All But Impossible: The Impossible Files of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (2017) by Edward D. Hoch

Originally, I had planned to use this particular blog-post for either Christopher Bush, Bruce Campbell or Paul Doherty, but my previous read left me with a stronger-than-normal craving for impossible crime fiction and one serving was not going to satisfy it. Naturally, this brought to one of the most prolific locked room artisans of all-time, Edward D. Hoch.

During his long, storied career, Hoch wrote close to a thousand short stories and created a dozen, or so, series-characters such as Simon Ark, Ben Snow and Nick Velvet, but my personal favorite will always remain Dr. Sam Hawthorne – a small-town country physician often called upon to solve seemingly impossible crimes. Dr. Hawthorne practiced as a country doctor in the fictional New England town of Northmont, but this unassuming town has a higher murder-rate rivaling that of Cabot Cove and Midsomer County. And to complicate matters, all of the crimes are utterly bizarre and usually appear to be impossible nature!

However, what makes this series amazing is not only the incredible volume of locked room and impossible crime scenarios, but also the sheer variety in original premises and solutions. Hoch was not just content with bodies found behind locked doors or in the middle of a field of unbroken snow or wet sand. Oh, no. He imagined such puzzling situations as a horse-and-buggy vanishing from within a covered bridge. Fresh corpses turning up in a long-buried coffins or metal time-capsules. A murderous tree with a penchant for strangling people or a cursed tepee that nobody emerges from alive. These are only a handful of examples of the miracle problems Dr. Hawthorne solved over the decades.

Crippen & Landru has published four volumes of Dr. Hawthorne stories and the most recent title in this series is All But Impossible: The Impossible Files of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (2017), which is collection of fifteen short stories originally published between 1991 and 1999 in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (hereafter, EQMM). So let's dig right in!

"The Problem of the Country Church" was first published in the August, 1991, issue of EQMM and brings Dr. Sam Hawthorne to the Greenbush Inn, a popular mountain resort in Maine, owned by Andre Mulhone – who had married his former nurse, April (see "The Problem of the Snowbound Cabin" from Nothing is Impossible: Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne, 2014). They recently had their first child, a boy, who they named after Dr. Hawthorne and asked him to be the child's godfather.

During the baptism service, the baby is inexplicably taken from its bassinet and replaced by "a curly-haired Shirley Temple doll" with a fifty thousand dollar ransom note stuck it. I'm not too big a fan of kidnap stories, because they're rarely any good, but this was a pretty decent effort. The trick used to switch the baby for the doll was not too bad, but almost immediately figured it out as it reminded me of another impossible situation, also set in a church, from a TV-series. I can hardly lay the blame for that at Hoch's feet. So a fairly decent curtain-raiser for this fourth volume.

"The Problem of the Grange Hall" was first published in the December, 1991, issue of EQMM and Pilgrim Memorial Hospital is celebrating its eighth anniversary with a community dinner and dance at Grange Hall. Usually, eighth anniversaries aren't worth celebrating, but "the Depression had been hard on Pilgrim Memorial" and the hospital needs money for new equipment. So they used the anniversary as an opportunity to raise money. The committee has even brought in a big New York band, Sweeney Lamb and his All-Stars, for the dance.

Dr. Lincoln Jones of Pilgrim Memorial went to high school with the trumpet player of the band, Bix Blake, but their reunion ends tragically when they fail to come out of a locked dressing room during the dance. The door is broken down and, upon entering, they find Dr. Jones kneeling next to the body of the trumpet player holding an empty, hypodermic needle in one hand – which had been "full of codeine." Dr. Jones claims Blake began to have trouble breathing and that there was no needle in the room when this happened. This is, admittedly, a fascinating impossible crime scenario with an uncommon murder weapon that makes the murder look even more impossible, but the experienced (locked room) mystery reader should have no problem piecing this puzzle together. And perhaps do so even quicker than Dr. Hawthorne.

"The Problem of the Vanishing Salesman" was first published in the August, 1992, issue of EQMM and is one of the innumerable detective stories playing with Dr. Watson's reference, in "The Problem of Thor Bridge" from Conan Doyle's The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927), to the unfinished tale of Mr. James Phillimore – "who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world."

