The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) by Richard Foster

Back in February, I reviewed Kendell "Ken" Foster Crossen's The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints (1945), a fun and pulpy impossible crime yarn, which Crossen brazen employed as a vehicle to promote his novel The Laughing Buddha Murders (1944) – published as by "Richard Foster." Foster's The Laughing Buddha Murders is about to be published in The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints and an advanced copy, gone missing, figures in the investigation. Vulcan Publications even gets involved! Someone who has read it provides the story with a teaser, "a Buddha, weighing a ton, which apparently vanished from a locked room." Shameless piece of self-promotion, barely disguised as a plot-thread, but hey, it worked on me!

The Laughing Buddha Murders is the first, of only two, mystery novels starring the American-Tibetan detective and Charlie Chan of the Pulps, Chin Kwang Kham. The story takes place in Cuyahoga County, somewhere in Cleveland, Ohio, where an inquest is held on the body of the recently murdered millionaire, Horace Bailey Lawton. Nearly every face at the inquest "indicated satisfaction that Horace Bailey Lawton had ceased to live among them." Not without reason.

Lawton was a rich businessman, fanatical collector of Chinese art and somewhat of a cartoonish villain who was found slumped over his desk with an ornamental dagger sticking out of his back. Someone had knifed him from behind while dictating instructions to his secretary into his dictaphone and the recording is played in court, which gives the reader an idea why Lawton isn't mourned. Like instructing his lawyer to practically disinherit his daughter, Betty, if she dares to marry Theodore Challet. In case of a marriage, she'll still receive the princely sum of one dollar annually, "payable each year on the anniversary of her wedding," but everyone gets a good, old-fashioned shellacking from his neighbor and the local newspaper to his own servants – who regularly get their salaries docked for minor infractions and little oversights. So plenty of motives to go around!

However, the murder of the hated collector is not the only problem stumping Lieutenant John Payne. Entering the Lawton house is "was almost like stepping into another world" with Eastern art and Buddhas everywhere "ranging from a tiny ivory-dust Buddha on the desk to those three or four feet tall that were placed around the room." A prized piece in the collection is the solid gold statue of the Kum Bum Buddha, "one of the three most renowned early Buddhist sculptures in existence," which weighs a ton and has somehow gone missing from the crime scene. It didn't exactly vanish from a locked room, but removing a one-ton gold statue without being seen or heard poses something of an impossibility ("something that weighs a ton doesn't just vanish").

Chin Kwang Kham, a lecturer on Tibetan culture, was invited by Lawton to take a look at the now missing Buddha and subtly slips into the role of amateur sleuth when he begins to notice things. Not quite subtle enough not to be noticed himself and receives a warning surprisingly written in the obscure Pali language, which starts with the greeting "Kham, Pakkhandin." Kham explains pakkhandin roughly translates to "one who meddles in other people's business." So the greeting can be read as "Kham, Meddler." I thought that was worth mentioning and should also mention here that the story skips between the inquest, flashbacks to the investigation on the night of the murder and the ongoing investigation that includes a second murder – among other things. That all makes for a decent, if routine, pulp mystery with a murderer who stands out and a fairly underwhelming solution to the vanishing Buddha. So it really ends up being Kham who carries The Laughing Buddha Murders. And then only towards the end.

Firstly, the two murders and vanishing statue attracted some media attention bringing a larger than usual crowd bringing to Kham's lectures. When noticing all the potential suspects sitting in the audience, Kham decides to lecture on murder, "one of oldest habits of man," to lure out the murderer. And not wholly unsuccessfully. But it's not until the inquest resumes, Kham gets another opportunity to nail the killer... under somewhat legally dubious circumstances. Franklyn Williams, the Coroner, appoints Kham to deputy coroner of the county of Cuyahoga and tells the jury, "the questioning of witnesses will be conducted by Mr. Chin Kham." Going from Charlie Chan to a modern-day Judge Dee. During this last round of questions, Kham unmasks the murderer in front of a captivated audience. It regrettably sounds better than it ended up being and the only reason why it didn't really work is because there was not much plot to prop it up.

Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes notes that Kham is "a thoroughly unstereotypical" Asian detective whose only two recorded cases "stand apart as an attempt at something new." I agree, however, attempt is the keyword. This short-lived series was a well-intended attempt, but simply lacked the quality to deliver on its potential with The Invisible Man Murders (1945) reportedly not being an improvement on The Laughing Buddha Murders. More of the same with a little gratuitous torture scenes added to the mix. Ah, the pulps! So, yeah, unless you like obscure pulps or a locked room completist, you can give this one a pass.

Crossover at the Borders: C.M.B. vol. 19 & Q.E.D. vol. 41 by Motohiro Katou

This took longer than planned, but after a year, or two, I finally arrived at the big crossover event between Motohiro Katou's two flagship series, Q.E.D. and C.M.B., which is an international affair bringing casting both series detectives in the roles of special envoys – dispatching them to my country! Now I know why some of you were so eager for me to get to this crossover event.

A crossover event officially beginning in Q.E.D. vol. 41, "Special Envoy of Balkia," but you don't necessarily have to read them order. More on that in a moment.

"Special Envoy of Balkia" centers around ex-president Suami Gareth, of the fictitious Republic of Balkia in eastern Europe, who's primary interest was "hoarding illegal wealth" in smuggled diamonds, money laundering and other criminal activities – which resulted in economic sanctions. So the Republic of Balkia rapidly descended into social unrest and ultimately a short, but bloody, civil war ("he shot his own citizens") killing over thirty thousand people. President Suami Gareth left behind "destroyed buildings and overflowing graves" as he escaped the country. Fortunately, the Belgian police arrested him.

So the new president of the Balkia Republic, Mantley Coudan, requested the ex-president to be extradited to stand trial in Balkia. However, the Belgian authorities refuse to hand him over and intend to hold the trial themselves, because of the danger his return to the country poses. The ex-president still has a lot armed loyalists with a diamond crammed war chest, which could reignite the conflict. And they don't believe Balkia is capable of holding a trial in its current state. Balkia disagrees, "it infringes on our sovereignty," who take the dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands! Sou Touma is asked to represent and argue in the court on behalf of Balkia, while the group representing the Belgium is headed by Touma's cousin, Sakaki Shinra, from C.M.B. Yes, it's kind of awesome to see both of them wandering around my country. Netherlands mentioned!

Now this is where the story becomes a little tricky to discuss, because this crossover is a tale of two identical (copy and paste) stories with diverging endings. The first-half of the C.M.B. part of this crossover, "The Arrested President Affair," is practically identical as it copy/pastes the backstory from "Special Envoy of Balkia" and Touma's explanation of International Court of Justice – except it's from Shinra's perspective. A notable difference between the two is "The Arrested President Affair" giving a better picture of the crimes Suami Gareth committed during his presidency. Rampant corruption and triggering a civil war is bad enough, but his way of dealing with dissenters was forcing "parents and their children to kill each other." Most of the parents/dissenters killed themselves instead, which he referred to as "that boring incident." A crime deserving the kind of justice that can only be dispensed by a hangman, firing squad or a trip on the Orient Express.

