The Hit List: 10 More Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated

In 2023, I posted "The Hit List: Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated" going down a list of ten classic, or classically-styled, non-English detective novels from four different continents written in six different languages – not just French and Japanese titles. It would be very easy to compile a wishlist comprising of mostly Japanese and French mystery novels. All I need to do is link to Ho-Ling Wong's blog and John Pugmire's "A Locked Room Library." That would have been too easy. I think I scraped together a decently varied, alluring selection of potentially first-rate detective fiction waiting to be ferried across the language barrier.

That list was originally intended as a follow-up to the 2022 blog-post "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted," but decided it worked better as an ordered top 10 list and wanted to do a part 2. I needed more than can be found online or in certain reference works and asked for suggestions to be left in the comments. My blog is visited by detective fanatics from across the world and figured if even my country produce writers like Cor Docter, Ton Vervoort, M.P.O. Books and P. Dieudonné, surely other countries must have some gems practically unknown outside their borders. The harvest was not great and gave up on the idea of doing a follow-up, until a minor miracle occurred.

Pushkin Vertigo is publishing a long-awaited translation of Pierre Boileau's Six crimes sans assassin (Six Crimes Without a Murderer, 1939), which was one of my two or three premium picks alongside Rafeal Bernal's Un muerto en la tumba (A Dead Man in the Tomb, 1946) and Hajime Tsukatou's John Dickson Carr no saishuu teiri (John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem, 2020). Boileau's Six Crimes Without a Murderer was also one of the least likely titles on the list to get translated, because that snooty French upstart of a locked room extravaganza has resisted getting translated since the 1940s – even producing a lost manuscript. At the end of Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991), there's the often overlooked section "Foreign-Language Books." It has a lengthy note for Six Crimes Without a Murderer. A translation was advertised in 1949 by Sampson Low as forthcoming, however, "the publishers themselves disappeared about that time and all efforts to trace a proof" or "a draft of the translation, or the translator, one Eric Sutton, have proved entirely unrewarding." The late John Pugmire, of Locked Room International, tried to get a translation published, but the current copyright holder refused to work small, independent or print-on-demand publishers. Pushkin Vertigo came true and caught the one that kept getting away for nearly eighth years.

So decided to take another look at that follow-up, dug around a bit and finally managed to gather enough to do another list without leaning entirely on French and Japanese titles with a smattering of Dutch mysteries. I tried to have the list not entirely dominated by locked room mysteries and impossible crimes, but somehow, they tend to be easier to find. So they have, as usually, a strong presence, but marvel at my impartiality.

Le testament de Basil Crookes (The Testament of Basil Crookes, 1930) by Pierre Véry

The obvious pick here would have been Pierre Véry's vaunted impossible crime novel, Les quatre vipères (The Four Vipers, 1934), but, to keep up appearances, I went with The Testament of Basil Crookes – "a pastiche of the English detective novel." The Testament of Basil Crookes is Véry's debut and appears to be a madcap chase mystery in which an unpublished manuscript, tossed from one train onto another train, is the key to securing a large inheritance. A madcap race with a three year time limit during which genre conventions are turned upside down. Véry's first stab at the detective story not only sounds like a fun, tongue-in-cheek mystery, anticipating Leo Bruce and Edmund Crispin, but one of those early meta-fictional mysteries that started to appear around this time. And that type of mystery is now appreciated more than ever before.

L'antro dei filosofi (The Philosophers' Den, 1942) by Giorgio Scerbanenco

Giorgio Scerbanenco is one of the writers Igor Longo wrote about in his short essay "The Italian Detective Story" from the English translation of Franco Vailati's Il mistero dell'idrovolante (The Flying Boat Mystery, 1935). Scerbanenco belonged to the Van Dine-Queen School and even had an American series-detective, Arthur Jelling, who's "a Reeder-like archivist in the Boston Police Department." Longo highlighted The Philosophers' Den, "a very moody and bleak murder story in a very Queenesque eccentric family, possibly related to the Hatters of the Tragedy of Y," in which he praised Scerbanenco's effective use of "the Queenesque negative clue." The Philosophers' Den apparently is not the only notable Jelling case in addition to "a very famous Noir series with unfrocked and disbarred surgeon Duca Lamberti" written during the 1960s. And, of course, four of the Lamberti novels have been translated into English.