Mr. James Philby is a traveling salesman who returned to Northmont in the Spring of '37 to sell lightening rods, but pulls a vanishing act on the porch Abby Gaines with Dr. Hawthorne as the sole witness. Shortly thereafter, Philby reappears as if nothing has happened. However, Philby disappears a second time, on exactly the same spot, but this time its after shooting and killing a man. Dr. Hawthorne and Sheriff Lens watch him open the storm-door and vanish through a door that was locked and bolted from the inside! And he's nowhere to be found on the premises! The explanation for this vanishing trick is a little bit workmanlike, but this fitted the character of the murderer like a glove and made for a fun take on the inverted detective story.

"The Problem of the Leather Man" was first published in December, 1992, issue of EQMM and can now be counted as one of my favorite stories from this series.

The Leather Man is a remarkable character who really existed: "a laconic wanderer," rumored to have been of French decent, who dressed in a homemade leather suit and walked a 365-mile circuit between Connecticut and eastern New York State for thirty years during the late 1800s – which he did until his death in 1889. Hoch used the lore of the man in tattered leather to pen one of the more memorable entries in this series.

During the summer of 1937, the ghost of the Leather Man returned to Northmont and appears to have been involved with a fatal automobile accident. Dr. Hawthorne becomes fascinated by the story and assumes "someone is retracing the old route" for "reasons of his own." So he decided to follow the trail and eventually spotted "a slim, brown-clad figure." The man claims to be an Australian, Zach Taylor, who's "on a trek" and Dr. Hawthorne begins to walk along with the man. Along the way, they come across several of Dr. Hawthorne's acquaintances and, by the end of the day, they decide to stay the night at a Bed & Breakfast.

On the following morning, Dr. Hawthorne discovers that his leather-clad companion has disappeared from their shared room and the owners of the B&B tell him he had checked in all alone. Smelling of booze. All of the people, he had come across the previous day, swear they had not seen the Leather Man. Dr. Hawthorne had been walking by himself.

An absolutely marvelous, first-class premise with not one, but three, separate explanations that form together one single solution. Sheriff Lens has a point that this is "stretching coincidence a bit far," but, if you're going to use a patch-work of coincidences, this is the way how it should be done. A grand take on the 1880s urban legend of "The Vanishing Lady," which also inspired Basil Thomson's "The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser" (Mr. Pepper, Investigator, 1925), John Dickson Carr's 1943 radio-play "Cabin B-13" and Simon de Waal & Dick van den Heuvel's Spelen met vuur (Playing With Fire, 2004). Only thing you can say against it is that, technically, it doesn't exactly qualify as an impossible crime story. But, as you can see, that did not prevent me from enjoying this story.

"The Problem of the Phantom Parlor" made its first appearance in the June, 1993, issue of EQMM and, plot-wise, is one of the better and stronger entries in this volume. Dr. Hawthorne receives a twelve-year-old girl, Josephine Grady, in his office who staying a week in Northmont with her aunt, Min Grady – who, according to the girl, is "sort of spooky" and her house has a ghost-room. There's a large, elaborate china closet, but sometimes there's "a little parlor" behind the double doors with a sofa, chairs and pictures on the wall. A parlor that appears and disappears at random.

Dr. Hawthorne gives Josephine his home phone-number and tells her to call him whenever something strange has happened, but, when she calls him, it's to tell him that she has found her aunt's body in the phantom parlor. When Dr. Hawthorne and Sheriff Lens arrive, the body is lying in the hallway and the parlor, once more, is nowhere to be found. This is a truly excellent and original story with a cleverly constructed impossible crime trick.

My only complaint is that the solution to this story has somewhat diminished my high opinion on another contemporary locked room novel, because the central idea from that novel obviously came from this short story. Not only the idea behind the locked room trick, but also the clue of the previous, long-dead resident of the house. Hoch originated the idea with this wonderful story.

"The Problem of the Poisoned Pool" first appeared in the December, 1993, issue of EQMM and Dr. Hawthorne is invited to the clambake party of Ernest Holland, published of the Northmont Blade, who tells everyone to bring their bathing suits – because the pool is open. During the party, his brother, Philip Holland, miraculously emerges from an empty swimming pool and is challenged by Ernest to do the trick in reverse by diving into "the pool and disappear." Philip accepts the challenge and dives back into the pool, but dies almost immediately of cyanide poisoning.

