Mission Impossible: "The Christmas Caper" (2022) by Gigi Pandian

Back in February, I reviewed the first novel from Gigi Pandian's "Secret Staircase" series, Under Lock & Skeleton Key (2022), introducing a former magician, Tempest Raj, who exited the stage following a botched, nearly fatal escape trick – now works for her father's Secret Staircase Construction company. A far from ordinary construction company specialized in expanding their clients with “whimsical features” like “sliding bookcases that hid reading nooks” or “wardrobes that led not quite to Narnia but to secret gardens.” Under Lock & Skeleton Key needed to lay the groundwork for the series by introducing the various (recurring) characters, backstories and the main storyline concerning the disappearance of Tempest's mother. Something that came at the expense of the intriguingly-posed impossibility of a fresh corpse being discovered behind a decades-old brick wall.

The second title in the series, The Raven Thief (2023), reportedly is stronger on the locked room puzzle and investigation with a four-sided impossible crime during a séance. But between the first and second novel, Pandian wrote a special short story for the series entitled "The Christmas Caper" (2022). So decided to hold off on The Raven Thief until having read "The Christmas Caper."

Pandian's "The Christmas Caper," published as an ebook, brings Tempest Raj to the ancestral homeland of her Scottish grandmother, Morag, to revive an old family tradition – celebrating Christmas in Edinburgh. They rented an apartment in the building of Morag and Ashok's friend, Sabrina, who asks Tempest to help her save Christmas. Sabrina is a close friends Ronald Abernathy, curator of the Castle Rock Museum, which recently got robbed in spectacular fashion. The museum recently acquired a previously unknown landscape painting by Alexander Nasmyth that was placed in the skylight room, which has a slanted skylight "to give a view of the castle above." The thief cut a hole in the skylight, slid down a rope to take the painting and escaped by rappelling down the side of the building, but accidentally tripped an alarm when noticing people were watching. There was an event going at the castle and someone spotted the masked thief, dressed in climbing gear, on the museum. However, the thief still managed to get away with the painting.

So where's the impossibility in this elaborate smash-and-grab? The skylight room has floor censors and the police first assumed "the thief swung directly to the painting instead of touching down," but the painting was hanging on a wall "further than could be reached by rope without hitting the ground." Someway, somehow the thief took the painting without triggering the floor censors. Simply a question of figuring out how it was done. Tempest has found an answer to the seemingly impossible before and only too happy to help Sabrina saving Christmas for Abernathy.

"The Christmas Caper" is a locked room mystery at its most leisure ("she was only going to do armchair detecting anyway") investigated, and solved, between the other usual activities in the run up to Christmas like scarfing down "scrumptious treats" at the Christmas Market. And providing the story with recipes for Gingerbread Swirl Cookies and Spiced Hot Chocolate. So the story can feel a little too cozy at times and the plot is light enough it can be put together even if the clues aren't too thickly spread around, but nothing to detrimental enough to take the shine of this charming, fun and seasonal impossible crime story. A hearty recommendation for mystery fans who are always on the look out for Christmas mystery novels and short stories to read in December.

The Dry Diver Drownings (2024) by A. Carver

I noticed in the late 2000s the signs of a coming renaissance and blogged about in 2014, right before it kicked-off the next year, but expected the internet market place to simply provide a comfortably stocked niche over the next decade – not stacks of Anthony Berkeley and Christianna Brand in brick and mortar stores. There other developments, twists and turns on the road of the reprint renaissance I didn't anticipate. I never expected a reprint renaissance would directly lead into a translation wave and a locked room revival. Never expected a locked room revival to spawn not one, but two, distinctly different strains of impossible crime fiction.

Firstly, there's a traditionalist, often traditionally-published group of revivalists, like J.L. Blackhurst, Tom Mead, Gigi Pandian and J.S. Savage, coming out of the reprint renaissance. The second strain emerged as an independent scene, spearheaded by James Scott Byrnside, who have been influenced in various degrees by the translation wave. They can get very experimental (H.M. Faust's Gospel of V, 2023), a bit weird (K.O. Enigma's Bunraku Noir, 2023) or stray pretty far from the beaten path (A.Z. Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan, 2024). So never expected a reprint renaissance to branch out, let alone branching out so fast, but have been enjoying it. After all, it's almost like this resurgence is catering to my taste.

That brings us to the presumably pseudonymous "A. Carver" whose love for locked room mysteries and impossible crimes overwhelmed even me.

Carver debuted with The Author is Dead (2022) and introduced the reader to the two series-characters, Alex Corby and her great-aunt Cornelia Crow, who ended up at the mansion of a well-known author on the Scottish coast – where a murderer created so-called taped-shut rooms. No less than four impossible crimes in room that were left tape-sealed from the inside. The second novel in the series, The Christmas Miracle Crimes (2023), opted the ante with more than a half a dozen Christmas-themed impossible crimes, locked room murders and other seemingly miraculous incidents appropriate for the season. Carver recently published the third Alex Corby and Cornelia Crow novel, The Dry Diver Drownings (2024), tackling another series of maddening impossibilities. This time, the impossibilities comprise of vanishings from locked, guarded rooms complete with bodycam footage.

The titular Dry Diver is a character from a creepypasta ("...like a scary story, but on the internet") resembling "someone in an old-school diving suit" and "has no head for some reason." Just a creepy neck stump. Locked doors, closed windows and guarded rooms pose no obstacle as Dry Diver has the ability to "pass through walls and the ground like it's swimming through water." The character was created by Matt Silver, of the Silverfish horror web series, but Dry Diver spawned fan-made web series. And the biggest, fan-made spin-off is Reef Evans' The Dry Diver Drownings series.

Now the two rivaling teams joined forced to shoot a crossover episode at an abandoned, Cold War-era government site, called the Pitchwater Building, buried somewhere deep in the woods – fully fenced off on all sides. Only way in, or out, is a secret tunnel. They found it. Silverfish and The DDD, Team Silver and Team Dry, gather and the latter has brought along a guest, Alex Corby. She got invited by Team Dry's writer and Reef's girlfriend, Yva Dysart, who's the young, aspiring mystery writer who appeared The Author is Dead. Yva provided that first novel with plenty of false-solutions and acted as a rival detective in order to impress her "detective idol," Cornelia Crow, but this time, she's a companion detective to Alex. Cornelia was also invited, however, shooting YouTube videos, creepypastas and urban exploring is not a game for elderly, venerable armchair detectives. So stays behind at a bookshop (Pugmire Pages!) while Alex goes with the rest down the tunnel to the Pitchwater Building.