Diferentes razones tiene la muerte (Death Has Different Reasons, 1947) by María Elvira Bermúdez

María Elvira Bermúdez was according to Latin American Mystery Writers: An A to Z Guide (2004) "one of the founders of the Mexican detective story" and "one of the most innovative practitioners of the genre in Mexico," while also making a name as "one of its most perceptive critics." Death Has Different Reasons was "the most ambitious detective up to that time in Mexico" introducing her series-detective, Armando H. Zozaya, who's "modeled after the American sleuth Ellery Queen." Zozaya's solves his first case, a double murder, by sticking to conventions and traditions of the fair play, Golden Age-style detective novels. If that's not enticing enough for publishers, Bermúdez was "one of the most prolific female detective fiction author in the Spanish-speaking world" and "for 50 years a unique voice in Spanish-American detective fiction and criticism."

A morte no envelope (Death in an Envelope, 1957) by Lopes Coelho

This entry also comes from Latin American Mystery Writers. According to that insightful guide, Lopes Coelho was a driving force in the creation of "a uniquely Brazilian brand of detective fiction" by creating the first truly Brazilian detective character, Doctor Leite, whose cases filled three collections of short stories – published between 1957 and '68. The stories are classic whodunits and other type of puzzle stories, "solved by applying principles of logic and deductive reasoning," including two locked room mysteries, "A morte no envelope" ("Death in an Envelope") and "Só o crime estava na biblioteca" ("Only Crime Was in the Library"). So more than enough reasons to want a translation of at least the first collection.

Ălkistan (The Eel Cage, 1967) by Jan Ekström

When it comes to crime fiction, Sweden is known for their dark, dreary police procedural, psychological thrillers and cold, character-driven noir fiction. There's an exception to nearly everything and one of the exceptions here was Jan Ekström, "the Swedish John Dickson Carr," who wrote several locked room mysteries. Ekström's best known impossible crime novel, Ättestupan (Deadly Reunion, 1975), received an English translation decades ago, but nothing else outside of a short story in an obscure anthology. Adey's Locked Room Murders, under "Foreign-Language Books," lists several titles like The Eel Cage. From what I've been able to gather, The Eel Cage is Ekström's best regarded detective novel taking place in a small, rural fishing village where a body inexplicably turns up inside a jealously guarded eel chest, locked from the inside, but the key is found in the victim's pocket! Can you blame me for being intrigued?

Kyuukon no misshitsu (The Locked Room of the Suitors, 1978) by Sasazawa Saho

Like I said above, it would be really easy to fill out a list with just titles Ho-Ling has reviewed over the years. Just one list would not even scratch the surface of my honkaku and shin honkaku wishlist, but some titles stand out more than others. Sasazawa Saho's The Locked Room of the Suitors has for some reason always intrigued me. It was reportedly nearly forgotten about, until Alice Arisugawa included The Locked Room of the Suitors in An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998 examining forty impossible crime novels from across the world. The plot concerns a double murder, plus dying message, behind the padlocked door of an old storage cellar. Ho-Ling says in his review, "the locked room mystery and the build-up towards the solution are quite good" with "both the fake murder theory and the final solution are built on clever clues." More importantly, "the locked room mystery itself is also quite memorable."

Mord & orkidéer (Murder & Orchids, 1996) by Bertil Falk

Back in February, I reviewed Bertil Falk's collection of short stories Mind-boggling Mysteries of a Missionary (2010) and mentioned he had authored two novel-length, untranslated detective novels beginning with Den maskerade ligachefen (The Masked Gangleader, 1954) – written and published when he was twenty years old. Murder & Orchids followed four decades later and appears to be a better, maturer novel combining the formal detective story with the travel thriller to create a tricky plot turning accepted cliches and conventions on its head. So very much a mystery in the spirit of the first entry on this list.

 

Jinrojo no kyofu (The Terror of Werewolf Castle, 1996/98) by Nikaido Reito

I mentioned Nikaido Reito's The Terror of Werewolf Castle in "Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated" as not having very good odds at ever getting translated. The Terror of Werewolf Castle is, as Ho-Ling pointed out, "a monument in Japanese detective writing," comprising of four separate books averaging around 700 pages each. So it's not very realistic to expect a publisher today to translate a four volume, 2800 page behemoth, but on the other hand, we're paying customers with a The Terror of Werewolf Castle-shaped gap on our shelves. So, you know, chop, chop!

Le voyageur du passé (The Traveler from the Past, 2012) by Paul Halter

The death of John Pugmire in 2024 ended both Locked Room International and his regular Paul Halter translations, which consisted at his passing of nearly twenty novels, several short story collections and a few uncollected short stories. Tom Mead is currently doing fresh translations of previously published Halter translations, but nothing new so far. There are still quite a few untranslated Paul Halter titles on my wishlist like Le crime de Dédale (The Crime of Daedalus, 1997), Le douze crimes d'Hercule (The Twelve Crimes of Hercules, 2001) and Le tigre borgne (The One-Eyed Tiger, 2004), but The Traveler from the Past intrigued me ever since reading Patrick Ohl's 2012 review. A young man who went missing in 1905 turns up in 1955 without having aged a day, only to be tragically killed in a subway accident. But his identity appears to check out. What follows is no less impossible! Patrick described the book as "utterly fantastic" and "chillingly bizarre" with a plot that springs "a genuine surprise in the dénouement." Fingers crossed Mead eventually turns his hands to the Halter novels Pugmire didn't get to translate with The Traveler from the Past being at the top of that pile.