Unfortunately, this is not a good story at all and pretty much cheats the reader, because the correct solution to the impossible appearance was suggested early on and rejected. Only to be brought back on stage as the correct solution with a minor addition used to explain the poisoning part. Hoch should have known better, because, if I remember correctly, Carr mocked a variation on this solution in A Graveyard to Let (1949) – which also involves an impossibility in a swimming-pool. So not one of Hoch's better impossible crime stories.

"The Problem of the Missing Roadhouse" first appeared in the June, 1994, issue of EQMM and is, regrettably, not much better than the previous story. After a night out, Jack and Becky Tober are driving home when they come across a roadhouse where they accidentally hit a man with their car. Or so it appears. At the hospital, they find that the dead man has a bullet wound in his head, but when they return to the scene of the crime, the roadhouse has disappeared. I think Aidan of Mysteries Ahoy! described this story best when he said it was "awkward and unconvincing." I concur!

"The Problem of the Country Mailbox" first appeared in the December, 1994, issue of EQMM and is an improvement over the previous two stories, but still has its problems. The story takes place in the Fall of '38 and Northmont is experiencing a population growth, which brings change to the town and one of these changes is a small, private college that's being built in a neighboring town – encouraged a man named Josh Vernon to open a bookstore in town. Vernon has an impossible problem for Dr. Hawthorne concerning one of his customers, Aaron DeVille.

Three times, Vernon has left books DeVille had ordered in his mailbox and they simply disappeared. Sometimes, the books disappeared in less than a minute or two. Vernon placed a book in the mailbox and DeVille immediately stepped outside, to get it, only to discover an empty mailbox. Dr. Hawthorne decides to take this hungry mailbox to the test and personally delivers a copy of War and Peace, but when the package is opened, which contained a harmless book moments before, DeVille is blown to pieces by a bomb! A good premise and story-telling with an interesting solution.

However, I have one (tiny) problem with the explanation: why, from all the books in the house, would [redacted] pick that specific book? I think that's one hell of a coincidence. Still, all things considered, this was a good story.

"The Problem of the Crowded Cemetery" first appeared in the May, 1995, issue of EQMM and was famously anthologized by Mike Ashley in The Mammoth Book of Locked Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes (2000), which was my first exposure to this series and, I believe, even Hoch. So I have a particular fondness for this story.

Spring Glen Cemetery used to be more of a park than a graveyard, bisected by a creek, which sometimes overflowed and flooded the graveyard when the warmth of spring melted the winter snow on Cobble Mountain – slowly eroding the soil on the banks of the creek. This resulted in the lost of several acres of cemetery land. So many of the graves had to be cleared and reburied, but Dr. Hawthorne, who was to oversee the procedure, is soon confronted with another a baffling impossible crime. One of the recently unearthed coffins, buried for more than twenty years, turns out to contain the body of a recently murdered man. A baffling situation with an explanation as simple as it's practical. I liked it for more than one reason.

"The Problem of the Enormous Owl" first appeared in the January, 1996, issue of EQMM and is a minor story about a playwright, Gordon Cole, who's found in the middle of a field with a crushed chest and feathers found on the body – identified as belonging to a great horned owl. More of an howdunit than an impossible crime. Only interesting aspect of the story is that Sheriff Lens is the one who solved the how-part of the crime. A role usually reserved for Dr. Hawthorne, but he gets to correctly identify the murderer.

"The Problem of the Miraculous Jar" first appeared in the August, 1996, issue of EQMM and is a good, old-fashioned and uncomplicated locked room mystery. 

 

Proctor and Mildred Hall, two prominent citizens of Northmont, returned from a two month holiday in the Mediterranean region and brought back a stoneware jar from Cana where Jesus had performed the first miracle at the wedding feast – by turning water into wine. Hall's give this Canaanite jar to one of their friends, Rita Perkins, but the wonder it performs to its new owner is a poisonous miracle.

Shortly after the jar is given, Dr. Hawthorne is called by Perkins to tell him she drank from the jar and is feeling "terribly dizzy." He rushes to her home, which is entirely locked from the inside and surrounded by unmarked snow. Dr. Hawthorne breaks a window and, inside the home, finds the body of Perkins. An autopsy revealed she had been pregnant and died from cyanide poisoning, but the question is how the poison was introduced into the locked house. The answer to this question also reveals the identity of the murderer.