There are nine people, in total, on both teams. Team Dry consists of Reef, Yva, Chase and Alex, while Team Silver has Matt, Bianca, Tara and the brothers Leo and Viggo. There's a little more than a notable rivalry between both teams and certain members as they enter that strange, Cold War-era structure to film their crossover scenes. A building partially sealed off with four floors of mostly locked doors, closed or boarded up windows and soundproof rooms sparsely-furnished with broken office chairs, desks and filing cabinets. A fantastic place to serve as a backdrop for either an outright horror series or a dark, eerie detective story.

By the way, I reviewed D.L. Marshall's 77 North (2023), back in January, in which the morally ambiguous mercenary John Tyler tackles a locked room murder inside a Cold War-era nuclear bunker in the Arctic Circle. I remarked that one of the attractive parts of Marshall's action packed locked room thrillers is Tyler having access to settings off-limits to your "normal," everyday amateur detective, private eye or impossible crime experts – mentioning you'll never find Alex and Cornelia investigating impossible murders on Gruinard Island (see Marshall's Anthrax Island, 2021). Less than a year later, Alex tramping around a place contemporary to the KGB research facility from 77 North where a murderer wanders around who can apparently get to their victims through solid walls and locked doors. Only real difference, of course, is that the Pitchwater Building isn't swarming with arms dealers, mercenaries and spies ("...everyone involved in this case is a teenager"). So more like a mashup of Hake Talbot and The Kindaichi Case Files.

Something is wrong becomes apparent when they enter and come out of the tunnel to discover graffiti ("LEAVE OR DRY") and signs of vandalism. However, the only way in, or out, is the tunnel and only the two team leaders possessed a key to the padlock they placed on the hatch. A relatively innocent mystery compared to what happens next.

One of the members from Team Silver is witnessed entering the typing room to film a scene, Alex and Chase standing by the door, but never emerges. When they go inside, the room is empty except for the bodycam lying on the floor. The footage shows an attack from no less a figure than Dry Diver! This is not the last time someone is impossibly "pulled under" while alone in a room with the only exits under observation or blocked. There's a fire exit in one of the disappearances, but it's a one-way fire exit requiring two people on the inside to unlock/open it.

 

 

The impossible disappearances aren't the only problem facing both teams in the Pitchwater Building. Someone has padlocked the hatch of the secret tunnel from the outside and sabotaged their phones, which they had collected in a toolbox. So now they're effectively trapped inside the building as people continue to disappear, drowned bodies begin to appear in unlikely, hard to explain places and Dry Diver is seen climbing a wall – before crashing down to the ground below. Alex observes another complication as "the interweaving movements" of the various teams "formed a tangled knot" that need to be carefully picked apart.

So, plot-wise, The Dry Diver Drownings is as dense and maze-like as the previous two novels with one important difference: the locked room puzzles aren't really the centerpiece of either the plot or story. Unlike the taped-sealed rooms from The Author is Dead or the Santa Claus-themed impossibilities in The Christmas Miracle Crimes, the inexplicable disappearances in The Dry Diver Drownings are smaller cogs and wheels in the overall plot. So the locked room-tricks, different for each vanishing, proved to be surprisingly straightforward and uncomplicated compared to the locked room trickery in the previous two novels. There's an obvious reason why the impossible crime element took something of a backseat as The Dry Diver Drownings is a character-arc rather than a serious attempt at a modern classic of the impossible crime novel.

Alex and Yva have to unsnarl this complicated tangle of strange drownings, impossible disappearances and a webwork of movements without the help or guidance of their great-aunt and idol, Cornelia – who only appears during the opening and closing chapters. A coming-of-age novel for two young detectives, if you will. Not to be ignored is the fact that the whole plot eventually turns on the question of motive, which is a callback to the first novel introducing Alex as a mystery fan drawn to the why rather than who or how ("you were the whydunnit girl"). The motive behind the happenings at the Pitchwater Building is unusual, "like a cryptid's motive," but worthy enough for a locked room mystery turned whydunit. Even if it strays a little off the beaten track for what appears to be neo-Golden Age detective novel (ROT13: nf vg ehof zber pybfryl gb gur navzr/znatn zlfgrevrf guna gur bgure gjb abiryf). The Dry Diver Drownings might also stake claim to one of the clearest cases of (SPOILER/ROT13) sberfunqbjvat bs gur zheqrere'f vqragvgl I can recall.

So, if you primarily enjoyed The Author is Dead and The Christmas Miracle Crimes as locked room extravagances with new, creative ways to present and resolve the good, old-school locked room mystery, The Dry Diver Drownings might be a bit of letdown. There's still plenty of inventiveness in how the setup and presentation of the various disappearances. Loved the idea of an internet creepypasta stirring to life to grab people people by swimming or diving through solid walls and locked doors, but, as said before, the locked room-tricks are simpler than in the first two novels. That doesn't take away the book as a whole is still as densely-plotted, traditionally-styled detective novel with plenty of mysteries and puzzles to solve, beside a handful of seemingly impossible disappearances. Perhaps a new direction for the series as Alex made her first step to follow in the footsteps of her great-aunt without her great-aunt helping or holding her hand. I always appreciate the presence of a good rival/companion detective to lend a helping hand with the solution.

In short, I enjoyed The Dry Diver Drownings. Even if it didn't quite measure up to its predecessors as a locked room mystery, but in every other way, the plot is a deliciously tangled mess and, character-wise, an interesting step forward for the main characters/series. If you're new to Carver, Alex and Cornelia, I recommend starting at the beginning of the series as it will help appreciate what Carver is doing in The Dry Diver Drownings. In the mean while, I look forward to what Carver has in store for the fourth entry in the series.

The White Priory Murders (1934) by Carter Dickson

I previously ranked a dozen of my favorite seasonal detective stories, "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories," which I think turned out be nice Christmas arrangement of the classics, lesser-known, recently reprinted titles and some fun short stories – covering a period from 1934 to 2023. John Dickson Carr's short story "Blind Man's Hood" (1937) secured a slot on the list, but one of his novels was considered as well.

The White Priory Murders (1934), as by "Carter Dickson," was republished in 2022 in the British Library Crime Classics series with the descriptive subtitle, "A Mystery for Christmas." A more accurate description would have been "A Winter Mystery" as the Christmas is mentioned only in passing, but technically qualified. So why was it left off the list? I simply needed to reread it first. Practically every detail of the story, plot and characters is blurred out of recognition worsened by the memories of several snowy, no-footprints impossible crime stories (e.g. Nicholas Blake's Thou Shell of Death, 1936) blending together over the years.