So the two cousins and protagonists, Touma and Shinra, find themselves on opposite sides of the international court. Touma argues for Balkia's sovereign rights to be upheld, while Shinra argues to moral side the president must answer for his crimes and Balkia is not a position to make those guarantees ("Balkia cannot be trusted"). Where the stories differ is not in the conclusion of the hearing, but its aftermath which both take a thriller-ish approach. "Special Envoy of Balkia" ends with an out-and-out, anime-style fight scene with a loyalist faction that spills out to the rooftop of a church. It's sounds as ridiculous as it's fun! "The Arrested President Affair" aims with its ending for an international action thriller tying up several loose ends concerning the missing envoy, missing diamonds and bringing justice to war torn country. And no less fun than the epic battle of the other story.

"Special Envoy of Balkia" and "The Arrested President Affair" is certainly a fun, cross promotional crossover and, typical for these two series, not easily pigeonholed. I don't think you can call it a courtroom drama nor an action thriller in the traditional sense, but it sure was an entertaining way to pit Touma and Shinra against one another. That's also it's major drawback. The overall story would have been less repetitive, more effective and tighter had been told in go, i.e. contained to a single volume. But it something that had to be sacrificed for the cross promotion. What could have been fixed is order of the stories. "The Arrested President Affair" should have come before "Special Envoy of Balkia."

An anonymous comment left on my review of Q.E.D. vol. 37-38 pointed out reading the C.M.B. point of view of the case first is better, because you don't know what Touma thinks or why he's making certain moves – which makes for better storytelling. I agree. So far from a perfect or simply a very good story, even judged as one of Katou Motohiro's unorthodox mysteries, but still found it to be an entertaining one. Crossovers are my guilty pleasure and having one of favorite detective character visit my country is almost personalized fan service. That's probably the best way to sum up this crossover: a fan pleaser.

Hold on a minute, there's more. C.M.B. vol. 19 and Q.E.D. vol. 41 have additional, if minor, stories. C.M.B. opens with two shorter stories, "The Master of Ginza Mugen-Tei" and "Dance the Night Away," which try to emulate the character-driven puzzles of Q.E.D. However, I found neither particular interesting nor memorable. Only notable thing about "The Master of Ginza Mugen-Tei" is how inappropriate it's to ask someone of Shinra's age to probe a such a question. Although some would counter it's equally inappropriate to have a teenagers pawing around the scene of a murder or have them argue cases in the International Court of Justice.

The second story from Q.E.D. vol. 41, "Caff's Memories," is a substantial better, character-driven puzzle, but not the best the series has produced. Story begins with Touma visiting a federal prisoner, Caff Darby, in the United States on behalf of his wife. Lin Darby once was a successful fortune who brought her husband fame and fortune, "investor with God's Eye," who studied and wholly believed in her predictive powers ("Lin's predictions have come true 95% of the time"). But his financial windfalls brought him scrutiny from the authorities. And ended up in prison when Lin was wounded during a shooting. So what's Touma supposed to do? The story has an M. Night Shyamalan twist you can see coming the moment Touma slapped down the photograph of the old man on the table, but liked Touma's explanation why he thought Lin could predict the future.

So, yeah, I'm glad to finally have crossed this crossover off the list and continue with the Q.E.D. series, which has nine more volumes. I'll be interspersing them with reviews of C.M.B., until Shinra takes over from Touma on this blog. Rest assured, the reviews of C.M.B. will be interspersed with reviews of Q.E.D. iff. Stay tuned!

And Then There Were Nyan (2024) by A.Z. Ruin

So for the past three, four months, I've been reading, rating and reviewing impossible crime novels and short stories that were nominated in the first round of voting for the "New Locked Room Library" – organized by Alexander of The Detection Collection. Since I was already familiar with the majority of nominated titles, I decided to focus on the obscurer, lesser-known "exotic" picks that came out of the first round.

Some truly surprising, unexpected picks which, for some reason or another, flew under my radar. Several can now be counted among my personal favorites starting with Aosaki Yugo's short story "Knockin' On Locked Door" (2014) and Mitsuda Madoy's superb fanlations of Kie Houjou's modern classics Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022). Not to be overlooked K.O. Enigma's fun, off-beat self-published genre parody Bunraku Noir (2023) or nominations previously reviewed on this blog (e.g. H.M. Faust's Gospel of V, 2023). And not every nomination observes the rule of having to be "reasonably available." The subject of today's is a shining example of ignoring that rule.

I know nothing about the author nor book, except it's a write-in and was given a copy with the instruction not to be a smart ass who asks impertinent questions.

So there's nothing I can say about A.Z. Ruin and gather And Then There Were Nyan is an as of yet unpublished manuscript floating around certain circles, which explains why not a mention of it can be found online and still got nominated. So, knowing next to nothing about the author or book, I pieced together from the comments And And Then There Were Nyan is a hybrid mystery trying to bridge the gap between the grounded, fair play detective story and pure fantasy – presented as a courtroom drama. Apparently, wrote it as a homage to the Ace Attorney series. So this is more or less going to be a gamble rather than picking something good, because I'm notoriously skeptical when it comes to hybrids of pure fantasy and mystery. I prefer the horror and science-fiction concoctions of the mystery hybrid. A skepticism that can be partially blamed on Randall Garrett's godawful Too Many Magicians (1966), but promised someone to give them another shot when a reasonably promising-sounding fantasy/mystery hybrid turned up. So is Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan going to change my opinion on fantasy/mystery hybrids or cement it firmly in place? Let's find out!

And Then There Were Nyan follows a woman, simply referred to as the Hunter, who's traveling with her rifle and caravan to New York, but gets stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere. For some reason, she has been locked out of both the caravan and car. So the Hunter has to move on foot, unless she wants to be torn apart by the nighttime wildlife. It doesn't take long for her to arrive at a small town resembling "the remains of some long-abandoned Civil War outpost" with badly-worn sign reading, "In this town, no man may kill a cat." The town appears to be abandoned, but nearly every house is locked and every door has a cat flap. And in the only unlocked house, the Hunter finds the bloody remains of a dead cat with a bullet wound. But being made of sterner stuff, the Hunter thinks nothing of it, cleared the floor and went to sleep. Only to be awakened by a crowd of talking, upright walking cats who take a dim view of finding her next to the body of their fellow feline, Pluto.

The Hunter happened to stumble into the town of Ulthar, "any cat in Ulthar is granted the protection and blessings of the goddess Baast," which is why they can walk upright like humans and speak their languages. Ulthar appeared abandoned because the entire townfolks were away "celebrating the first night of Kattenstoet" (love that name!) and upon return found the Hunter in a situation demanding an explanation. So she's apprehended (not without a fight), thrown in a jail cell and placed on trial. A trial presided over by a giant female sphinx. Well, that escalated quickly!