So a pretty good, competently plotted locked room story and, had this story actually been written and published during the late 1930s, the motive and murder method would probably have shocked some readers.

"The Problem of the Enchanted Terrace" first appeared in the April, 1997, issue of EQMM and has, together with "Phantom Parlor," one of the best and most original impossible crime scenario and solution in this volume – a truly novel way to make a person vanish as if by magic. Dr. Hawthorne is one a long overdue, well deserved holiday together with his nurse, Mary Best, and two friends, Winston and Ellen Vance. They make a stop at New Bedford to visit newly opened Herman Melville museum and there they learn of "a haunted terrace" that attracts lightening strikes during thunderstorms.

Dr. Hawthorne experiences the paranormal quality of terrace first hand when he witnesses "a strange greenish light," which quickly vanishes, followed by the inexplicable disappearance of a man from the same terrace. The terrace was surrounded by walls or wet, unmarked brown soil. Somehow, a man had vanished from this place in the blink of an eye! As said above, the solution to this miracle problem is as novel as it original. You can almost say it was cartoon-like, but really appreciated the originality of the trick. Only weakness is the unconvincing motive. Granted, motives have always been a particular weakness of this series.

"The Problem of the Unfound Door" was first published in the June, 1998, issue of EQMM and is a pretty minor story about a miraculous disappearance during an inspection of an Anglican convent. However, the only notable aspect of this story is not the locked room trick, but how Hoch's attempt to invert the expectations of long-time mystery readers. A spirited attempt that has to be appreciated.

"The Second Problem of the Covered Bridge" was first published in the December, 1998, issue of EQMM and had the promise to be the standout story of this collection, but the story failed to live up to its premise and ended up absolutely hating it.

The story takes place in January, 1940, when Northmont celebrates its centenarian and the town wants to mark the occasion by dramatizing "the four most memorable events in Northmont history." One for each season. For winter, they want to memorialize the first impossible problem Dr. Hawthorne ever solved in Northmonth, "The Problem of the Covered Bridge" collected in Diagnosis: Impossible – The Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (1996), which took place eighteen years ago – when Dr. Hawthorne settled down in Northmont in 1922. Mayor Sumerset is to drive through the covered bridge on a horse-and-buggy, exactly 18 years ago, but halfway through the covered bridge, watched from both sides, he's shot through the head at close range. A marvelous premise using the history of the series itself, but completely soiled by using the same kind of solution as the one from "The Problem of the Voting Booth."

An unimaginative, cop-out solution that stopped being clever after Conan Doyle used it and writers really have to stop using it. You're not being clever and the only thing it achieves is killing potentially good (locked room) detective stories. I hate this solution so very much.

Finally, we have "The Problem of the Scarecrow Congress," culled from the pages of the June, 1999, issue of EQMM and is a relatively minor story with a nifty impossible situation: a body of a shot man who, somehow, appeared inside a scarecrow that was part of a competition. The trick here is not bad, a play on a technique Hoch often employs for his locked room stories, and is properly clues, but marred by a poor and unconvincing motive. So this collection ended with a bit of whimper.

In summation, All But Impossible is the traditional mixed bag of stories you like, dislike or feel indifferent about in turn, but, as a whole, they still form a pretty solid collection of impossible crime tales with "Leather Man," "Phantom Parlor," "Crowded Cemetery" and "Enchanted Terrace" as the standout cases. Overall, a definite improvement over the stories collected in the previous volume (Nothing is Impossible: Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne, 2014) and very much enjoyed my return to Northmont. One of all-time favorite fictitious places. And it's always a pleasure to listen to Dr. Hawthorne narrate his old cases.

Lastly, Crippen & Landru have one more Dr. Hawthorne collection in the offing, apparently titled Challenge the Impossible – The Last Casebook of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (20??), but a definite publication date is, as of yet, not known. Personally, I think a book-title along the lines of Not As Impossible As It Seems: The Final Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne or Is It Really Possible?: The Last Casebook of Dr. Sam Hawthorne is better fitted for the truly last collection of one of the greatest specialists of impossible crimes.