A reread was in order and it's something I should have done sooner, because rereading The White Priory Murders was like finding a new H.M. novel I had until then only read about. Memory can play some funny tricks on you.

The White Priory Murders takes place during "the frosty twilight of Christmas week" and begins with James Bennett visiting his uncle, the old man, Sir Henry Merrivale ("you're Kitty's son, hey? The one that married the Yank?"). Bennett is a diplomatic errand boy for his father, a big enough name in Washington, who instructed his son what to expect and how to handle his eccentric – neatly doubling as a delightful snapshot introduction. The White Priory Murders is only H.M.'s second appearance following The Plague Court Murders (1934). Bennett consulted H.M. on a curious incident concerning a Hollywood starlet, Marcia Tait, who walked out in the middle of a contract with her film studio to perform in a London play. A spiteful move intended to make everyone eat their own words as Tait flopped on the London stage, before going to America to be transformed into movie star.

The play in question, The Private Life of Charles II, is an independent production by John Bohun, written by his brother Maurice Bohun and backed by Lord Canifest. Several producers in London offered to back it, but Tait took great pleasure in publicly sneering at them. And, generally, she's "courting hostility." On top of that, Tait's publicist, Emery, and her director, Rainger, have furiously followed her to London hoping to persuade her to return. Bennett became entangled with the group aboard an ocean liner sailing from New York to London, which gave him a front row seat when an attempt is made to poison Tait. Someone in their party had send her a box of poisoned chocolates.

Worryingly, the party is gathering in the run-up to Christmas at the ancestral home of the Bohuns, the White Priory, near Epsom. Other guests include the Bohuns niece, Katherine Bohun, Lord Canifest's daughter, Louise, and one of the best character-actors in England, Jervis Willard – who's to play opposite Tait in the play. Rounding out the party is Bennett. So, naturally, he's a bit worried what might happened. H.M. gives him the telephone numbers of his private wire and Inspector Humphrey Masters in case something happens.

The White Priory has a marble pavilion, called the Queen's Mirror, comprising of only four rooms and standing in the middle of a small artificial lake. Tait wanted to spend the night in the Queen's Mirror and she's found there by John Bohun the next morning with her head smashed in. Just one problem. Tait died long after the snow had stopped falling, but the pavilion is surrounded by half an inch of unmarked snow, sixty feet of it thin ice on every side and not a tree, or shrub, within a hundred feet of it. Only marks in the snow is the track of fresh prints ("of course they were fresh tracks") John Bohun made when he found Tait's body. So an impossible crime and not your average impossible crime as H.M. eventually takes a break from drinking hot punch and trimming to Christmas tree to give it his personal attention ("if it's a new wrinkle in the art of homicide, I want to know all about it").

H.M. gives a mini-version of Dr. Gideon Fell's "The Locked Room Lecture," from The Three Coffins (1935), going over the three known motives/reasons for creating a locked room situation or impossible crime – namely the suicide-fake, ghost-fake and the accident. A fourth motive was added to the list in The Peacock Feather Murders (1937). H.M. delightfully gives a hypothetical scenario for the suicide and accident scenario as the ghost-fake obviously doesn't apply to this murder, however, neither do the suicide or accident motives. You can't commit suicide by beating your skull to mush and you can't accidentally walk over snow without leaving footprints. So how the murderer managed to flee from the pavilion very much becomes the central question of The White Priory Murders. There are, however, enough volunteers among the suspects willing to take a crack at this impossible problem and eagerly share their solutions with H.M. and Masters. What follows is a procession of cleverly thought out false-solutions reminiscent of Christianna Brand's recently reviewed Tour de Force (1955). How beautifully they complement each other with their footprints in the snow, alibis on the beach and a conga line of false-solutions!

I've said before how I consider the no-footprints/miraculous footprints the most difficult, trickiest of all impossible crimes to pull off convincingly and satisfactory. Even trickier is to be original without relying on one of the familiar dodges or a variation on it, which is why Arthur Porges' "No Killer Has Wings" (1961) is beloved among impossible crime aficionados. So always appreciate and admire when a mystery writer can deliver a good one, but to make things extra difficult by parading out false-solutions is only to be applauded. A seven percent solution for every unashamed detective fiction junkie!

However, the solution to both the murder and impossibility is not without a noticeable smudge holding it back from taking a place in the first ranks (SPOILER/ROT13): gur zheqrere qrnyg zhygvcyr oybjf jvgu gur zrqvpny rknzvare abgvat frireny oybjf jrer fgehpx nsgre fur unq qvrq, ohg Pnee nccneragyl vtaberq be qvqa'g ernyvmr gur haubyl, tbel zrff n seramvrq oyhqtrbavat yrnirf oruvaq – rfcrpvnyyl vs lbh fgevxr gur fnzr jbhaq frireny gvzrf. Pnee bireybbxrq, be vtaberq, gur fnzr ceboyrz va Gur Rzcrebe'f Fahss-Obk, ohg urer vg unf sne zber frevbhf pbafrdhraprf gb gur fbyhgvba. Gur cbyvpr naq zrqvpny rknzvare fubhyq unir orra vzzrqvngryl noyr gb gryy Gnvg jnf zheqrerq fbzrjurer ryfr naq zbirq gb gur cnivyvba yngre sebz gur ynpx bs oybbq cbbyvat nebhaq gur urnq naq ab oybbq fcnggrerq jnyyf. That fact is ignored and why the solution to the no-footprints problem is not half as obvious as Carr or H.M. would like you to believe. I think a lot of readers wouldn't consider it on account of (ROT13) xabjvat vg jbhyq or vzcbffvoyr gb zbir n onqyl onggrerq obql gb n qvssrerag ybpngvba naq bofphevat gur snpg gur ivpgvz unq orra onggrerq fbzrjurer ryfr. Probably the reason why it got so distorted in my memories, because remembered (ROT13) Gnvg jnf fgenatyrq vafgrnq bs orngra. Vs fur unq orra fgenatyrq, be uvg whfg bapr, gur gevpx jbhyq unir jbexrq jvgubhg n ceboyrz. Abj vg pbairavragyl vtaberf, jung fubhyq unir orra, n qrnq tvirnjnl. Znlor zl oenva nhgb-pbeerpgrq vg, be fbzrguvat.