This trial covers roughly the first-half of And Then There Were Nyan and cleverly exploited to do a bit of world-building throughout the courtroom proceedings. The Sphinx tells the Hunter that innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply in Ulthar. So the prosecution doesn't have to conclusively prove her guilt, but she has to demonstrate her innocence by questioning logically, "expose contradictions in arguments and otherwise convince the judge," the Sphinx – which she has to do in a situation entirely alien to her. Not only the town with its inhabitants and laws are strange and unknown, but the murder of Pluto itself seems to have been impossible to pull off for a feline murderer. While the door itself was unlocked, the doorknob can't be turned by kitty paws and the cat flap was sealed from the inside with magic talismans. Pluto was shot and that's another mark against the Hunter as "no cat could have shot the victim" ("...cats don't have opposable thumbs"). Finally, the house/hut had been abandoned for years and the floor was thick with dust, but the only tracks in the dust were "the pawprints of the victim and a single set of boot-prints" belonging to the Hunter.

So the Hunter has to be quick witted in order to parry the prosecutor's constant attacks and has to find alternative explanations on spot, not merely pointing out she had no motive to kill Pluto, but constantly disadvantaged by her lack of knowledge about the place and its feline inhabitants. Something Chat Botté, town prosecutor, viciously exploits especially during the first trial. Botté became one of my favorite characters. A delightfully slimy, elegantly dressed character who has a habit of dabbing his forehead with a lace handkerchief ("...cats only sweat from their paws") and the perfect (I refuse to use the pun purr-fect) antagonist for the Hunter during her many trials of the story. I also took a liking to the cat characters of Schrödinger, Dinah and her brother, the Cheshire Cat.

But what about the giant, magical elephant in the locked room at the heart of this feline mystery, you ask? Well...

I groaned audibly when it was revealed the cats of Ulthar can not only talk and walk like humans, but "every cat is granted a unique and singular blessing." Imagine the X-Men with tails, cat ears and they all shed on the couch. Not just Beast. Naturally, these individual abilities are gradually, and conveniently, revealed as the story progresses – right up to the very end. Not that it makes it less fun seeing the Hunter draw up reasonably logical cases and arguments, only to be torn down again. Just not as impressive when the tearing down is done by magical powers. It can come across as just making things up as you go along. Another problem with fantasy/mystery hybrids leaning heavily on the magical aspect of the story is that those magical elements eventually have to be constrained to drown out the detective element.

For example, the Sphinx presiding over the trials is omniscient, "she knows absolutely everything," but that would be a spoil sport in a detective story. So her omniscience is nerfed with a personal code allowing the Sphinx "to ignore her own omniscience and only make judgements based on what she sees before her eyes." I don't celestial boredom is good enough reason. Why make her omniscient in the first place? Why not simply make her a judge who acts as a storyguide, of sorts, who tells the characters/reader whether or not the evidence and testimonies presented to her were truthful. Like telling a witness told the truth or told what they believe to be truth. That was kind of set up with the Sphinx's only ironclad rule forbidding any falsified or tampered evidence being brought into her courtroom ("the courtroom is the sole domain of logical and oratorical prowess"), but never really put to good use. I hated how this potentially great character exited the story.

I could have put all of that aside as a personal prejudice against an over abundance of magical nonsense in a detective story. After all, I promised to be fair and seriously went to work on the impossible murder of Pluto. When you think about it, the murder only constitutes half an impossibility for an ordinary cat and combined with the ability of a certain cat it opened up a way in and out of the hut. So assumed (ROT13) Purfuver jnf gur zheqrere, nsgre nyy, jub hfrq gur sebt-naq-gur-fpbecvba ehfr gb trg Cyhgb gb pneel uvz vagb gur uhg, xvyyvat uvz bapr gurl jrer vafvqr naq gur gnyvfznaf nccyvrq gb gur png sync. Bapr gur png jub nccyvrq gur gnyvfzna qvrf, gur gnyvfzna fgbcf jbexvat (“...orpbzrf nf jrnx naq syvzfl”), ohg erznva haoebxra npebff gur png syng. Juvpu vf gur cbvag. Fb bapr gur zheqre jnf qbar (zber ba gung va n zvahgr), nyy penml Purfuver unq gb qb jnf jnvgvat gb or sbhaq. Bapr gur qbbe, be png sync, jnf bcrarq Purfuver fvzcyl gheaf vaivfvoyr naq nibvqf yrnivat uvf uhtr cnj cevagf va gur qhfg ol genirefvat n aneebj yrqtr ehaavat nebhaq gur jnyy gbjneqf gur qbbe. Nsgre gung, vg fvzcyl vf n pnfr bs whzcvat bhg bs gur bcra qbbe sebz nobir be penjy qbja gur qbbecbfg naq bhg bs gur png sync. Ol gung gvzr, gurer jrer nyernql bgure cnj cevagf va gur qhfg. Erzrzore pngf ner vaperqvoyl ntvyr navznyf jub pna rkcybvg gur fznyyrfg bs sbbgubyqf.

Only thing that had me stumped (ROT13) vf ubj Purfuver znantrq gb znxr vg nccrne nf vs Cyhgb jnf fubg. V fhccbfrq Cyhgb pbhyq unir orra fgnoorq nf vg jnf cbvagrq bhg rneyvre va gur fgbel Purfuver unf ybat, hagevzzrq pynjf. Naq fhccbfr n fcrag ohyyrg pbhyq unir orra ergevrirq sebz gur arneol uhzna frggyrzrag gung jnf chfurq qbja gur fgno jbhaq, ohg abg ubj ur pbhyq unir snxrq gur fpbepu znexf. It goes without saying my solution (actually solutions) missed the marked completely, but did put aside my skepticism, threw myself wholeheartedly at the game and this is the best I could do with what was given – what did I get in return? Let me tell you, (SPOILER/ROT13) gur bevtvany Cyhgb unq qvrq lrnef ntb naq jnf vzcrefbangrq, juvyr gur obql jnf chyyrq vagb n ibvq, n fcnpr orgjrra fcnprf, ol fbzr ryqevgpu nobzvangvba naq chfurq onpx lrnef yngre be fbzrguvat. Gung xvaq bs fuvg pna shpx bss evtug onpx gb gur Gjvyvtug Mbar.