Het Delfts blauw mysterie (The Delft Blue Mystery, 2023) by “Anne van Doorn” (a.k.a. M.P.O. Books)

This is the first entry in the New York Cop series by "Anne van Doorn," open penname of M.P.O. Books, which follows Detectives Krell and Merrilee Hopper, of the 16th Precinct, whose first recorded case involves an impossible murder on the seventy-second floor of a high-rise tower on West 33rd Street – committed when the building was swaying in a storm. You can view this series as an homage to other New York detective writers and series like Van Dine, Queen and Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, but flavored like a Dutch politieroman (police novel). The sequel is titled Het legpuzzel mysterie (The Jigsaw Puzzle Mystery, 2026) and scheduled for release later this year. And here's the kicker... The Delft Blue Mystery has already been translated into English complete with blurbs from David Dean and Tom Mead, but holding up its publication is the search for a literary agent and publisher in the United States. No news on that front, yet, but you can at least look forward to my review of The Jigsaw Puzzle Mystery when it gets released.

The Hit List: Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated

This list was originally supposed to be a follow-up to last years "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted," a lengthy list of reprint suggestions of frustratingly rare, long out-of-print mystery novels, but "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Non-English Detective Novels That Need to be Translated" proved to be trickier than anticipated – limited to what I happen to know is tucked away behind numerous language barriers. So, in order to have given the list a semblance of substance, it would have been mostly French and Japanese mysteries with a handful of Dutch novels in a desperate attempt to conjure up the illusion of variety.

It would have ended up being a poorly done, overwritten copy-paste of Ho-Ling Wong's blog and John Pugmire's "A Locked Room Library." That would have been a cop-out. I hate cop-outs when it comes to detective stories. So what's a hack reviewer to do? Well, I took a hacksaw to the idea, completely butchered it and present whatever remained as one of those blistering original top 10 list. Why ring in the New Year with short, tidy list of suggestions for the future.

I think it actually worked as it didn't become a badly disguised, personal wishlist of locked room mysteries with a greater variety and more depth to the selection. A list covering detective novels from four different continents written in six different languages, but there are some notable absentees. I, too, wish and pray a brave publisher would dare to take on the daunting task of translating Nikaido Reito's complete, multi-volume Jinrojo no kyofu (The Terror of Werewolf Castle, 1996/98), but wanted to give ten choices with a somewhat realistic chance of getting translated. Unfortunately, I don't think "the world's longest classic detective novel" is realistically going to appear in English anytime soon. And, exactly for the opposite reason, I ignored many of the French titles on the previously mentioned "A Locked Room Library." John Pugmire's Locked Room International has that part of my wishlist covered. So it's only a matter of time, before LRI publishes an English translation of Pierre Véry's Les quatre vipères (The Four Vipers, 1934) or Jean Alessandrini's La malédiction de Chéops (The Curse of Cheops, 1989).

So, if you wondered why some obvious choices are absent, now you know. However, I would still like to hear your (local) suggestions. This list is limited to what has come to my attention over the years, but obviously missed a ton of stuff that I'm simply not aware of. If there are enough of them, I can do "The Hit List: Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated, Part 2" with all of your suggestions. Let me know. And with that out of the way, let's go down the list.

 

La notte impossible (The Impossible Night, 1937) by Tito A. Spagnol

In 2019, Locked Room International published a translation of Franco Vailati's Il mistero dell'idrovolante (The Flying Boat Mystery, 1935) and came with a short essay by Igor Longo discussing "The Italian Mystery Novel." Longo briefly goes over the history of the Italian detective story and some of its most successful or important writers. One name standing out is that of screenwriter Tito A. Spagnol, "the fourth ace of the Italian Hand," who was among the Italian mystery writers inspired by S.S. van Dine and Ellery Queen – creating a Van Dinesque detective, Al Gusman. Longo highlighted The Impossible Night as a "novel of murder in a closed mansion with a strong Queenian flavour" and "the only use of this very original trick in novel form." One of the "Italian masterpieces of murder and detection." Despite what the book title suggests, The Impossible Night is not a locked room mystery ("...Gusman solved no impossible cases").