This is not to end this review on a sour note. The White Priory Murders is mostly excellent and not far behind Carr's best works from the early to mid 1930s. H.M. is in fine form as he's far more serious, intelligent and slightly baffled than he would be presented in later books coupled with a mini-locked room lecture, false-solutions and one hell of a premise. Only that one small, devilish and all important detail regarding the impossible crime places it a considerable step below other H.M. novels of the period like The Plague Court Murders (1934) and The Red Widow Murders (1935). I really shouldn't complain. The White Priory Murders was so blurred and distorted in my memory rereading it was like uncovering a unread H.M. novel I previous only heard about it. Even if the book in question doesn't show Carr at the top of his game as a plotter, but, even on an off-day, Carr is usually a good deal better than most of his contemporaries. The White Priory Murders is no exception. I just wished Carr had spotted the flaw in his impossible crime setup and fixed it, which would have propelled it to first ranks without any ifs or buts.

A note for the curious: during his mini-locked room lecture, H.M. naturally dismisses the third option, accidental impossibilities, in which the murderer "creates an impossible situation in spite of himself, without wantin' to" before throwing up his hands – asking "what kind of accident is it where a person don't make tracks in the snow?" There is, however, one very simple, elegant solution fitting the accidental impossibilities category that was never considered. The apparent impossibility of Tait's murder not only hinges on the unbroken snow surrounding the pavilion, but also the time of death ("it depends on the time a woman died"). What if she had been under the weather and had a slight fever? That way she could have been murdered before the snow stopped falling and the medical evidence pushing the time of death forwards. I think back then they could have checked the body to see if she had been sick. So a perfectly logical and reasoning explanation can be knocked down as a false-solution.

The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories

Now let me see... Sinterklaas candy has been on store shelves for months now, closely followed by Halloween ornaments and Christmas decorations, while the days get shorter, colder and darker – which can mean only one thing. It's that time of year again. The time for pepernoten, treats, presents and spreading cheer and goodwill during the miracle of the Christmas season. It's also the time when fans of Golden Age detective fiction turn their pile of seasonal mystery novels to read or, as it used to be more often is the case, reread one or two of the classic Christmas-themed mysteries published during the genre's golden decades.

That pile of vintage Christmas-themed mysteries used to be quite modest with only a handful of notable titles, but over the past ten years, several publishers added considerable height to that pile. Kate, of Cross Examining Crime, even compiled an "Epic Ranking of Christmas Mysteries" with no less than 40 novels in 2019. More has been added to the naughty list since then. Last year, British Library republished Carter Dickson's The White Priory Murders (1934), Galileo brought Joan Coggin's Who Killed the Curate (1944) back into print and this year Elizabeth Anthony's long-lost Dramatic Murder (1948) is added to the stack. Not to mention numerous anthologies, like Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries (2016) and The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories (2018), appropriate for the dark days of December.

I made it a tradition to read, and revisit, these merry mayhem mysteries during the holiday month and have read enough to do a seasonal edition of The Hit List. Like previous editions, I make an earnest attempt to avoid making a basic listicle or use it as an excuse to ride my locked room mystery hobby horse by picking somewhat unusual topics – allowing to avoid lists dominated with all usual suspects. So decided mix novels and short stories for this festive list ensuring there would be no easy pickings.

Hopefuly, some of you'll find the list handy to help pick, choose and put together your annual pile of Christmas mysteries to enjoy this month.

L'assassinat du Père Noël (The Murder of Father Christmas, 1934) by Pierre Véry

Véry's The Murder of Father Christmas is not the most devious, intricately-plotted title appearing on this list, however, the book certainly embodies the essence the spirit of Christmas. A gentle, fairy tale-like detective story about the search for a fabled relic, two gems spirited away from a vault and the body of Santa Claus found near the entrance of an underground passage to a castle. A charming, lighthearted seasonal mystery novel written in the spirit of G.K. Chesterton's short story "The Flying Stars" (1911).

Thou Shell of Death (1936) by Nicholas Blake

Last December, I revisited Blake's Thou Shell of Death and was surprised to find a better detective novel than I remembered it to be from my first read. Nigel Strangeways spends Christmas at the home of World War I flying ace, Fergus O'Brien, who's found shot and killed in the garden hut on Boxing Day – only a single track of footprints going from the veranda to the hut. I honestly had forgotten Blake at his best wrote and plotted the same legends league as Christianna Brand, John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie. Blake delivered with Thou Shell of Death a serious rival to another entry on this list for the title of best Golden Age Christmas mystery novel.

"Blind Man's Hood" (1937) by John Dickson Carr (writing as "Carter Dickson")

Lighting a fire to gather around to drink hot cocoa and telling ghost stories was once a staple of the good, old-fashioned family Christmas celebration, "there'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago," during that most wonderful time of the year – which is the premise of this small classic. A newlywed couple arrive at the home of friends to celebrate Christmas, but find the front door standing open and the house apparently abandoned. They're eventually greeted by a woman who tells them the household is away to attend a special church service, which is an excuse to be away from the house at a specific time on Christmas Eve. She then them about a murder that happened in the house decades ago as the ghost story slowly takes over the reigns from the detective story. Leave it to the maestro to turn a detective story into a ghost yarn without ruining the detective story part.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) by Agatha Christie

Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas is the quintessential, über conventional seasonal country house mystery, but, until rereading it in 2022, I had forgotten why it had been the Christmas mystery novel for ages. The book is simply a vintage Christie in which she applies her plotting talent to the problem of the brutal murder of nasty, old Simeon Lee on Christmas Eve. A murder methodically unraveled by Hercule Poirot with a keen eye for both the physical and psychological clues. Hercule Poirot's Christmas has become a model for the-country-house-family-Christmas-party-interrupted-by-murder, but rarely equalled or surpassed. A Christmas mystery classic!

Murder After Christmas (1944) by Rupert Latimer

One of those little-known, forgotten festive murder mysteries that had been out-of-print for nearly eighty years, until British Library reprinted it in 2021. Latimer's Murder After Christmas had no business languishing in obscurity as it ranks alongside Blake and Christie's Christmas mysteries as one of the best of its kind. A richly-plotted detective novel with the customary body in Santa Claus costume and a whole array of bizarre clues as slippery as red herrings, which range from a track of footprints to a toppled snowman to a parcel of mince-pies sewn in the upholstery of an armchair – which enough to make Superintendent Culley wonder if he's going balmy. A fun and unexpectedly excellent Golden Age mystery. One that's going to be fun revisiting in a few years time.