The Locked Room Reader VIII: The Case of the Copy-Cat "Writer"

A year ago, Coachwhip republished the entire Inspector Norton Kane series by "Roger Scarlett," a shared penname of Dorothy Blair and Evelyn Page, who had the misfortune of being the victim of "the most glaring piece of plagiarism ever to exist" when the pseudonymous "Don Basil" copied The Back Bay Murders (1930) almost word for word – shamelessly published it as his own under the title Cat and Feather (1931). Our resident genre historian, Curt Evans, wrote a great piece on this remarkable case of plagiarism.

Evans opened his blog-post with the statement that "plagiarism can be subtle or it can be blatant." Sometimes it can be "jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly blatant." Well, I came across a recent example that's almost as brazen and shameless as Basil's Cat and Feather.

In my never-ending quest to satisfy my crippling impossible crime addiction, I stumbled across the promisingly titled The Locked Study Murder (2017), a self-published novel, written (or so I thought) by Stephen M. Arleaux – which immediately had my interest. My fellow locked room fanboy, "JJ" of The Invisible Event, has showed us in his ongoing series "Adventures in Self-Publishing" that this corner of the publishing industry has some hidden gems. So I began looking into this particular title and writer when a feeling of deja-vu came over me.

The plot-description of The Locked Study Murder sounded awfully familiar and it took me a couple of minutes to realize the premise of the book was very similar to the setup of A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery (1922).

However, this similarity could have just been a coincidence or Arleaux had read The Red House Mystery and thought he could wring a better detective story from Milne's premise. I didn't immediately assume the worst, but the feeling of deju-vu didn't subside when I started reading an excerpt of the first chapter. So I opened a second tab and went to Project Gutenberg to compare the two chapters, which showed that this was not merely a coincidence or an homage to Milne – because the chapters were nearly identical! Only some of the names were changed!

Here's a brief sample from the first chapter of The Locked Study Murder:

"In the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon the Townsend House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flowerborders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From distant lawns came the whir of a mowingmachine, that most restful of all country sounds; making ease the sweeter in that it is taken while others are working."

Now compare that excerpt with the opening lines from The Red House Mystery:

"In the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon the Red House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From distant lawns came the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds; making ease the sweeter in that it is taken while others are working."

The Red House Mystery is in the public domain and this is not, strictly speaking, illegal, but it isn't fair nor is it very honest and just a cheap way to make a buck under false pretenses. Even more annoyingly, Arleaux wrote on the copy-right page that the story is "As Suggested by A.A. Milne," which really rubbed me the wrong way. This is nothing more than copy-paste job with a name change. A story suggested by Milne would have been an originally written detective novel based on the unrecorded case he had hinted at at the end of The Red House Mystery.

This is not the only time Arleaux has passed off a book in the public domain as his own work. The Locked Room Murders (2017) is a word for word copy of Wadsworth Camp's The Abandoned Room (1917) and he didn't even change the names of the characters in that one! Obviously, he does this to make a quick, easy buck, because Arleaux's copies are only available as paperback editions that are sold for close to sixteen bucks a copy when you can read the originals for free. So let the reader be warned!

I hastily slapped together this unplanned blog-post on the spot, because I simply had to share this with all of you, but normal programming will resume tomorrow with a regular review of a short story collection by Edward D. Hoch. So stay tuned!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dutch edition

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

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

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

The Ace of Clubs Murder (1939) by Ralph Trevor

James Reginald Wilmot is an obscure, long-forgotten British author who wrote romance novels as "Frances Stuart" and, under the alias of "Ralph Trevor," prolifically churned out science-fiction, spy thrillers and detective novels during the 1930 and '40s – some of which have recently been brought back into print by Ramble House and Black Heath Editions. Not much else is known about him, or his work, on the web and only potential source of information is tucked away behind a paywall.

So I picked The Ace of Clubs Murder (1939) based solely on its intriguing sounding story-title, synopsis and the original cover art, which gave me the impression of Ellery-in-Wonderland kind of detective story (e.g. There Was an Old Woman, 1943) set in England.

The story turned out to be more along the lines of Ngaio Marsh, but was surprised to discover that this little-known author produced a very well-written and characterized detective novel. There was a lot of promise in the plot, but, in my opinion, it became less impressive as the story crawled towards the ending and the solution fell flat – which can be blamed on Trevor holding his cards too close to his chest. Almost like he was afraid to give too much away, but I'll come back to that later on in this post.