 

Six crimes sans assassin (Six Crimes Without a Killer, 1939) by Pierre Boileau

This is one of the most famous and celebrated of all French roman policiers. Not to mention a classic of the locked room mystery, which strings together half a dozen seemingly impossible murders and disappearances ("...resolved with impeccable fairness by the time of the sixth and final death"). Annoyingly, the novel has this pesky French habit of refusing to speak any other language and has been resisting getting translated for decades. Rumor has it Six crimes sans assassin had been translated, but The Phantom Strikes Six Times remained unpublished. I presume the translation dates from around the same time as the original French publication and that could mean the outbreak of World War II could have been responsible for it getting axed. More recently, John Pugmire attempted to correct that historical oversight, but the current copyright holder apparently refuses to work with print-on-demand publishers. So... ball's in your court, Pushkin Vertigo!

 

Un muerto en la tumba (A Dead Man in the Tomb, 1946) by Rafeal Bernal

I first read of Rafeal Bernal's A Dead Man in the Tomb in The Anthony Boucher Chronicles: Reviews and Commentary, 1942-47 (2009) praising this Mexican detective novel as "the best-characterized, meatiest and funniest whodunit yet produced in Latin America" – complete with "fascinating sidelights on archaeology and politics." The story centers on a murder unearthed in an ancient Mayan tomb at Monte Albán, Oaxaca, solved by the priest Teódulo Batanes. A character modeled after G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown. I want a translation of A Dead Man in the Tomb more than any other novel on this list, because I love a good archaeological detective story and a glowing review from Boucher ("a must for connoisseurs") can be taken as a Seal of Quality. Just one more, Pushkin Vertigo!

 

Um crime branco (White Murder, 1950) by “James A. Marcus”

On the GADWiki, you can find an early, short-lived attempt to catalog the classical detective fiction published in non-English speaking countries. Henrique Valle contributed a short piece, "Portuguese GAD," discussing the most important authors who tried their hands at the classical detective story in Portugal. One title that stood out to me is White Murder. The name on the cover is the shared "pseudonym of two cousins with diabolical legal minds" who constructed an amazingly cunning, maze-like plot with "one of the most compelling and convincing pieces of detective reasoning" that could "pass for an excellent GAD British mystery book."

 

Koude vrouw in Kralingen (Cold Woman in Kralingen, 1970) by Cor Docter

Cor Docter was a Dutch pulp writer whose prolific output, published under various pseudonyms, were the backbone of the local bookstores and lending libraries throughout the 1950s and '60s – earning the title "Prince of the Lending Libraries." During the early 1970s, Docter wrote three legitimate, classically-styled detective novels respectively tackling the whodunit, impossible crime and dying message. The first novel, Droeve poedel in Delfshaven (Sad Poodle in Delfshaven, 1970) is arguably the best of the three Commissioner Daan Vissering mysteries, but Cold Woman in Kralingen holds a special place in my heart as the first legitimate Dutch-language locked room mystery. More importantly, the locked room situation is completely original in both presentation and solution. Something I've never seen before or since reading Cold Woman in Kralingen. But they really should be translated and published as a complete set.

A note for the curious: Ho-Ling has also reviewed all three Daan Vissering novels (here, here and here).

 

11 mai no trump (The Eleven Cards, 1976) by Tsumao Awasaka

I can easily fill pages, and pages, with Japanese detective novels I would like to see get translated, but, once again, it would just be a copy-paste of Ho-Ling Wong's blog. There is, however, one particular title that has always intrigued me. Tsumao Awasaka's The Eleven Cards immerses the reader in the world of magicians, stage illusions and the art of misdirection with a story-within-a-short-story-collection structure. Ho-Ling called it "an ingeniously plotted mystery novel" and "a showcase of how to properly clue a mystery." Amazingly, The Eleven Cards was only Awasaka's first detective novel. So a translation can't appear (as if by magic) soon enough!

 

Muerte en la costa del rio (Death on the River Bank, 1979) by María Angélica Bosco

María Angélica Bosco, an Argentinian mystery writer, proved with La muerte baja en al ascensor (Death Going Down, 1954) that not every debut is a classic, but some mystery writers need time to improve and mature. One of her later, so far untranslated mysteries sounds rather promising. Death on the River Bank takes place in Colonia, Uruguay, where a group of tourists on a boating holiday become suspects in a shocking murder. A murder case full with twisted alibis, forensic shenanigans and a genuine whodunit pull.