"The Christmas Bear" (1990) by Herbert Resnicow

Just like the first entry on this list, Resnicow's short story "The Christmas Bear" is not the most intricate, deviously-plotted yuletide puzzle, but it's a heartwarming story fully embracing the spirit of Christmas – taking place during a fundraiser in a poor neighborhood. A little girl needs a liver transplant and the neighborhood is trying to raise the money, which is why Miz Sophie Slowinski taker her great-grand daughter, Deborah, to the toy auction at the local firehouse. Deborah falls in love with a very odd, funny looking teddy bear. However, the bear disappears, presumably stolen, but how could it have been taken from the top shelf without collapsing the whole rickety, shaky structure? Yes, plot-wise, "The Christmas Bear" is very light bordering "Every Day Life Mystery," but, to quote Mike Grost, "every part of the story is developed with rich detail in the Van Dine School tradition." Simply a perfect little Christmas mystery.

Mom Meets Her Maker (1990) by James Yaffe

A radical departure from the conventional, British country house mysteries of previous entries or the seasonal whimsy of Resnicow and Véry. Yaffe does the murder around Christmastime the American way! Very loud, punctuated by the sound of gunshots. It all begins with a dispute over the Christmas decorations of Reverend Chuck Candy, a veritable light show complete with sound installation blasting holiday jingles, which devolves into murder rife with small town politics, religious strife and a dying message. A better Ellery Queen-style Christmas mystery than Ellery Queen's The Finishing Stroke (1958).

Original Sin (1991) by Mary Monica Pulver

If you, like me, can't help but shudder at modern mysteries advertised as loving send ups of the classic, snowed-in country house mystery at Christmas, rest assured. Pulver's Original Sin is not a tangle of poorly dome, often mishandled cliches and tropes presented as a clever, humorous take on the snowed-in gathering at Christmas – rudely interrupted by murder. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot-patterns emerging from this story are both original and very pleasing. Like the modern crime novel is performing a synchronized dance routine with the ghost of the Golden Age detective around the Christmas tree. So a modern-ish country house mystery that actually has something to say and new to add to what came before.

"La marchande de fleurs" ("The Flower Girl," 2000) by Paul Halter

I need to reread "The Flower Girl" and refresh my memory, but remember being convinced the story would become a staple of future impossible crime-themed anthologies. This time, the impossibilities concern physical evidence for the existence of Santa Claus. Evidence that would implicate Santa Claus in the murder of a Scrooge-like figure trying to ruin Christmas for a 12-year-old girl. A slightly darker, shorter, but better plotted, take on Véry's fairy tale-like The Murder of Father Christmas.

"The Miracle on Christmas Eve" (2016?) by Szu-Yen Lin

This story appears to have become a fan favorite shortly after its English translation was collected in John Pugmire and Brian Skupin's The Realm of the Impossible (2017), which rivals the disgustingly warm, sugary sweet content of Resnicow's "The Christmas Bear." Meng-Hsing Ko was raised by his kindhearted, widowed father who wanted to give him good, carefree childhood and instilled in him a believe in goodness – including a genuine believe in the existence of Santa Claus. That painted a target on his back in school, but his father invited the bullies over for a sleepover on Christmas Eve to prove Santa Claus is real. A sleepover ending with a sack of presents appearing as by magic inside a locked, closely guarded room and the children seeing the silhouette of Santa Claus flying across the sky in his sleigh. Years later, the now adult Ko asks the detective Ruoping Lin how his father managed to pull off a miracle like that. Only thing this story needed was "A Message from the Heart," as opposed to "A Challenge to the Reader," giving the reader to option to stop reading and keep the miracle in tact.

"Het huis dat ongeluk bracht" ("The House That Brought Bad Luck," 2018) by Anne van Doorn

This short story by M.P.O. Books, writing as "Anne van Doorn," has another interpretation of the Christmas tradition of telling ghost stories. The setting is a gated villa, somewhere in Oosterbeek, haunted by the ghost of a Nazi soldier who died there during Operation Market Garden. The current owner believes her ex-husband is behind the revived haunting and hires two private investigators, Robbie Corbijn and Lowina de Jong, to put a stop to paranormal activity. Corbijn is present at the villa, on Christmas Eve, to witness the apparent supernatural, inexplicable phenomena first hand. I called it a snowfall of impossible crime material. So "The House That Brought Bad Luck" is the kind of short story Hake Talbot would have written had he been around today.

The Christmas Miracle Crimes (2023) by A. Carver

This final, most recently published entry takes a novel-length approach to the snowfall of impossibilities at Christmas and upped the ante to brings a Christmas mystery like no other before. Alex Corby and her great-aunt Cornelia find themselves stranded at Whitefell Chimneys, a valley mansion somewhere in the middle of nowhere, which is conventional enough, but the mansion is invaded by a shotgun carrying Santa Claus who disappeared up the chimney – leaving behind a body in a locked room. This is only one of many, many Christmas-themed impossible crimes, locked room murders and attempted murder, eight in total, littering this ambitious holiday mystery. A holiday mystery in which Christmas is an integral part of the plot and not merely background decoration. Just take your time reading and digesting this delicious, rich plum pudding of a Christmas mystery novel.

Five Honorable Mentions: Moray Dalton's The Night of Fear (1931), Clifford Witting's Catt Out of the Bag (1939), Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca (1941), Francis Duncan's Murder at Christmas (1949) and Cyril Hare's An English Murder (1951).

 

And Two Dishonorable Mentions: I gave a seasonal twist to the title of this post, which is technically incorrect, because this should be The Nice List. The Naughty List simply sounds better for a best-of list of mystery novels than The Nice List. That and an accurate naughty list would only have two entries, Mavis Doriel Hay's The Santa Klaus Murder (1936) and Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (2006). One is deadly dull and the other insultingly bad. A lump of coal in both their stockings!

 

The Hit Lists:

Top 10 Favorite Reprints from Dean Street Press

Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels

Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 1-25

Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated

Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction That Have Been Lost to History

Top 5 Intriguing Pieces of Impossible Crime Fiction That Vanished Into Thin Air

Top 10 Best Translations & Reprints from Locked Room International

Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance

Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder (2024) by P. Dieudonné

During the summer, E-Pulp published the tenth novel in P. Dieudonné's Rotterdam police series, Rechercheur De Klerck en de sluier van de dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Veil of Death, 2024), which is a double-sized politieroman to mark the series' first milestone – reason why its publication was delayed several months. So didn't expect them to keep to the customary schedule of two novels a year, but the eleventh title in the series was recently published. And it's better than the previous, double-sized De Klerck mystery!

Rechercheur De Klerck en de status in moord (Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder, 2024) begins with a request to Lucien de Klerck and Ruben Klaver, of the Rotterdam police, to assist the harbor police investigate a suspicious death. One that looks an awfully lot like murder.