Good luck trying to arrive at that conclusion yourself. Another thing that irked me (SPOILER/ROT13) vf gur pninyel ebyyvat va ng gur raq, juvpu jnf bayl znqr cbffvoyr ol n gryrcnguvp jneavat sebz Xvat Gvyqehz'f Fgenl Png pybarf. Abg bapr unf gryrcngul orra zragvbarq rira nf n oyrffvat sbe bar bs gur pngf. Vg nqzvggrqyl erfhygrq va arng fprar va juvpu nabgure png hfrq ure oyrffvat gb chccrgrre gur qrnq. Gur chccrgrrevat bs gur qrnq vf nabgure oyrffvat abg zragvbarq hagvy irel yngr vagb gur obbx naq arire pbafvqrerq ubj gung gevpx pbhyq or hfrq gb perngr n ybpxrq ebbz fpranevb. N qrnq Cyhgb unir orra “znevbarggrq” gb jnyx onpxjneqf va uvf bja cnj cevagf, cynpr aba-jbexvat gnyvfznaf ba gur png syng (gb znxr vg nccrne nf vs gurl fgbccrq jbexvat nsgre ur jnf xvyyrq va n ybpxrq ebbz) naq erghea gb gur cynpr jurer ur qvrq – ergenpvat uvf fgrcf cresrpgyl jvgu gur uryc bs zntvp naq zhfpyr zrzbel. You get the idea by now.

So, plot-wise, And Then There Were Nyan is very reminiscent of Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) with its fantastical premise, lengthy storytelling and a conceptually original locked room scenario, but both missed the mark in their execution. Kyogoku's The Summer of the Ubume ended up being more horror than an actual detective novel and Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan is in the end more fantasy than a proper locked room mystery.

You get the idea by now. Plot-wise, And Then There Were Nyan strongly reminded me of Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Ubume no natsu (The Summer of the Ubume, 1994) with their fantastical premise, lengthy storytelling and a conceptually original locked room scenario, but both missed the mark in their execution. Kyogoku's The Summer of the Ubume ended up being more horror than mystery or detective story and Ruin's And Then There Were Nyan turned out to be more fantasy than a proper locked room mystery. I think I prefer my fantasy/mystery hybrids when the magic and fantasy is kept small and manageable. Takekuni Kitayama's Rurijou satsujin jiken (The "Lapis Lazuli Castle" Murders, 2002) might be the best way to do it.

So, if your taste is even remotely similar to mine, And Then There Were Nyan is going to disappoint as a locked room and hybrid mystery, but, as a courtroom drama/mystery, it now ranks alongside Carter Dickson's The Judas Window (1938) and Anthony Gilbert's The Clock in the Hat Box (1939) as a personal favorite – even with the plot not being up to scratch. The cat-and-mouse games and courtroom shenanigans are just too damn fun and engrossing to sink the whole ship. Just a shame the detective elements took a backseat to all the fantasy hokum. Otherwise it would added another, surprisingly modern, masterpiece the growing list of hybrid (locked room) mysteries.

The Communicating Door and Other Stories (1923) by Wadsworth Camp

Wadsworth Camp was an American reporter, playwright and a noteworthy, often overlooked mystery writer from the 1910s, when the genre began to gradually move away from the Doylean era and rivals of Sherlock Holmes, who wrote most of his detective novels during the First World War – which were lean years for the genre. During those war years, Camp produced several, what can be called, proto-Golden Age mysteries. Similar to Frederic Arnold Kummer's The Green God (1911) and Isabel Ostrander's The Clue in the Air (1917), Camp's House of Fear (1916) and The Abandoned Room (1917) are in many ways ahead of their time, but, in other ways, hopelessly chained to their period. A reminder that the detective story, as we have come to know it today, was still very much a work-in-progress during the 1910s and '20s.

However, the best of these early, transitional mysteries (not penned by G.K. Chesterton or R. Austin Freeman) aren't without (historical) interest or completely lacking as detective novels. Camp is one of those fascinating, early pre-GAD mystery writers whose work read like a direct ancestor of John Dickson Carr, Hake Talbot and Paul Halter.

House of Fear takes place in an abandoned, decaying and reputedly haunted theater where the resident ghost of a dead actor prefers to play his part to empty seats, but gets disturbed when a theatrical producer wants to revive it – starting a procession impossible incidents and unnatural deaths. The Abandoned Room is thick with atmosphere reminiscent of Talbot's The Hangman's Handyman (1942) and Rim of the Pit (1944) with the dead ceasing to be dead upon being touched and other apparently supernatural happenings. Camp, of course, never reached their heights as a mystery writer, but liked them enough to seek out more. Camp was not the most prolific of mystery writers with choices being limited to Sinister Island (1915) and a collection of short stories.

The Communicating Door and Other Stories (1923) is listed online as a collection of seven ghost stories and the reason why I didn't give it much attention, until a reliable source identified them as detective stories. Several sounded promising enough. So on the big pile it went.

Just one more thing before delving into this collection... it takes a few stories to get to the really good stuff. So bear with me.

The collections opens with "The Communicating Door," originally published in the September 15, 1913, publication of The Popular Magazine, which can probably be blamed for getting the collection tagged as a bundle of ghost stories. Dawson Roberts, a young lawyer, is determined to rescue Evangeline Ashley from her husband, John Ashley, but he has tucked her away in Ashley House – a large, rambling place in the remote parts of northern Florida. Roberts is not deterred and travels to Florida to find a pallid, haggard and ghost haunted Evangeline at Ashley House. She only want to go with him, if he can proves she has only been imagining things ("...find a natural explanation"). This involves a ghost story surrounding one of her husbands long-dead ancestors and a communicating door locked, and rusted, shut for the better part of a century. "The Communicating Door" reads like the setup of one of Camp's locked room novels and concludes with several seemingly impossible incidents and an unnatural death. Camp impressively gives answers in short order, "everything can be normally explained," but leaves it up to the reader to decide whether the events have a natural or supernatural explanation. A short story with timely charm, even if it was already a good decade out-of-date by 1913.

A note for the curious: "The Communicating Door" is another example of Camp's detective fiction being a direct ancestor of Carr. Carr himself successfully stitched together the detective and ghost story in his short story "Blind Man's Hood" (1934) and the standalone novel The Burning Court (1937).

"Hate," originally published in the April 3, 1920, publication of Collier's and is a departure from Camp's usual murders in old, decaying haunted building to tell a crime story of the Roaring Twenties. David Hume and Edward Felton, "rival proprietors of secret and luxurious gambling houses," having being going at it over a beautiful chores girl, Baby Lennox. The so-called "politer underworld" agreed one would inevitably put the other out of the way. Hume fires the first proverbial shots by pulling a dirty trick on Felton placing him in jail, but bail is posted and Felton is determined to kill Hume. Camp's series-detective, Jim Garth, is present to see the first attempt fail and hear Hume promise, "when you get too much for me I won't try any cheap gun play" ("the cops will only wonder at the beautiful floral offering I'll send for your funeral..."). Felton thinks that's a splendid idea and Hume is found the next day gassed to death in his room. A murder-disguised-as-suicide with a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing towards Felton, but the courtroom wizardry of a young, hungry prosecutor secured a conviction – sending Felton to the death house to be electrocuted. After the verdict, the prosecutor begins to second guess himself and begs Garth to find out if he send the right man to the chair.