 

Tobie or not Tobie (1980; title is a bilingual pun) by René Réouven

Back in 2011, Patrick, of the now dormant At the Scene of the Crime blog, posted a fascinating review of René Réouven's Tobie or not Tobie. A novel taking "the Biblical Book of Tobit and rewrites it as a mystery" and "even manages to construct the mystery around an impossible crime." While the story takes it time to build everything up, the plot is reportedly solidly constructed with a wonderful solution to the impossible crime and "great wit and originality," stylistically. Patrick called it a veritable masterpiece and from all the untranslated French mysteries, Tobie or not Tobie always impressed as one of the most worthwhile novels to translate.

 

De laatste kans (The Last Chance, 2011) by M.P.O. Books

The Last Chance is the classically-styled, normally British detective novel presented as a Dutch politieroman (police novel) with a dazzling, kaleidoscopic plot and one of those brilliant, all-revealing, but cleverly hidden, tell-tale clues. A high note for the Dutch detective story. Ho-Ling also reviewed The Last Chance ("a recommended read as a fun detective novel that actually delivers") and interestingly compared its story-structure to the "zapping system" in video games. A translation is more than warranted.

 

John Dickson Carr no saishuu teiri (John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem, 2020) by Hajime Tsukatou

Well, it was inevitable another Japanese title would appear on this list, but the problem, once again, was picking just one title from the sea of honkaku and shin honkaku mysteries. So decided to go full fanboy and picked Hajime Tsukatou's John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem, which is set during the 2006 centenary of the master of the locked room mystery and Ho-Ling described a truly fascinating premise – centering on cryptic hints Carr left behind about some real-life, unsolved impossible crimes ("the so-called 1938 East End Spontaneous Combustion Case"). Naturally, there's another impossible murder in the present-day storyline. I would unapologetically fanboy all over a translation of John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem.

 

A special and honorable mentions: I already mentioned the non-English detective fiction page on the GADWiki and one of its four entries is "Japanese Impossible Crime Mysteries" that also includes a list of Taiwanese impossible crime and locked room novels and short stories, which sometimes sound too good to be true. For example, Ji-Cing's Sorcery Delusion (2004), "a story full of black magic," deals with a headless body who's seen walking about and a disappearance from a locked house. Or Ling-Che's short story, "The Haunted Crossroad" (20??), in which a speeding motorcycle and a car "miraculous pass through each other." So much is still out there to keep the translation wave going for many more years to come as we inch closer towards that Second Golden Age.

Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted

Last year, Nick Fuller, of The Grandest Game in the World, compiled a list of "what detective stories should be reprinted" and posted the result under the title "Detective Stories to Reprint" covering a who's who of obscure, long out-of-print mystery writers and detective novels – a list going from Hugh Austin's Murder of a Matriarch (1936) to R.C. Woodthorpe's The Public School Murder (1932). One or two items on Nick's list were already back in print and James Quince's The Tin Tree (1930) and Casual Slaughters (1935) have since been reissued as ebooks. 

I decided to put together a selection of obscure, shamefully out-of-print detective novels and mystery writers, which aroused my curiosity over the years as an addendum to Nick's list. I tried to keep the overlap between both lists as small as possible and an attempt was made to not let the locked room mystery dominate the list, but hey, you know me. So here's a small selection, in completely random order, put together according to the magpie's method (Ooh, shiny objects).

Nearly a decade ago, Curt Evans favorably discussed Invitation to Kill (1937) by "Gardner Low," a pseudonym of Charles Rodda, who wrote Edgar Wallace-style thrillers under the name "Gavin Holt," but Invitation to Kill is "a rather fascinating" detective novel – possessing "fair play plotting, wit aplenty and a felicitous style." Curt ended the review with "an invitation to republish," but nothing has materialized ten years later. 

The Anthony Boucher Chronicles: Reviews and Commentary, 1942-47 (2001/09) is a treasure trove to pad out lists, like these, but one review that has always stood out to me is Marion K. Sanders and Mortimer S. Edelstein's The Bride Laughed Once (1943). Alternatively published as Death Wears Skis in the 1951 Winter issue of 2 Detective Mystery Novels Magazine. Boucher praised the story about the stabbing of a playboy at a ski resort as "a thoroughly sound detective in the classical mold” strongly recommended "to the formally puzzle-minded and to fans of winter sports." Sounds like a gem of a whodunit waiting to be rediscovered! 

On the very same page of The Anthony Boucher Chronicles, there's a review of Ruth Darby's Murder with Orange Blossoms (1943) about ex-detective Peter Barron and narrator-wife Janet investigate the murder of a bride – who drops dead en route to the altar. Boucher called the book "slick and relentlessly amusing" with a Long Island society setting. Something tells me Murder with Orange Blossoms could be in the same league as The Frightened Stiff (1942) and Sailor, Take Warning! (1944) by Kelley Roos. I would also like to see Darby's Death Boards the Lazy Lady (1939) and Death Conducts a Tour (1940), If This Be Murder (1941) and Beauty Sleep (1942) return to print. What a shame Rue Morgue Press closed down, because Darby sounds like the kind of mystery writer they would have loved to reprint.