In the Veerhaven, a luxurious sailing yacht has been deliberately sunk and divers found the body of a woman floating inside, but the doors where sealed shut from the outside to keep her from escaping – turning the yacht into an inescapable death trap. De Klerck and Klaver quickly find out that the victim, Ismene Duetz, gave people around her plenty of reason to be glad someone gave her a one-way trip to the bottom of the river. Ismene was recently deserted by her long-suffering, browbeaten and now ex-husband, Ivo Lambriex, which is why she was temporarily living on her yacht. That ties-in with her favorite hobby: brown-nosing the Dutch aristocracy ("she absolutely adored the nobility...").

Ismene is friends with Lady Noëlle de Beauchateau, daughter of Lord Maximiliaan de Beauchateau, who is engaged to Baron van Feyesslink tot Elzeveld. Before her engagement to the Baron, Noëlle was dating the owner of a struggling diving supply store, Peter Versantvoort. Ismene got wind of Peter's financial troubles and told the Lord about. Similarly warned Noëlle about potential future advances from her brother, IJsbrand ("blue blood marries blue blood"). So more than enough to keep to the two inspectors busy for some time, but further complications arise when a member of the aristocracy is shot and a third, very surprising death. None of these murders follows the pattern expected from a Baantjer-style politieroman, which in this case added to the fun.

That third, final death really took me by surprise as it made me second guess my deductions, because it looked like a daring attempt to present De Klerck and Klaver with an easy solution to close the case – which didn't turn out to be the case. But an interesting turn of events. And was on the right track all along!

Dieudonné returned with Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder to previous novels like Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongrijpbare dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Elusive Death, 2020), Rechercheur De Klerck en moord in scène (Inspector De Klerck and Murder on the Scene, 2021) and Rechercheur De Klerck en de ongewenste dood (Inspector De Klerck and the Unwanted Death, 2023) by presenting an old-school detective novel as a contemporary politieroman a la Baantjer. All very fairly clued, too. There are a couple of important pieces of information given late into the story, but, if you spotted the clues and hints, they shouldn't come like bolt from the blue. So what more can I say about this early Sinterklaas present that hasn't already been said in previous reviews? This series continues to be a rare treat giving me a double shot of nostalgia and something to sooth that detective itch in my own language! In that regard, Inspector De Klerck and the Status in Murder is another success story and a strong, solid entry in the series. I look forward to the next one and plan to do another “Hit List” blog-post ranking the first dozen De Klerck novels when it gets published.

A note for the curious: I wonder how many readers heard these words in their head when the murderer was revealed (SPOILER/ROT13), “qebzzryf, qebzzryf ra abt rraf qebzzryf, qvr pybja ra qvr npebonng!” :)

Tour de Force (1955) by Christianna Brand

The last two, three years of the reprint renaissance have been especially kind to the legacy of Christianna Brand as Green for Danger (1944), Suddenly at His Residence (1946), Death of Jezebel (1948) and London Particular (1952) appeared back in print – reissued in the British Library Crime Classics series. Death of Jezebel came in as an incredibly close second in the 2022 Reprint of the Year Award, before going on to unseat Green for Danger as Brand's definitive novel and currently trying to topple John Dickson Carr's The Three Coffins (1935) as the Golden Age locked room mystery. I noted in "The Hit List: Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" it would be a genuine, posthumous accomplishment if Death of Jezebel dethrones The Three Coffins. In addition to several rarely reprinted or previously unpublished short stories and a short serialized novel, Shadowed Sunlight (1945), reprinted for the first time in Bodies from the Library 4 (2021).

So not only is Brand finally getting the proper reprints her work deserves, but her frustratingly small body of work has been actually been expanding. There's enough in cold storage, so to speak, to continue this trend for a few more years. Such as the unpublished novella "The Dead Hold Fast" featuring Inspector Charlesworth, the mouthwatering Inspector Cockrill impossible crime novel The Chinese Puzzle and an unfinished manuscript titled Cat Among the Pigeons. And, of course, the reprints!

The latest offering from the British Library in Brand reprints is the modestly titled, absolute fan favorite Tour de Force (1955). I planned to reread Death of Jezebel and London Particular first or try one of her often overlooked Inspector Chucky novels, but got my arm twisted to give Tour de Force an immediate reevaluation. The book got nominated for the "New Locked Room Library," but didn't remember it being an impossible crime novel and voted no without a comment. Only no-vote cast for Tour de Force. So was strongarmed into a dimly-lit room, planted on a chair and asked to urgently explain my conduct – brass knucks and clubs were pulled out as encouragement. No, I didn't see any of their faces. I promised to reread Tour de Force to see if my previous held opinions needed editing. Well...

Tour de Force finds Detective Inspector Cockrill, the Terror of Kent, on a conducted tour of Italy, but has come to regret it and eyes the company with his fellow British tourists with "ever-increasing gloom." Cockrill becomes entangled with seven of them at a hotel on the island of San Juan el Pirata in a tricky murder case involving a tangle of apparently incontestable alibis.

A group of holidaymakers comprising of a successful novelist, Louvaine "Louli" Barker. An ex-pianist, Leo Rodd, who lost his right arm and career in a bicycle accident. Helen Rodd is his "patient, considerate, silently sympathetic, relentlessly kind" wife. Vanda Lane is a young woman who keeps herself to herself, but has fallen in love with the ugly, angry looking one-armed man ("after all the years of existing upon vicarious romanticism"). Miss Trapp is another lonely woman ("rich and lonely") who has caught the roving eye of the tour guide, Fernando Gomez. Last, but not least, Mr. Cecil, of Christophe et Cie, who previously appeared in the Inspector Charlesworth novel Death in High Heels (1941). That case is briefly mentioned in passing ("years ago, in Christophe's, one of the girls, you can't think how horrid").

Cockrill wisely decides to bury himself in "deep in the latest adventure of his favourite Detective Inspector Carstairs" ("...engaged upon The Case of the Leaping Blonde"), but then Vanda Lane is found stabbed to death in her hotel room. And her body almost ceremonially laid out on the bed. This unexpected murder presents two the holidaying Cockrill with a pair of pressing problems.