Right up until the end, "Hate" is not a bad 1920s crime story with a reverse take on the locked room mystery ("...suicides by gas, as a rule, lock their doors and are content without such extras as chloroform") and some courtroom dramatics, but the conclusion is a muddled, open-ended mess. The whole story is concerned with getting a confession from Felton, whether he's guilty or not and never bothers with the truth. Did he kill Hume or was it somebody else? Camp never gives an answer while an obvious solution is staring everyone in the face. Hume was already dying from an incurable disease. Everything suggested to me Hume killed himself and left behind evidence of murder to frame Felton, but botched it as the evidence under normal circumstances would never have resulted in a guilty verdict or even get to trial. Only a young, hungry prosecutor determined to make a name for himself ensured the plan worked. That would given the story a pitch-black ending as the prosecution hammered on "this revolting idea of the murder of a dying man to satisfy an evil vengeance before nature could interfere." So this story can be filed under "Missed Opportunities."

"The Dangerous Tavern," originally published in the July 24, 1920, publication of Collier's, hands Jim Garth "one of the queerest cases" of his career. A young, barefoot, half-dressed woman was found nearly frozen to death on a country road near a place called Newtown. The trail leads Garth to a remote, deserted and inhospitable tavern where he engages in a nighttime battle of cat-and-mouse with several dangerous criminals who don't shy away from murder. A fun, lively gangster story, but not really my thing.

"The Haunted House," originally published in the January 8, 1921, publication of Collier's, is the first truly good story from this collection. Jim Garth is asked by Simon Allen, an ex-poet, to come to the lonely village of Ardell to prove he's not the victim of self-hallucination. Simon lost his wife three years ago and, ever since, "the house has been full of Helen" and her presence is beginning to take a toll on his sister – who lives in the house with their invalided father. Simon knew Helen was unhappy in Ardell and longed for the city, which is why he's guilt ridden over her death and refuses to live in the house. Whenever he has to stay the night, Helen never fails to put in a ghostly appearance. So what's behind these haunting, domestic events? Garth has to take on the role of John Bell instead of Sherlock Holmes to get to the bottom of this case, which leads him down the dark, gloomy family vault. A very nicely-done, well-handled surprise is waiting for both Garth and the reader. Not to mention a good, not wholly unoriginal solution that wouldn't be out-of-place in a detective story from 1931.

So an excellent short story all around and, together with House of Fear and a short story later in this collection, Camp's best to the early Golden Age detective story. "The Haunted House" is another example of how Camp reminds of Carr. This time, the story recalled my favorite radio-play by Carr, "The Dead Sleep Lightly" (1942), which has one of my favorite lines, "but the dead sleep lightly... and they can be lonely too." Camp is a bit more wordy than Carr, but "Helen's only lonely... she wants company" ("it's wicked of you to be afraid of her") and "you wouldn't let her go when she was alive, Simon, you can't be cross with her for staying now that she's dead" landed just the same. I don't think Camp has ever been mentioned as a possible influence before, but wouldn't be surprised if a young Carr had read Camp's novels and short stories.

For example, "Defiance," published in the December 24, 1921, publication of Collier's, is another short story full with Carrian vibes and the damned cussedness of all things general – especially the setup. Dr. Jimmy Wilmot is visited one evening Stacy Baldwin, a young scoundrel, who has a bullet wound and a strange story to tell. When he arrived home that evening, someone was hiding behind the curtains with a revolver and fired a shot, but Baldwin carries a loaded cane and struck the arm behind the flash ("...if I didn't break a bone I gave a beastly bruise"). So he'll be on the look out for anyone with his arm in a sling. At the same time another patient arrives. A veiled woman with a beastly bruise on her arm and circumstances lead the doctor to discovering her identity, Anna Baldwin. The wife of Stacy Baldwin. What's worse, Dr. Wilmost has always loved Anna. Now he had unwittingly "delivered her helpless into the hands of her vicious husband." I don't Camp pulls it off as good as Carr would have done, but still a pretty solid, early Golden Age detective story from a writer who often appears to belong to a different era.

No original publication date or magazine appearance is known for the next story, "Open Evidence" (1923?), which could mean it was previously published under a different title or this is its first appearance in print. But whatever the case may be, it's unjustly forgotten, overlooked short story. Camp's best piece of detective fiction. A fully-fledged, Golden Age locked room mystery complete with false-solutions and a detective anticipating both Philo Vance and Ellery Queen. More importantly, the solution might be a first. I'll get to that in a minute.

The story takes place not in an old, dark and decaying building, but on the top floor of a Fifth Avenue office building where a writer, named Hudson, is kept from his work by the telephone ringing in the doctor's office next door. And it has been going on for twenty minutes. So goes to the janitor to complain, but, when he looks through the mail slot, they start to break down the door. They find the doctor lying on the floor, stabbed with one of his own scalpels, but the door is locked and bolted on the inside. However, the connecting door opens into Hudson's tiny workroom and only he knows nobody left through that door. Something that looks very suspicious and immediately calls in the help of a private investigator, Parsons, who looks more like a dandy than a private detective. Parsons draws up two dummy cases before revealing the real murderer and locked room-trick ("I will show you a more obvious exit"). That locked room-trick has, as of now, some historical significance (SPOILER/ROT13): n dhrfgvba nebfr fbzr lrnef ntb ubj bevtvany gur fbyhgvba gb gur frpbaq vzcbffvoyr zheqre va serrzna jvyyf pebsgf fhqqra qrngu jnf va avargrra guvegl-gjb, juvpu unf fvapr orpbzr fbzrguvat bs na byq qbqtr. Vg srryf yvxr vg zhfg unir orra hfrq orsber fhqqra qrngu, ohg abobql pbhyq pbzr hc jvgu na rneyvre rknzcyr. Ubjrire, V abgrq ng gur gvzr na rneyvre rknzcyr, be gjb, cebonoyl rkvfgf va na bofpher fubeg fgbel sebz gur gjragvrf. V guvax guvf bar dhnyvsvrf. Gur gevpx vf nqzvggrqyl n ybat-jnl-ebhaq irefvba bs gur gevpx, ohg abg gbb qvssrerag naq npuvrirf gur fnzr rssrpg (zheqrere fghzoyvat vagb gur ebbz nsgre gur ybpxrq qbbe vf oebxra bcra). So, you anthologists out there, take note of this unjustly overlooked locked room treasure from the early Golden Age. Same goes for Max Rittenberg's "The Invisible Bullet" (1914) and Laurence Clarke's "Flashlights" (1918).

The seventh and final story, "The Obscure Move," was originally published in the May, 1915, issue of Adventure and is a fun, lighthearted and warm story of crime and adventure. Morgan is a successful private detective, "commonsense and a sense of humor were his own stock in trade," who specialized in tracking down swindlers. The latest crook he's hunting down is a man named Duncan, of the Duncan Investment Company, who had fled with large sums of investment money. Duncan "revealed the attributes of an eel" as he keeps dodging Morgan, while the pursuing Morgan forces Duncan to turn in his tracks several times. A cat-and-mouse chase leading to a logging camp in Florida where they both get lost in the swamps. So they have to survive together, until they can find their way back to the camp. Such an ordeal allows for some misplaced sympathy to grow on Margon's part for someone who ruined numerous people, but not a bad story to round out this collection.