Speaking of Rue Morgue Press, when they closed down, they left behind several obscure, but great, mystery writers who were never picked up by other publishers. Clyde B. Clason is a notable example who was only two reprints away to have had all his detective novels brought back in print. I would very much like to add copies of Clason's The Fifth Tumbler (1936) and The Whispering Ear (1938) to my (locked room) library. Same goes for Glyn Carr. I really looked forward to the RMP reprints of A Corpse at Camp Two (1954), Murder of an Owl (1956), The Ice Axe Murders (1958) and Lewker in Tirol (1967) that would never come.

Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk's Into Thin Air (1928) and Anthony and Peter Shaffer's Withered Murder (1956) can be counted among the most well-known of the elusive locked room mystery novels, which have been out-of-print for decades and available copies tend to cost a leg and an arm. John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, praised Withered Murder as "a diabolically clever and often sardonically funny murder mystery" deserving of being reprinted, while the Death Can Read blog declared Into Thin Air "mandatory for those who love the genre." All we need is a kindly publisher to provide us with freshly printed copies.

The blog of John Norris has three tags, "bizarre murder methods," "neglected detectives" and "obscure writers," representing another treasure trove of long-forgotten mystery writers and detective novels that have been out-of-print for a very long time – sometimes the better part of a century. Some of the mysteries John discussed stood out more than others. One of those standouts is Frederica de Laguna's academic mystery novel, The Arrow Points to Murder (1937), which "makes use of anthropological forensic science and unusual poison experiments in a way like no other detective novel." And the storytelling "replete with anthropological lectures, curious tidbits and tangential scientific trivia all related to museum work." Such an intelligent, absorbing piece of detective fiction needs to be reprinted! Sue MacVeigh's Murder Under Construction (1939) caught my attention for the same reason as Darby's Murder with Orange Blossoms, but also for its setting and authentic background in civil engineering. That makes her second and third novels, Grand Central Murder (1939) and Streamlined Murder (1940), all the more enticing. Reginald Davis and his only three detective novels have become pretty obscure over the decades, but John's reviews of The Crowing Hen (1936) and Nine Days' Panic (1937) argue a good case for reprinting. Same goes for Robert Hare's "three works of ingenious crime fiction" and John Donovan's short-lived Sgt. Johnny Lamb series and his standalone mystery, The Dead Have No Friends (1952). I could go on mentioning writers discussed on Pretty Sinister Books, like Charles Ashton, Christopher Hale and Victor Luhrs, but you get the idea.

Lester Heath's The Case of the Aluminum Crutch (1963) is a juvenile mystery and the only published account from The Casebook of "Sherlock" Jones, which appears on the surface to be standard story of this kind with a Sherlockian touch, but a teaser of the plot suggests otherwise ("the boy's crutch lay at the foot of the tree. The door to the tree house was locked—from the inside. Yet no one was there"). The only review that can be found online compares the book to The Three Investigator series and how "Sherlock" Jones can pass for a cousin Jupiter Jones. And that should be more than enough to get Jim's attention. 

Eunice Mays Boyd was an American writer who wrote only three detective novels, Murder Breaks Trail (1943), Doom in the Midnight Sun (1944) and Murder Wears Mukluks (1945), which are all set in Alaska with "its ghosttowns, its echoes of the rugged goldrush era and its eerie midnight sun" – all three strike me as potential gems of the regional mystery novel. So was Boyd the Elspeth Huxley or Arthur Upfield of Alaska? A fresh print-run could answer that question.

During the early days of this blog, I reviewed a truly weird locked room mystery, Joseph B. Carr's The Man With Bated Breath (1934), which reads like an alternate universe version of John Dickson Carr and has a bizarro world, pot-smoking rendition of Dr. Gideon Fell as the detective. Some thought it might actually be a hitherto unknown Carr novel and it wouldn't have been the first time one turned up (e.g. Devil Kinsmere, 1934), but Douglas Greene argued against the possibility. Unfortunately, his comments posted on the old GADetection Group have since fallen prey to internet decay. I'm still very curious about Joseph B. Carr's first detective novel, Death Whispers (1933). Now that the real Carr is returning to print, The Man With Bated Breath and Death Whispers make for interesting companion pieces. 

