I’ll not deny that I’ve been less than resoundingly positive about latter-era Jonathan Creek (1997-2016). And yet the show undeniably holds a dear place in my heart, not just because it was so damn good at its peak, but also because, in being so, it held huge sway in my interest in impossible crimes. So when playscript The Fantom of the Acropolis (2026) was announced on Kickstarter last year, you’re darn tootin’ that I was excited to get my hands on it.
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The first novel by husband-and-wife team Kelley Roos, Made Up to Kill (1940) was one of about 30 or 40 books I purchased from the now sadly-defunct Rue Morgue Press, who did such excellent work keeping Golden Age novels in print long before it was cool. And this debut sets the tone for (what I’ve read of) the series that would result very well: Jeff Troy and Haila Rogers — not yet married, that would come soon — stumble into a murder mystery by proximity and end up investigating the various Types who seem to exist within its boundaries. Narrator Haila is good for an eerie turn of phrase now and then, and happy-go-lucky Jeff will tend to bound around like a spaniel until almost accidentallying his way into the path of the murderer.
Obviously I read the Sherlock Holmes canon before I had started this blog, but — or, perhaps, so — it’s interesting how vague my recollections about so many of the stories are.
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The prospect of a collection of completely new impossible crime short stories is an exciting one, because I’m pretty sure we haven’t had a new multi-author collection since The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths [ss] (2020) over which we shall pass quickly.
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I very much enjoyed Anthony Armstrong’s contribution to the collaborative novel Double Death (1939), and so a friend kindly lent me the novel Ten Minute Alibi (1934), adapted — with help from Herbert Shaw — from Armstrong’s stage play of the same name, which was published the year before. I’ve not yet read the play, so have no idea how closely the two coincide, but I suspect that it was Shaw who did most of the writing of this novel if only because the rather functional prose lacks so much of the character that made me curious to check out more of Armstrong’s writing. I am, however, getting ahead of myself, so let’s (appropriately) back up a bit…
We know that Holmes was inspired by C. Auguste Dupin, of course, but it’s surprising how much the canon continues to owe to the vagaries of Edgar Allan Poe even when it was already a well-established phenomenon in its own right.
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There are many reasons to visit the Cotswolds, and if you find yourself in Burford be sure to visit the exquisite Madhatter Bookshop, the back room of which resembles the study of my dreams: a beautifully comfortable sofa surrounded by crowded bookshelves. It was in this very room that I stumbled upon Rose/House (2023) by Arkady Martine and was intrigued by its impossible crime-sounding premise.
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A storm strands nine guests on a small Greek island — “[l]ike in some Agatha Christie novel” — and everyone is shocked when one of the group is found dead in a hut on the beach. Thankfully, one of those present is the actor Ormond ‘Hopalong’ Basil, now an ageing and fading presence, but best known for what is seen as the representation of Sherlock Holmes on the screen in 15 films. With the police unable to reach the island until the storm dies down, might Basil be convinced to investigate the crime? Given “the powerful force that fiction can exert on the human psyche”, it would certainly make everyone feel a bit happier to know that something is being done…
Sherlock Holmes is back, baby, back! And I bet the first proper case following his return is an absolute belter.
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Comprising fifteen stories of murder and malfeasance linked to that most Golden Age of associations — the romance of travel as provided by the early 20th century train — Blood on the Tracks [ss] (2018) is an early example of the British library Crime Classics anthology, brought together for your delectation by President of the Detection Club Martin Edwards.
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