 

 

Firstly, everyone with a hint of a motive possesses a practically watertight alibi as Cockrill had them under observation, nobody could have sneaked away long enough to commit murder and it not being noticed, which comes with a detailed map of the beachfront scene – showing where everyone was on the beach and terrace. I can't remember a map being used (in a Western mystery) to illustrate an alibi problem rather than a locked room puzzle or simply giving a clearer picture of the story's setting. Secondly, the police force of San Juan el Pirata is not, exactly, a modern one who are mainly occupied with smuggling coffee, tobacco, hashish and taking bribes from other smugglers. They have no time for a long, drawn out investigation or unsolved murder to scare away the tourists and they settle on anyone who fits in order to have "the whole thing wiped over and forgotten." Cockrill is even briefly imprisoned as a suspect and returns to the hotel to tell the six suspects he "was not going back to that dungeon to save the neck of any murderer" and going to find the murderer. Not ignoring the fact that it was his own testimony that handed out alibis to everyone.

Tour de Force becomes a showpiece of Brand's talent and specialty, the multiple false-solutions. Death of Jezebel famously overwhelms the reader with a dizzying number of false-solutions, but, perhaps better put to use in London Particular in which a closely-knit family create dummy cases implicating themselves to protect each other. Suddenly at His Residence, on the other hand, has a family creating dummy cases as ammunition to be used against each other. Tour de Force mixes things up starting with Cockrill showing how some could have escaped his attention or line of sight, before accusations begin to fly and false-solutions start coming out of the ranks of the suspects.

This continues building up, and knocking down again, of false-solutions is truly impressive and the highlight of the book. More impressive than the actual solution. A very clever, immaculately clued solution and remembering broad outline of the final twist made me enjoy it slightly more the second time around. I pointed out before that the truly greats of the genre have great reread value as not only do you get to admire their skills in laying out a plot, planting clues and dropping red herrings, but their boldness in pointing out the truth and simultaneously pushing you in the wrong direction is what separates the masters from the rest. That certainly was on full display in Tour de Force and loved (SPOILER/ROT13) Pbpxevyy'f pbzzrag nobhg bar bs gur punenpgref pregnvayl orvat bhg nf n cbgragvny fhfcrpg, which technically correct. A blatant, highly suspicious observation that's too obvious as both a clue or red herring. Love it when mystery writers lie through their teeth without uttering a single untrue word.

So no complaints there, however, I think this is going to be point where most of you'll start shouting at me. Angrily. The actual solution coming right after the final, twisty false-solution is both clever and immaculately clued, but nothing more, or less, than a plot-technical achievement. I think most (seasoned) readers will either pick up enough clues and hints or instinctively guess (see ROT13 comment) from which direction to expect the solution to come. And to give that expectation an unexpected form is, once again, a plot-technical achievement. Such an achievement would have been enough to elevate the work of a lesser writer to a five-star mystery novel, but Brand has written legitimate masterpieces. Tour de Force is simply not one of them.

Neither is it any way, shape or form an impossible crime nor is it an example of the impossible alibi. I explained before in the past that a manufactured alibi can only be considered an impossible problem under one very simple, but uncompromising, condition: the alibi solely relies on the murderer appearing to have been physically incapable of having carried out the crime. For example, the murderer is bound to a wheelchair and the victim is discovered in a place inaccessible to wheelchairs or someone is suspected of having broken somebody's neck after breaking both his arms. I exaggerate to clarify to show the impossible alibi is easily identified by the apparent impossibility of the murderer's physical circumstances to have killed the victim. So alibis depending on witnesses, documentation or tinkering with clocks are out as witnesses can be misled, mistaken or outright lie and documents can be faked or misinterpreted – similar objections for alibis depending on clocks and time stamps. More importantly, they're not needed for an impossible alibi. A gray area is admittedly murderer's who appear to have been in a different country or continent. I'll probably dedicate a post to the subject.

I didn't want to end this review by nitpicking small details, but people were being wrong on the internet and I couldn't let that stand (probably at the cost of a couple of broken fingers). Tour de Force is still an excellent, late-period Golden Age mystery and a plot-technical marvel in how it uses to the multiple false-solutions to rip through half a dozen alibis – dunking and flexing on Christopher Bush and Brian Flynn. However, the brand-name Brand's name demands something more than a technically-sound plot and knocking down alibis. So the book, for me, paled in comparison to the likes of Green for Danger, Death of Jezebel and London Particular. But feel free to disagree!

Locked and Loaded, Part 5: A Selection of Short Impossible Crime and Locked Room Mystery Stories

Every now and then, I do one of these "Locked and Loaded" posts to read and review mostly obscure, often uncollected short locked room mysteries and impossible crime stories covering nearly a century of miraculous crime fiction – stretching from Charles G. Booth's "One Shot" (1925) to James Scott Byrnside's "The Silent Steps of Murder" (2023). I discuss those two short stories, and everything in between, in Part 1, 2, 3 and 4. This fifth installment adds three more obscure, rarely reviewed short locked room mysteries and one magnificent impostor. So without further ado...

Christopher Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin," originally published in the April, 1974, issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, is part of a short-lived, now forgotten series about a somewhat unusual detective. Richard Verner is not a detective, technically speaking, but a heuristician. It translated to someone specialized in solving problems or a troubleshooter.

Verner is called to "Grove's Lake Cabins" by the local sheriff to assist him on an apparently open-and-shut case that simply doesn't sit well with him ("...I don't believe the evidence"). The owner of the cabin park, Grove, was found with a knife sticking out of his chest behind the triple locked door of the cabin he shared with his niece, Ellen Grove. A large, spacious cabin has a large room and bath at each end separated by an insulated wall with no door in it, which divides the living quarters of niece and uncle. So when her uncle failed to emerge from his part of the cabin, Ellen grabbed an electric saw and cut a doorway into the insulated dividing wall as it would have been easier than to smash the door or one of the windows. Unfortunately, cutting a doorway into the dividing wall immediately elevated Ellen to the status of prime suspect as the only door on her uncle's side was locked, bolted and securely chained – similar to the door on her side of the cabin. So nobody could have sneaked out that way, once Ellen had cut through the wall and ventured inside to discover the body. And, of course, the windows were all securely locked as well.

A phenomenal locked room setup! One that today's crop of locked room specialists would probably get a lot of mileage out of and had the solution been more than an elaborate take on a familiar locked room-trick, it would have been a little more than merely a solid locked room howdunit. Nevertheless, I enjoyed "The Drop of a Pin," especially the whole setup, enough to keep an eye out for the other stories. Christopher Anvil and Richard Verner might be of interest to Crippen & Landru as there appear to be enough material for a short story collection.