The Communicating Door and Other Stories is the mixed bag of tricks to be expected from an obscure, 1920s collection of only seven short stories, but here it can be put down to personal taste. Not a the lack of quality. "The Haunted House" and "Open Evidence" are the standouts of the collection and my personal favorites with "Defiance" following behind at a distance. "The Dangerous Tavern" and "The Obscure Move" are both well written, but not for me. Only the first two stories, "The Communicating Door" and "Hate," came up short, but even they had their moments. Not to be overlooked, the best stories showed Camp was not hopelessly shackled to the turn-of-the-century period of the genre and could write fully-fledged, Golden Age mysteries. And had he continued to write stories like "Open Evidence," Camp would not have been half as obscure as he's today. Very much worth a look!

Golden Age Whodunits (2024) edited by Otto Penzler

Golden Age Whodunits (2024), edited by Otto Penzler, is the fourth anthology in the American Mystery Classics series and previously reviewed Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries (2022), which unfortunately consisted mostly of short stories already collected in other locked room-themed anthologies – several having appeared together in Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries (1982). So the selection of stories left me a little salty and you can taste it in the review. A review that wasn't appreciated by everyone at the time.

Fortunately, the content of this latest anthology looked a lot more promising and enticing. I've only read four five, of the fifteen, short stories collected in Golden Age Whodunits. And discussed two of those four stories, Clayton Rawson's "The Clue of the Tattooed Man" (1946) and Fredric Brown's "Crisis, 1999" (1949), in past blog-posts. I'll be skipping those two stories. Still more than enough newish material to warrant a read that will hopefully translate into a review with lower salt levels. Let's find out!

The first short story is Stephen Vincent Benét's "The Amateur of Crime," originally published in the April, 1927, issue of The American Magazine, which begins during Mrs. Culverin's house party at her Long Island home and she has gathered a who's who of guests – everyone from a cinema star and Olympic athlete to Ruritanian dignitaries. Peter Scarlet is a pink-cheeked youth whose enormous, horn-rimmed spectacles "gave him much of the innocent downiness of a very young owl” and his hobby enlivened the sagging house party. Scarlet is the amateur of crime privately studying "the queer kinds of people who are murderers" or "the even queerer kinds who are murderees" ("the people who seem just born and bound to be murdered"). Mrs. Culverin's house party is going to give him an opportunity to put his theory into practice when Prince Mirko, of Ruritania, is stabbed to death in his locked suite under impossible circumstances.

G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown series clearly modeled for "The Amateur of Crime" and Peter Scarlet. Benét wrote a short story that often feels like a Chestertonian detective story, particularly the opening stages and the character of Scarlet, but the disappointing solution is exactly the kind of second-and third-rate tripe Chesterton shepherded the genre. Baffingly, Benét did nothing with Scarlet's study of murderers and their murderees. So not a very promising beginning to this anthology.

Anthony Boucher comes to the rescue with "Black Murder," originally published in the September, 1943, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and collected in Exeunt Murderers (1983), which is where I first read it. However, I didn't remember having read this before until Nick Noble came into the story. A once promising, young homicide devoted to both his job and wife, but "when both were gone, there was nothing left" except "cheap sherry that dulled the sharpness of reality enough to make it bearable" – while his mind and reasoning skills remained razor sharp. A mind that can trace patterns in chaos. So helps out his former colleagues on occasion, like a barroom detective, for booze money ("Screwball Division... they called him"). This time, Detective Lieutenant Donald MacDonald is investigating the attempted poisoning of a naval inventor, Harrison Shaw, who was working a sub detector. Only person who could have administrated the poison is his own mother and MacDonald doesn't buy it. So goes to the Chula Negra Café, headquarters of the Screwball Division, where Noble makes short work of the case, but they get surprise when the inventor is still gruesomely murdered. And, whoever slit his throat, drew a bloody swastika on the wall. Noble simply solves this second part of the case by pointing out that swastika drawing points to only one of the suspects. I liked how the solution delivered on the promise of the story's opening line, "in peacetime the whole Shaw case could never have happened." A solid short story from an even better, regrettably short-lived series.

Mignon G. Eberhart's "The Flowering Face" was first published in the May, 1935, issue of The Delineator and collected in Dead Yesterday and Other Stories (2007). This story features Susan Dare, a young mystery novelist, who's wrested away from her fictional murders to join a party on a mountain hike to the inn at the top. There the announcement of an engagement becomes "the focus of a queer, dreadful quarrel" ending with someone dead at the bottom of a ravine. Was it an accident or a cleverly engineered murder? The murderer is apparent halfway through the story, but then it becomes a question how it was done as everyone was inside arguing. A soundly constructed, quasi-impossible crime around a well-realized outdoors setting recalling the mountaineering howdunits of Glyn Carr. I enjoyed it.

The next short story comes from a "Literary Visitor" to the crime-and detective genre, F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose short story "The Dance" first appeared in the June, 1926, issue of The Red Book Magazine. The story has the narrator recalling a trip to the southern cotton mill town of Davis where she "saw the surface crack for a minute and something savage, uncanny, and frightening rear its head" – before "the surface closed again." It boils down to flirtatious love affairs boiling over into murder during a dance party and the narrator solves the fatal shooting in the women's dressing room, but "The Dance" is closer to a social crime story than a detective story proper with the local's searching for the shooter among the black population of the town ("...instant and unquestioned assumption"). So not a bad short story, but neither is it a Golden Age detective story.

Penzler wrote in the introduction that a 13-year-old Fitzgerald wrote a short detective story, "The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage," which actually got published in the September, 1909, issue of Now and Then. So poked around a bit and found something interesting: "The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage" would "likely have remained a mysterious footnote in Fitzgerald's bibliography, were it not for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine." EQMM saved it from obscurity by reprinting it in their March, 1960, issue. A shame its early, pre-GAD publication date precluded inclusion here as it sounds like a fun, Doylean-style mystery, but perhaps something for a future anthology entitled Gaslit Whodunits.

C. Daly King's "The Episode of the Tangible Illusion," originally published in the February, 1935, issue of Mystery under the title "Invisible Terror,' is a gem of an impossible crime story! Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries has King's most well-known short story in the Mr. Tarrant series, "The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem" (1935), but it's overrated and suggested "The Episode of the Tangible Illusion" would have been a better pick. And here we are!