The Ace of Clubs Murder is set in a colony of retirees, Firtholm, situated on the outskirts of the town of Mexbridge and has been erected by Joshua Benton, a builder of homes, who holds some unusually progressive ideas about housing. Benton is appalled by the old-world housing of England, rows of drab, nearly windowless houses, crammed in streets scarcely wide enough for "the wind to blow decently between them." Populated by "thin, undersized, depressed people with no ambition." Benton eagerly looks forward to "the next war," because if Britain was to be bombed to blazes from the air, the government would have to rehouse millions of people – moving them into "hygienic tenements or houses" specially built for them. This was his motivation for building Firtholm.

So when Marcus Poland comes to Benton with a proposal to built a social center, or club house, in Flirtholm the builder immediately agrees. Three months later, Poland is installed as the manager and social organizer of The Ace of Clubs.

Most of the residents of the Firtholm take a liking to Poland. Colonel Ratchett thinks of him as honest, hardworking man and Miss Susan Welsh, a spinster, is quite taken in by him, but there are also people who cast a suspicious eye on the newcomer. Miss Welsh's niece, Miss Doreen Fenning, is wary of the relationship between her aunt and Poland, while her boyfriend, Ronald Manning, caught Poland eyeing Doreen in a way of which he strongly disapproved – resulting in a confrontation between the two. However, they're not the only ones who are suspicious of his motives. Mrs. Ratchett wonders why a man of Poland's capability choose to settle down among them when he could easily be managing one of the big clubs in the West End. Then there's the enigma of the retirement colony, Vivienne Carter, who appears to know Poland and she's even blackmailed by him. So there you have as good a setup as any for a detective story and the situation comes to a head when Poland suggests a charity event to raise money for the Mexbridge Cottage Hospital.

Poland proposed to run a collection in the town and neighborhood in fancy dress. So the members of The Ace of Clubs worm themselves in fancy looking costumes, clowns, funny policemen, Pierrot's, chefs and nursemaids, while Poland is dressed in a white suit with "an enormous Ace of Clubs back and front" to "resemble a playing card." Very much like the living playing cards from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Oh, they're all wearing masks.

The charity collection turned out to be a howling success, but the ends in tragedy when, later that night, Poland's body is found by a police constable in a deserted spot known as Tylers' Field.

I told you the story read like a mystery novel by Marsh! The first half of The Ace of Clubs Murder is a lively written story with a cast of interesting characters, but the police investigation, conducted by Detective-Inspector Curtis Burke of Scotland Yard, tended to drag a bit – a problem exacerbated by Trevor showing either too much or too little. You see, the body had been found earlier that evening by two different people: Doreen had been there first and fled the scene in a panic, but Ronald had been aware of this and, suspecting the obvious, decided to muddle the waters by providing her with an alibi. A fancy dress alibi. Ronald dons a spare costume that's identical to Poland's and pretend to be him the rest of the evening.

However, this alibi immediately arouses suspicion, because it doesn't tally with the time of death. The medical evidence clearly showed that Poland must have been lying dead on Tylers' Field at the same time people saw him dancing at The Ace of Clubs. Unfortunately, the reader already knows the solution to this problem and, as a result, Burke's investigation becomes a bit of a drag. And it eliminated two names from the list of suspects.

The second problem is exactly the opposite of showing the reader too much. Namely showing too little and too late.

There are some pretty blatant clues, which pretty much give away the motive and murderer, but they're not given to the reader until very late in the final quarter of the story and this caused me to misidentify the murderer – whom I had eyes suspiciously from early on in the story. A line from the same, final quarter of the story appeared to confirm my initial suspicion, as one of the characters mentioned that Poland had met "some people in [redacted] who had big ideas about starting some kind of business in London," which also gave me a hint of a motive. And this person was definitely capable of strangling the strong, powerfully built Poland with his bare hands. Unfortunately, the solution turned out to be a bit more hackneyed than that. Oh, well.

So, a long story short, Trevor was without a doubt a far better writer than plotter, but mystery readers who prefer story-telling and characterization over plotting will find an enjoyable and rewarding read in The Ace of Clubs Murder. Despite its short comings in the plotting department, I found this to be a interesting title from the trail of obscurity.

