after all"). They also do competitions with big money prizes. Such "Last One to Leave" contests where a group holds on to a luxury car with the person who holds on to it the longest gets to keep it. Ryan has little money and has debts with the wrong kind of people. So reluctantly agrees to participate and finds himself competing with six other people for a clifftop mansion worth four million dollars.

This contest is similar to the car contest, but much more involved with more room and opportunities for shenanigans. The rules are deceivingly simple: each contestant places one of their hands on a wall and, from there, they're free to roam and move around as much as they like as long as their hand continues to touch the house. Last person to let go wins the four million dollar mansion. Ryan is not the only one there to win the game and the CashSmashers team aren't above manipulating the contest, because "they need high drama, big twists, to make things viral."

So two days and several eliminations later, sleep deprivation, muscle cramp and lack of food begin to take toll, but Ryan and the remaining participants get really tested when one of them turns up apparently dead – lying next to the bag of money with a knife sticking out of him. Is it really a real murder or simply the CashSmashers stepping of their game now that the remaining contestants are vulnerable? They told them over the speakers to keep playing, but what if the body is real? But how can "you commit a murder unseen in a house full of cameras" where everyone's movement is restricted to the length of their arms?

The solution to the impossible stabbing does not disappoint. Not merely as a clever new wrinkle on the "invisible assailant" impossibility, but the cleverly-hidden, fairly clued and foreshadowed murderer complete with a very fitting motive. That's impressive considering Last One to Leave is basically short, tightly packed novella/short novel playing out like a tale of suspense, but framing the story and plot as a closely controlled, constantly surveillanced contest allowed Stevenson to play up/exploit both the suspense and puzzle elements simultaneously. A good example is how the characters refuse to take their hand off the wall when faced with emergencies and even a possible murder, which also helps to enforce the impossibility of their situation. And makes for one hell of an ending when Ryan exposes the murderer!

What I liked even more than the superb blending of suspense with an excellently played out impossible crime, is to get another fine example of a good, old-fashioned detective story with a gritty, contemporary setting, characters and motivation – fitted together as naturally as a dagger, stingy patriarch and a locked library. Last One to Leave was very reminiscent of A. Carver's The Dry Diver Drownings (2024) in that regard, in which a bunch of YouTubers chase clicks, but, instead of a crazy contest, it's about shooting a creepypasta video interrupted by several locked room murders. So glad to finally see these type of (locked room) mysteries appear in the West, because it's something I have come to associate with Japanese shin honkaku mystery writers and anime-and manga mysteries over the years. Yes, whether you like suspense and thrillers or the puzzle-oriented detective story and locked room puzzles, Stevenson's Last One to Leave has it all in a compact, well-paced story. One for the 2025 best-of list!

A Gumshoe with Sea Legs: "Death at the Porthole" (1938) and "The Eye" (1945) by Baynard Kendrick

Baynard Kendrick is best known today for creating one of the most successful blind detectives in crime fiction, Captain Duncan Maclain, who not only overshadowed his other creations, but completely eclipsed a character like Miles Standish Rice – a Miami-based detective character. Rice appeared in three novels and seventeen short stories published in Black Mask, Mystery Novels Magazine and The Saint Mystery Magazine. I remember enjoying The Eleven of Diamonds (1936) and The Iron Spiders (1936), but not nearly as good as the best Captain Maclain novels (e.g. The Whistling Hangman, 1937). So they form a clear example of a main series character and secondary one.

I recently stumbled to the fact Kendrick had a third, short-lived and practically forgotten series-character. Cliff Chandler is the dandy, debonair ship's detective whose job it's to protect "the welfare of transatlantic passengers on the S.S. Moriander," which is an interesting premise for a series, but Chandler appeared in only two short stories published seven years apart.

The first of these two short stories, "Death at the Porthole," originally appeared in a 1938 publication of Country Home Magazine and reprinted in the November, 1944, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. "Death at the Porthole" takes place during the tenth, uneventful voyage of the S.S. Moriander, departing Southampton for New York, when "even the usual run of petty cardsharps seemed to have deserted her" – not much "guarding the passengers' welfare" to do. Although there are some curious incidents. Chandler meets a lovely young woman aboard, Elsa Graves, who appears to be packing a gun, but why? M. Jean Martone, "manufacturer extraordinary of a select line of cosmetics," accidentally falls overboard and has to be rescued. Finally, the woman with whom Elsa Graves shared a cabin, Dorette Maupin, is found dead with a broken neck. Chandler is a man of action who "thrived on excitement," but he has to do some real thinking and a bit of detective work to crack this case.

Even without the presence of the famous blind detective, "Death at the Porthole" is unmistakably a Baynard Kendrick detective story. It has a foot in both the hardboiled private eye story from the pulps and the formal detective story, which comes on account of the well-played who and how. Particular the latter is a dead giveaway as it plays on Kendrick's favored method of (SPOILER/ROT13) oevqtvat gur qvfgnapr orgjrra ivpgvz naq zheqrere, hfhnyyl ol qebccvat be guebjvat fbzrguvat, juvpu graq gb perngr na vzcbffvoyr fvghngvba be nyvov nybat gur jnl. "Death at the Porthole" can be linked to the previously mentioned The Whistling Hangman and The Eleven of Diamonds when it comes the how, but, of course, not worked out to the same extend. So rather simple by comparison, however, the bravado of the (ROT13) frpbaq zheqre is appreciated.

Kendrick's "Death at the Porthole" is not a classic, criminally overlooked short story from the detective story's golden era, but it's a promising start to what could have been a fascinating and fun series of pulpy short stories.

The second, and last, short story in the series, "The Eye," originally appeared in the November, 1945, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and leans more towards the pulp-thriller than the detective story – giving Cliff Chandler all the excitement he wanted. Chandler is approached by a frightened VIP passenger, Moira Nelson, who's a famous screen actress making the crossing with her 12-year-old son, manager and bodyguard. Moira Nelson received a threatening call pressing her to wear a pearl necklace, worthy fifty thousand dollars, to the ship's concert the next night or her son will pay the price. Having listened to her story, Chandler does an impromptu piece of armchair reasoning and not a bad solution either. But his solution ends playing right into the culprit's hands. So, as the villains reveal themselves, "The Eye" turns into a pulp caper with a delicate hint of piracy and how the ship's detective resolves this case is notably different from the first story (oyvaqvat entr). I was entertained enough and the trap triggered by Chandler's false-solution a clever touch, but I'll probably won't remember any of it. Not without looking back at what I wrote here.

"Death at the Porthole" and "The Eye," while not a bad or outstandingly good, are understandably footnotes in Kendrick's work, but there was potential had the series continued. I suspect this would have been one of those series best read in a collection of twelve or fifteen short stories, because atmosphere and backdrop (i.e. shipboard setting) is as important as a decent plot. Something like James Holding's The Zanzibar Shirt Mystery and Other Stories (2018), but more hardboiled.

A note for the curious: Cliff Chandler has been called the only ship's detective in the genre, but there's Cutcliffe Hyne's "The Looting of the Specie-Room" (1900) and John Dickson Carr's 1940s radio-detective, Dr. John Fabian, whose cases are gathered in The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin B-13 (2021).

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.