After recovering from a mental breakdown, Valerie Mopish moved with her brother, John, to Norrisville where they built a new, modernistic house on a remote piece of ground without a shred of history attached to it. So no ghost haunts the Mopish house, which means Valerie's delusions and hallucations have returned. She begins to see and hear things when alone in the house. Such as footsteps following her around. And, fearing she's going mad again, she refuses to marry Jerry Phelan. Not until she knows there isn't "something funny" about her. Jerry stays the night to guard the house against prowling tramps, noisy ghosts or simple delusions, but gets to meet the invisible intruder. Jerry is followed up the stairs by clear, unmistakable pounding footsteps ("heavy and solid"), but, when he turned around, the stairs behind him were "absolutely empty." Next thing that happens is Valerie getting pushed down a flight of stairs when "there was no person, nor anything else, near her." This is enough for Jerry to get in a specialist and turns to the ever curious, Mr. Tarrant and returns to the house with his manservant, Katoh, but the night only brings another ghostly impossibility to light. Surprisingly, Tarrant concludes that "there is no mechanical contrivance in the entire house in any way connected with the phenomena." So what caused the phenomena? Could a modern, 1930s house really be haunted?

The impossibility of phantom footfalls is a neat variation on the no-footprints scenario, which has been sporadically explored in such stories as Anthony Wynne's "Footsteps" (1926) to Edward D. Hoch's "The Stalker of Souls" (1989), but never as good as "The Episode of the Tangible Illusion" – on a whole a very original take on the haunted house detective story. I'm thinking it's time to place The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant (2003) on the reread pile.

Ring Lardner's "Haircut," originally published in the March 28, 1925, issue of Liberty Magazine, is, as the introduction points out, "not a typical mystery story." Lardner was famous as a sports writer and humorist who penned a darkly humorous story presented as a string of anecdotes told by a barber cutting a new customer. The anecdotes revolves around the exploits of the small town's cruel jester, Jim Kendall, who would have made a fascinating study subject for Peter Scarlet from Benét's "The Amateur of Crime." So, of course, Kendall gets hoisted on his own petard. A bleak, darkly humorous criminal anecdote and a welcome surprise to find in this anthology.

Stuart Palmer's "Fingerprints Don't Lie" was first published in the November, 1947, issue of EQMM and one of the Miss Hildegarde Withers short stories I hadn't read yet. Miss Withers was on her way to California for a holiday when her friends of the New York police at Centre Street asks her to look into a missing person, Eileen Travis. She's supposed to be living there to establish residence for a Nevada divorce. And her husband, recently indicted for black market shenanigans, has uttered some treats. Miss Withers arrives on the scene of a gruesome shotgun killing and, before too long, another murder discovered. This time, the victim has an icepick planted between his shoulders. Fortunately, the murderer left fingerprints on the murder weapons ("...the prints on the icepick matched the prints on the shotgun..."), but they "can't find any suspect whose prints fit those on the murder weapons." Palmer is a personal favorite and think Miss Withers is the best spinster sleuth the Golden Age has produced, but this short story is definitely a low-point in the series. The solution to the fingerprints is carny, not the good kind, which is trotted out in the last line as a "tadaah, surprise!" However, it outright ignores the incredible difficulty to use that trick to shoot someone in the face with a shotgun or the outright impossibility to stab someone in the back with it. Unworthy of Palmer and Miss Withers!

Shockingly, I didn't hate the next story. I'm not a fan of Melville Davisson Post nor understand the (once) classical status of stories like "The Doomdorf Mystery" (1914) or why S.S. van Dine, Ellery Queen and Howard Haycraft tried to prop him up as America's answer to G.K. Chesterton and Father Brown – which couldn't be further from the truth. Every story I've read by Post was a poor specimen of the detective story often with "borrowed" plot ideas. "The Doomdorf Mystery" reportedly lifted the central idea from M. McDonnell Bodkin's "Murder by Proxy" (1897), "The Bradmoor Murder" (1925) took its cue from a famous Sherlock Holmes story and "The Hidden Law" (1914) bad and boring. So gave it half a thought to simply skip this story, but decided to give it a try. And, surprisingly, found a very decently done courtroom procedural.

Post's "The Witness in the Metal Box," originally published in the November, 1929, issue of The American Magazine, concerns a contested will. Alexander Harrington was supposed to have died intestate, "leaving his great properties to pass by operation of law to his daughter," but a holograph will was found leaving everything to his younger brother ("...some minor provisions for the daughter"). What gave the testament the stamp of authenticity is the signature ("that big arabesque of a scrawl could not be imitated"). Colonel Braxton, "no knight-errant for romance," is the eccentric lawyer representing the daughter. But he brought no witnesses or experts to testify. Only a small, circular metal box and curious questions about farming to win the case ("this Colonel Braxton was the magician out of a storybook"). I never thought I would say this about a short story penned by Melville Davisson Post, but "The Witness in the Metal Box" is not bad at all.

Ellery Queen's "Man Bites Dog" first appeared in the June, 1939, issue of Blue Book and collected in The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (1940), which is where I first read it, but remembered next to nothing about the story or plot. The story finds Queen working in Hollywood and itching the return to New York where "the New York Giants and the New York Yankees are waging mortal combat to determine the baseball championship of the world" ("ever missed a New York series before"). Miss Paula Paris, celebrated gossip columnist, ensures he gets to see the championship match together Inspector Richard Queen and Sgt. Velie. During the game, the ex-baseball pitcher Big Bill Tree is poisoned while watching the game. While not the most challenging of short stories this series has produced, the solution to the poisoning has a satisfying little twist. However, the most interesting part of the story is the character of Ellery Queen himself.

It has been pointed out before that the Ellery Queen in this short story is nothing like the book collecting, pince-nez-wearing Philo Vance clone who was introduced in The Roman Hat Mystery (1929) a decade earlier. You can't imagine the Queen from the international series getting annoyed at a murder interrupting his baseball game and only given the case half his attention, while keeping another eye on the game. That being said, I think "Man Bites Dog" could have been adapted into a tremendous episode for the 1975 Ellery Queen TV series. I couldn't help but imagine Jim Hutton, David Wayne and Tom Reese playing the parts of EQ, Inspector Queen and Sgt. Velie here.

"The Phonograph Murder," originally published in the January 25, 1947, issue of Collier's, is Helen Reilly's only short story on record. This story is an inverted detective story. George Bonfield is the complacent, browbeaten husband of Louise who realizes one evening he really hates her guts. The catalyst is his aunt's bequest coming due in three months and his wife tells him colorful details how she intends to spend the money ("she went on, devouring his $30,000 endowment to the last crumb"). A broken timer on the gas stove gives him an idea how to get rid of his wife and provide himself with an incontestable alibi, or so he hopes. The case of the apparently botched burglary is in the hands of Inspector Christopher McKee of the Manhattan Homicide Squad. Not that this case needed a great detective as Bonfield folds at the first small bump in the road and obligingly confesses. So a weak ending to a story that started out strong.