Anyway, for my next post, I'll be taking a look at a (locked room) mystery novel JJ, of The Invisible Event, brought to my attention. I mention this here to give him an opportunity to guess which one and, if you want to know why, read our comments on this post. Good luck, JJ! :)

A Hostage Situation: Case Closed, vol. 67 by Gosho Aoyama

The 67th volume in Gosho Aoyama's long-running series Case Closed, originally published in Japan as Detective Conan, customarily begins with the conclusion of the story that began at the end of the previous volume – an inverted detective story that uses a popular sub-culture to create a perfect alibi. So let's dig in.

Previously, Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan were getting a bite to eat at a diner when the body of a young woman is found in the restroom dressed as a Gothic Lolita. She had rope and scratch marks on her throat. The murderer is known to the reader, a close friend of the victim, but the problem is that the murderer possesses "an airtight alibi." Conan has a keen eye for details and shatters the alibi based on a broken drinking glass, fingerprints and the fact that the victim wasn't wearing the fake nails that came with the Gothic Lolita getup.

I'll admit that this is not one of the strongest stories in the series, but passable enough and thought it was interesting how Aoyama used the particulars of a niche-culture to create an alibi-trick. What can I say? Christopher Bush has given me a new appreciation for alibi stories.

The second story consists of a single chapter and concerns an elderly men, who seems full of life and positivist, but Conan spots a number of holes in his story and together with the Junior Detective League they prevent not one, but two, tragedies – which somewhat reminded me of Agatha Christie's "Wasps' Nest" (collected in Double Sin and Other Stories, 1961). These one-chapter stories are incredibly rare in Case Closed and are usually nothing more than filler material to bridge a (publication) gap between story-lines. The end of this story has a reference to the hostage case from volume 65 and the man who closely resembled the supposedly dead Shuichi Akai. And this reference is very relevant to what comes next.

The third story, covering no less than five chapters, is complex in nature and has multiple layers stacked upon each other.

Richard Moore is hired by an anonymous client to find out who has been sending this person red, long sleeved shirts in the mail every week and Moore is asked to meet with the client at the sporting goods store at the Baker Department Store, but there Conan and Rachel spot Ms. Jodie – who's looking there for a trail of the Akai look-a-like. The look-a-like who was spotted in the hostage case was wearing a limited edition, black-knit hat with the logo of the department store on it. However, this apparently simple case quickly becomes a dangerous one when an innocent shopper is knocked out in the restroom and a masked man straps a remote control bomb to his body! The perpetrator demands that whomever has been sending him the red shirts reveals himself. And the Akai look-a-like is present in the department store.

However, their problems are only just beginning: Gin and Vodka are waiting in a car outside of the department store with Gin pointing a gun at Kir, who killed Akai in volume 59, because the Black Organization has become aware someone is walking around the city who closely resembles Akai and they suspect they might have been played a sucker – which is why they stationed Chianti in a top-floor window, across the department store, with a sniper rifle. A very tight situation, to say the least.

So Conan has to diffuse the hostage situation by cracking the code of the red shirts and the torn receipts, which show that all the shirts were purchased at exactly 12:29. The code is a nifty twist on Conan Doyle "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" (collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1903), but perhaps a little impractical and a little bit too easily solved. Still, it was definitely an ingenious code. I won't give anything away what happened with the Akai look-a-like or the Black Organization, but Aoyama spoiled one plot-thread in the ongoing story-line when he injected Subaru into the story. Aoyama gave him way too many lines and facial expressions, which gave his own story-line away. I know who you are now, Subaru!

Anyway, this was a good, multi-layered story with a whole group of familiar characters moving around in the background and long-time readers of the series will definitely appreciate it.

The last three chapters are a continuation of the Metropolitan Police Love Story from volume 66 with a simplistic murder of a pawnshop owner thrown in for good measure, which will be concluded in the next volume, but I already identified the murderer – because the attempt of misdirection here is beneath Aoyama. Granted, I have seen silhouette-trick (or mistake) before, but still, it's childishly easy.

So, all things considered, this was a pretty decent entry in the series with the hostage case as its highlight and an improvement over the previous volume, which only had one really good story. Well, I had been warned in the comments on my review of volume 65 (linked above) that this period in the series experienced a slight dip in quality, but slowly gets back into form as it moves towards volume 70. I can live with that considering how strong this series has been up till now.