Anthony Berkeley and Mignon G. Eberhart have been slipping in-and out-of-print for the past two decades, but Berkeley's Top Storey Murder (1931) and Eberhart's From This Dark Stairway (1931) continue to elude me. I have good hope Top Storey Murder will eventually get published again as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, but From This Dark Stairway is probably going to be a different story.

It's an old, tired running joke around these parts Jim and I agree about once or twice a month, if that. So following up on any of his recommendations is always a risky venture, but I can't deny his reviews of James Ronald, "a writer of no small talent," has failed to intrigue me. Slapping four-star and five-star ratings on Six Were to Die (1932), Murder in the Family (1936), They Can't Hang Me (1938) and This Way Out (1939). James Ronald strikes me as being in the same category as other pulp writers, like Theodore Roscoe, who wrote some first-rate detective fiction and reprints will be welcomes with open arms. He also wrote the tantalizingly-titled The Sealed Room Murder (1934), under the name Michael Crombie, which is another one that needs to be republished. 

Val Gielgud was an actor, director, broadcaster and mystery novelist who was "a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC" and "directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newer medium of television," which provided an authentic backdrop to a number of his detective novels – like Death at Broadcasting House (1934) and The First Television Murder (1940). So you would think that would be enough to keep at least his radio-and television themed mysteries in print, but the last time Death at Broadcasting House appeared in print was a 1994 large print edition. Most of his other novels have (I think) never been reprinted. Another early media mystery that probably merits reprinting is The Studio Murder Mystery (1929) by A.C. and Carmen Edington. An American husband-and-wife team who wrote three more mysteries, Murder to Music (1930), The Monkshood Murders (1931) and Drum Madness (1934), which have not been reprinted since their original publication. For the same reason, I would like to see reprints of Alfred Eichler's Murder in the Radio Department (1943) and Death at the Mike (1946). 

I can't remember how Basil Francis came to my attention, but he was theatrical manager and historian (Fanny Kelly of Drury Lane, 1950) who wrote eight detective novels between 1935 and 1954. Francis appears to be fairly typical example of one those little-known, now completely forgotten Golden Age writers who wrote mysteries with such titles as The Holiday Camp Murder (1939), Death on the Roof (1946) and Death on the Atoll (1948). But his last novel might turn out to be an interesting piece of meta-fiction and genre commentary. Apparently, Death in Act IV (1954) is a published stage play (never performed?) concerning the six members of the London Crime Circle. So a potentially interesting name for the British Library or Dean Street Press to rescue from biblioblivion. 

H.C. Branson is another writer who's completely forgotten today, but he's supposed to be good a writer and plotter with The Pricking Thumb (1942) and The Case of the Giant Killer (1942) apparently being among his better works.

I tried to not to let the locked room mystery and impossible crime genre dominate the list, but it would foolish to pretend Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) and Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019) aren't the paper and ink incarnation of my wishlist. So let's go over some choices highlighted and listed in Adey and Skupin. Oh, come on, you knew it was coming! Yes, I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.

Adey listed some truly obscure, rarely reprinted writers and novels in his introduction. The first title is a very early one, Fred M. White's "Who Killed James Trent?" (1901), which was serialized in Pearson's Weekly and has "a rising young novelist," Jasper Carr, acting as detective. Adey called it "an amazing coincidence and an unconscious pointer to an author yet to come." The story should be in the public domain, but is nowhere to be found online while a lot of White's other fiction is easily accessible. Typical! Another intriguing-sounding locked room mystery that's in the public domain and nowhere to be found is W.A. Mackenzie's Flower O' the Peach (1916). One of those exceedingly rare WWI era mysteries! Charles Chadwick's The Cactus (1925) and The Moving House Foscaldo (1926), "both are well worth reading," can be added to the list of (possible) public domain works missing in action. Scobie Mackenzie's Three Dead, One Hurt (1934) is "an almost Buchanesque tale of an oddly assorted group of people marooned on a Scottish island" with a "clever locked room situation" marking it out "as something a little different." Francis Leslie's Study of Death (1943) merited a special mention on account of "a genuinely clever and original locked room gimmick." There are over 2000 entries in Locked Room Murders and not everyone was specially mentioned in the introduction, but some nevertheless stood out to me for one reason or another.