Mary Roberts Rinehart's "The Lipstick," originally published in the July, 1942, issue of Cosmopolitan, brings some mild suspense to this anthology. Elinor Hammond had fallen from the tenth-floor window of her psychiatrist's waiting room, but did she take her own life or was she pushed? Her younger cousin, Miss Louise Baring, believes she was murdered and takes it upon herself to find the murderer. Not merely because her mother threatens to stop her allowance for trying to stir up scandal. Not bad, on a whole, but not really my thing either.

Vincent Starrett's "Too Many Sleuths," originally published in the October, 1927, issue of Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories, is the longest story in this anthology and loosely based on the real-life Oscar Slater case – similar to D. Erskine Muir's Five to Five (1934). This time, the victim is the elderly, jumpy Miss Harriet Lambert "who is constantly afraid that something is going to happen to her." So she locked herself away in her apartment with her collection of brooches, rings, and pendants against "the bloody terrors that filled the outside world." Unfortunately, for Miss Lambert, one of those bloody horrors got pass the patent spring lock on the door and bludgeoned her to death. Frederick Dellabough, roving crime reporter of the Morning Telegram, is on the case and he has access to his own armchair detective, G. Washington Troxell. A bibliophile, bookseller and amateur detective who work together like Rex Stout's Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe ("I'm Dellabough's brain. Dellabough, to put it in another way, is my legs"). The first lead is the man who was seen casually leaving the scene of the crime after saying goodbye to the corpse. A man who may be named Otto Sandow or Oscar Slaney and they may, or not may, be one and the same person. Just one of the many complications that include other people who think they got hold of the answer.

A very well written, Wolfean-style detective story predating Stout's Nero Wolfe series by a good eight years! Regrettably, the solution is plain and unremarkable next to the elaborate misdirection and dead ends involving mixed identifies, a pawn ticket and too many sleuths. A stronger, more inspired solution could have turned this into a small gem.

T.S. Stribling's "A Passage to Benares," first published in the February 20, 1926, issue of Adventure, closes out this anthology, but have nothing much to say about it. Dr. Henry Poggioli, the American psychologist and consulting detective, is in the Port of Spain, Trinidad, when he asked to investigate a murder at a Hindu temple. A young bride had been found decapitated and a group of beggars were found sleeping nearby carrying items of the murdered bride, but the widowed groom is also under suspicion. However, this story is an exercise in style over substance. From the local color and dream analyzes to the final line. A travelogue trying to be a regional mystery, which only succeeded in making me appreciate S.H. Courtier and Arthur W. Upfield all the more.

So not a great closer to Golden Age Whodunits, but, on a whole, I thought the selection an improvement over Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries. Not every pick is a classic of the short story form, some were just bad or disappointing, but greatly enjoyed the stories from Boucher, Eberhart, King and Queen with the stories by Lardner and Post being welcome surprises. So the usual mixed bag of tricks, but a mixed bag with something for everyone.

Frame of Mind: "The Scapegoat" (1970) by Christianna Brand

Christianna Brand's "The Scapegoat" originally appeared in the August, 1970, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and the then editor-in-chief, Frederic Dannay, called Brand's late-period short stories and novellas renaissance detective fiction – half a century before renaissance detective fiction became a thing. But not everyone agrees. Jim, of The Invisible Event, discussed "The Scapegoat" in his review of Brand's short story collection A Buffet for Unwelcome Guests (1983) summed up his opinion about this story as follows, "hoover up every single word of this, and then vow never to repeat its abominations upon the world." So my take is going to be a game of gem or sham, on difficulty mode, because it's Brand story with Jim's opinion likely tipping the odds even further in her favor. Let's find out!

"The Scapegoat" is a combination of armchair detection and parlor psychology, which examines a fifteen year old, unsolved murder case haunting the son of a policeman.

Fifteen years previously, the crippled magician Mr. Mysterioso had been invited to place the cornerstone of the new wing of the local hospital and the police is present to safeguard the magicians. Mysterioso had received a flurry of angry, abusive and anonymous letters evidently from the same person ("they were all signed 'Her Husband'"). The magician is helped by his loyal servant, Tom, going up the steps to the platform in front of the cornerstone when the crack of a rifle shot is heard. Mysterioso and a dying Tom fall the ground. And, as Tom died in his arms, the magician defiantly roared at the building opposite, "you fools, you murderers, you've got the wrong man." A great, dramatic opening scene to an unsolved drama that continues to haunt the son of the policeman who was dismissed for negligence on duty.

In one of the top floor windows of the building, the police find a rifle propped up, "its sights aligned on the cornerstone," with one spent bullet and "nobody there." Up on the roof, directly above the window, a press photographer was making pictures of the charity event, but couldn't have come down as the police locked the door behind him for security reasons and down at the main entrance P.C. Robbins stood guard – seen by a dozen witnesses "tearing up the stairs toward the murder room." The large, open and easily searched building is searched from top to bottom without finding the assassin. So the young police constable is dismissed and that not only destroyed him, but is terribly close to destroying his son who believes his father didn't neglect his duty. And was unfairly dismissed. He also believes the press photographer, "Mr. Photoze," is the real killer and "wanted to be avenged on Mr. Photoze who had committed a crime and got off scot-free."

Mysterioso organizes a domestic court "to talk it all over, to try to excise the scar that had formed in the mind of the young man whose father had been dismissed from the force." Robbins is to represent his father, Mr. Photoze is in the dock with him to defend himself and Inspector Block ("who as a young constable had been on the scene of the crime") presents the evidence of the police. Mysterioso presides as judge and several witnesses from fifteen years ago serve as jury. Old Baily at Home.

If you know your classical detective fiction, the situation surrounding the shooting and murder of the magician's servant is open to multiple interpretations and false-solutions. Brand even goes so far as ending the story with a double-twist. So all good and fine, on paper, but Jim has a point that the story "feels like Brand consciously writing A Christianna Brand Story." Brand was going back to the well and the result certainly is not one of her best (locked room) mystery stories, however, calling it an abomination is putting it on a little thick. The problem with "The Scapegoat" is that it's simultaneously too long and not long enough. Brand came up with an ambitious premise and idea for a first-class detective story, but everything from the impossible shooting, the multiple interpretations and the characters themselves to the double-twist ending needed more room to develop in order to be truly convincing and effective – which it simply wasn't. Strangely enough, in spite of its short length, "The Scapegoat" feels like it was too long and dragged out in parts. So not at all a good or efficient use of the short story format, which came at the cost of the plotting-and storytelling clarity characterizing Brand's best work.

Something better could have been done with "The Scapegoat." Maybe it could have been trimmed down or expanded into a novel, but this just isn't it. It's still an ok-ish detective story, but, when measured against the standards of Brand's earlier work, it suddenly looks very mediocre.

Sorry for having to end this trio of Brand reviews on a sour note, but genuinely expected to find a really good impossible crime story in "The Scapegoat." I mean, what are the odds of Jim actually not being that far off the mark? It looked like a safe bet!

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) by Francis Beeding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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