Robert C. Schweik's "Imagine a Murder," originally published in the June, 1978, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, is another story from an even shorter-lived, now forgotten series of detective stories. This series of three short stories stars an amateur detective of the old school, Professor Paul Engel, whose method is simply to analyze a problem, speculate on it and apply a dab of rich imagination – "just imagine what possibilities there are." So when his friend and bookseller, Harry, overhears the murder of his roommate over the telephone, Professor Engel is on his way to put his analytical mind and imagination to work. The victim, Markham, was an accountant working on a report that would place someone behind bars and called Harry to ask him to post a letter, which is when he got shot. Inexplicably, the place was locked and bolted from top to bottom ("...the entire apartment was buttoned down"). So how could the murderer and gun vanish from a thoroughly locked room with a crowd gathered in the hallway outside the locked door shortly after the gunshot rang out?

This story shares some outward similarities with Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin." Schweik created a pleasingly tight and baffling locked room scenario with the revelation of the murderer's identity adding a second, quasi-impossibility in the form of a cast-iron alibi. One hinging on the other. Just like the previous story, "Imagine a Murder" is an elaborate, pleasing and, in this case, fairly clued reworking of a classic locked room-technique/trick. So not a blistering original, cutting edge locked room mystery, but a solid, competently plotted impossible crime story. And not a bad one to help fill a future impossible crime themed anthology.

Jack Ritchie's "Cardula and the Locked Rooms," originally published in the March, 1982, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and collected in The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories (1983), sailed pass me under a false flag and not a locked room mystery – nor any other kind of impossible crime. Nevertheless, I was pleased to have stumbled to it right after my previous read. "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is eighth of nine comic private eye short stories about Cardula (Dracula) who "has been forced to leave his home country of Romania after being thrown out of his castle by communists" and moved to America to become a slick, nighttime private detective ("I am simply a night person"). Mike Grost praised the series for its many pleasant touches of "logical fantasy." Cardula is hired by a man named Thompson ("blood type B, I guessed") who bought a stolen Van Gogh years ago. The painting was his private pleasure for five years, but now it has been stolen from a private room. A simple case of breaking and entering, but who knew Thompson possessed a stolen Van Gogh?

Cardula is paid a handsome fee to locate and retrieve the painting, which is simple enough, but the theft of the painting and how it was stolen comes with a neat, well-done little twist worthy of Edward D. Hoch's best Nick Velvet stories. Of course, the fun and main draw of the story, and obviously the series as a whole, is Cardula's double role as detective and vampire. So another series of stories that needs further attention and looking into at some future date.

The last two short stories were nominated in the first round of voting for the "New Locked Room Library" and come from the same author, "Miŏgacu." Just like the previous review, I was gives copies of the short stories and told not to be smart ass who asks too many questions. So no background on the author nor stories except that "Miŏgacu" is a huge mystery fan who wrote the following two short stories as a homage to the Grandest Game in the World with the hope of having them properly published one day.

"Eggnog and the Cylinder" (2023) can be categorized as an impossible crime caper in the style of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin and Gosho Aoyama's Kaito KID. A French millionaire by the name of M. Aristide Benguet bought "the largest purple sapphire in the world on a whim" and decided to keep The Feline of Somerset in a locked room at his country home, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, to be displayed at a fancy Christmas party – which caught the attention of a renaissance criminal. Phantom Thief Lenoir, "dashing and masked," has become the scourge of the rich and famous of Europe as a modern-day Robin Hood. M. Benguet is taking extreme measures to protect the sapphire by engaging four different detectives/security agents from across the world to guard the sapphire in the locked room during the party. There's a rotating system to allow the detectives to take a break ("...stretch your legs, empty your bladder, grab some champagne"), but three detectives will stay with the sapphire in the locked room at all time.

A fail proof security measure, however, when their assignment comes to an end, they discover the sapphire has been replaced with a fake! Somehow, someway, Phantom Thief Lenoir switcharoo'd The Feline of Somerset under the nose of four detectives inside a securely locked room.

This story comes with a short "Author's Postface" in which "Miŏgacu" explains the inspiration for "Eggnog and the Cylinder" came from reading a description of the locked room puzzle in Marcel Lanteaume's untranslated, frustratingly out-of-reach Trompe l'oeil (1946) – realized "there is a very simple solution." That very simple solution is actually the cleverest, wildly imaginative and most original locked room-trick of the stories discussed so far. A trick certainly in the spirit of Lanteaume "in which imagination leaps confidently over probability" and perhaps a trick that would be hard to swallow in a regular locked room mystery, but perfectly suited for "a Japanese-y phantom thief story." It's unexpected gems like this making the future of the traditional Western (locked room) mysteries look very bright indeed. Not to mention a story with the potential to age like fine wine, if it ever turns out "Miŏgacu" constructed to correct solution from a short description of Lanteaume's Trompe l'oeil locked room puzzle. And makes me want to overlook (ROT13) gur znffvir onyyf vg gbbx gb abzvangr uvf bja jbex sbe pbafvqrengvba.

The second story, "The First Meeting" (2017/23), is a homage to the Japanese shin honkaku mysteries (and a pastiche, of sorts) and particular to the teenage detectives of series such as Case Closed, The Kindaichi Case Files and Q.E.D. Niimoto Tadashi is the son of a typical, storybook detective, Tsukiko, who had to solve the Yellow Mask Mystery on her wedding day. Tadashi was never shielded from his mother's investigation, but "never knew corpses raining down upon him" like some other child detectives. So a relatively normal childhood, but, on his sixteenth birthday, Tadashi "made his first step to detectivehood." Tadashi got his own Watson, Zhenya, who's the son of a Russian scientist staying as a guest at the Niimoto home. Tadashi and Zhenya throw themselves at a local locked room murder.

On the morning January 18, 2005, the esteemed neurosurgeon, Furuta Fujio, was found stabbed to death in his stuffy, everyday working study with door locked from the inside and the key sticking out of the keyhole – windows either didn't open or looked over an obstacle. Such as a roaring river or locked garden gate. So the scene of the crime resembles "an impenetrable capsule," but trick is not nearly as good or even half as inspired as the brilliant solution to the previous story. An enormous step down, judged purely as an impossible crime story. On the other hand, simply as a homage to those meddling kid detectives of the manga/anime corner of the shin honkaku mysteries, "The First Meeting" is first class.

Not a bad harvest for a handful of, more or less, randomly selected short stories. Anvil's "The Drop of a Pin" and Schweik's "Imagine a Murder" didn't bring anything new or really innovative to the table, but showed some ingenuity in presentation and a solid hand in their solutions. Despite the misleading title, Ritchie's "Cardula and the Locked Rooms" is an unexpected treasure and it goes without saying "Eggnog and the Cylinder" is the standout with "The First Meeting" having charm and qualities outside of its locked room puzzle. I told you I would pick something good eventually. :)