The first item listen in Locked Room Murders can almost be described as a glitch in the matrix, Jacques Aanrooy's Off the Track (1895), in which Donald Fraser solves a stabbing in a locked surgery and was published in South Africa by J.C. Juta & Co – which makes entry 1098 a little spooky. Sir Henry Juta's Off the Track (1925) has a detective, named Ronald Fraser, solving a stabbing in a locked consulting room. No idea whether it's "one of those amazing coincidences" or whether there's a story behind, but I would like to see them back in print. Even more so, if they turn out to be completely different, unconnected detective stories. James Street's Carbon Monoxide (1937) caught my attention and breath, because I thought I had found an unknown, completely overlooked John Rhode novel hiding in plain sight. The impossible situation (carbon monoxide poisoning in a locked garage) struck me as Rhodean, but James Street turned out to be the pseudonym of Michael Majolier who also wrote Death in an Armchair (1937). Charles Ashton is listed with three novels, Death Greets a Guest (1936), Here's Murder Done (1943) and Dance for a Dead Uncle (1948), which all sound great and are criminally out-of-print! Same goes for Hugh Austin's quartet of Peter Quint novels, It Couldn't Be Murder (1935), Murder in Triplicate (1935), Murder of a Matriarch (1936) and The Upside Down Murders (1937). Nigel Burnaby's The Clue of the Green-Eyed Girl (1935) presents another tantalizing impossible crime, murder in a beach hut surrounded by unmarked sand, but this one, too, is shamefully out-of-print. Same goes for Wallace Jackson's The Zadda Street Affair (1934). I could go on, and on, but let's move on to Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement.

Right off the bat, Skupin's introduction throws a mouthwatering, out-of-print locked room mystery at the reader, Terror at Compass Lake (1935) by Tech Davis. A mystery of a dead "that was neither murder, suicide nor natural death" and offers "a new twist on the locked room mystery." Eugene V. Brewster's Surprise Party Murder (1936) reportedly has a "sophisticated solution" to a reversal on the traditional locked room situation: a man denies entering the study of his uncle "despite the accounts of multiple witnesses." William F. Temple's The Dangerous Edge (1951) briefly appeared in print during the early 2000s, but has since gone back to obscurity and it has to be reprinted as its packed with impossible disappearances and miraculous thefts committed by “a master thief who announces his thefts in advance.” Also "worthy of note," Maisie Birmingham's extremely rare The Mountain by Night (1997). Birmingham wrote three novels in the 1970s and self-published her last novel in '90s, which at the time probably meant that copies were circulated privately. So copies are not easy to find, but that was once the case with Derek Smith's Come to Paddington Fair (1997). So, hopefully, John Pugmire can track down a copy and have it properly published.

There are some interesting titles listed in Skupin that might warrant reprinting. Esther Fonseca's The Thirteenth Bed in the Ballroom (1937) concerns "death by carbon monoxide poisoning of one girl in a dormitory when all other girls were unaffected," but available copies can be described as nonexistent. Very little can be found about it online. Sinclair Gluck's Sea Shroud (1934) has a locked room situation that invites further investigation, "stabbing in a room locked and bolted on the inside" and "a hole from a rifle shot" in the barred window, but apparently copies are ultra rare. Stephen Gould's Murder of the Admiral (1936) is the first of only two novel-length cases about a striking pulp hero, Sheridan Doome, who has to figure out how someone could have been shot in a ship's cabin under observation. The book was also published under the name Steve Fisher. I've no special reason to list Charles Reed Jones' The Van Norton Murders (1931), except that it could very well be one of the earliest parody or pastiche of S.S. van Dine and Philo Vance on record. Herman Landon's Death on the Air (1929) has three people die "apparently by the playing of a song," which is one of a handful of intriguing locked room mysteries he wrote. Such as Mystery Mansion (1928) and Murder Mansion (1928), published respectively UK and US, which are nearly identical except that "the solutions are quite different." Three Brass Elephants (1930) concerns the disappearance of an entirely room. This author appeared on my radar after reading The Back-Seat Murder (1931) in 2019. Jason Manor's Too Dead to Run (1953) has one of those magic bullet puzzles that rarely fail to fascinate me. Ning Xu's Murder at the Drum Tower (1994) was translated and published in English, but, today, copies are nowhere to be found.

Just to rattle off some random titles that caught my eye: Anthony Gilbert's The Tragedy at Freyne (1927), E.C.R. Lorac's Murder in St. John's Wood (1934), George Bagby's Ring Around a Murder (1936), John Bentley's The Dead Do Talk (1944), B.C. Black's The Draughtsman's Pen (c. 1948), Theodore Brace's Death Goes in a Trailer (1950) and Nigel Brent's The Leopard Died Too (1957). And more Anthony Wynne reprints like The Case of the Gold Coins (1933) and Emergency Exit (1941).

So here you have a very tiny, minuscule selection from the near Earth planetoid, known as my personal wishlist, which for one reason or another captured my imagination, but annoyingly remain out of reach. And would welcome reprints with open arms. But then again, that was said about a lot detective novels writers and novels since discussed on this blog. Let's press on with the Renaissance!