Ordinarily, I go looking for modern impossible crime novels, under the guise of filtering out something worthwhile for TomCat to try. But the Dog Sitter Detective Plays Dead (2025) by Antony Johnston was, perhaps appropriately, fetched and brought to me.

I refer, of course, to the review that Puzzle Doctor put up at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, calling this impossible stabbing in a film star’s locked trailer “a clever mystery and a load of fun”. And, sure, it sounded a little twee to me, but I’ll give anything with an impossible crime in it a go — well, okay, almost anything, having recently given up on a ‘Romance’ novel which apparently contained an impossible vanishing, whose characters were too vile to be allowed to live — and so here we are.

This, the third entry in the series, sees eponymous dog-sitter, sexagenarian Gwinny Tuffel, returning to acting after a decade break. She’s scored a fairly major role in Draculania, a gender-swapped version of Dracula, in which the eponymous count(ess) will be played by Hollywood starlet Juliette Shine, whose own star has been on the wane in recent years. For the time being, filming is being done on location at the faded country pile Hendale Hall, which is not only an imposing residence in its own right but fittingly also has its own vampiric legend, the 13th Viscount Hendale having died in less-than-noble circumstances and rumoured to have haunted the house and grounds ever since.

With a temperamental star, bad weather, a debut director keen to make her mark, and various concerns around funding circulating, the last thing the production needs is one of the actors to turn up staked through the heart in a trailer that has its keys turned in the lock on the inside of the door…but, wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happens.

The trailer had been locked from the inside, and Juliette’s keys were still on the inside of the broken-open door. Even if someone had a second set of keys, the first set being in situ would prevent them being used, as Walter had found. So how could [the] killer have left the trailer and locked the door behind them? It was impossible.

Oh, and all the windows are shut and locked, too. Obvs. And there’s no skylight.

The police are called, the fittingly-named DCI Pierce descends with his men to investigate…and Gwinny, taking care of a Jack Russell for an injured friend, can’t help but remember the two previous murders she’s solved and so start having a sneak about herself. And the resulting book is…mixed.

In Johnston’s favour is that this is very readable. I tore through it in less than a day, reading the first third in one gulp, and the setting is clearly limned and the characters easy to keep straight. Gwinny’s a bit of a non-person really, just a sense of curiosity with legs, but that helps, since I’m not particularly a fan of Big Character narrators and her blandness helps keep everyone else clear in their roles. There’s a sort of meta-awareness of the frustration of amateur detectives in Gwinny being vexed that the self-absorbed Juliette — having played a detective on screen (complete with ridiculous catchphrase) — thinks that she will be the perfect person to find the killer, but DCI Pierce isn’t terribly interested in anyone who isn’t qualified sticking their nose in:

“The constabulary takes a dim view of amateurs involving themselves in police matters, Ms. Tuffel. I told Ms Shine the same thing, and got an earful for my troubles.”

Another thing Johnston does well is sprinkle sufficient detail about each character that you’re never completely sure what out of the hints and minor notes is going to be relevant later. Half the fun of the classically-styled mystery is picking the key indicator out of the noise, and authors of this style of cosy mystery can often be accused of there being only one relevant detail and, more often than not, it sticking out like a sore thumb. But Johnston stirs his pot well and keeps various possibilities on the boil…an identifying characteristic, a piece of dialogue, displaying knowledge they shouldn’t have, etc.

Though, well, that’s not quite the compliment it might be. Because, see, I have more than a few problems with this, especially as detective fiction.

See, as detective fiction it’s a complete bust. We only know who the killer is very, very late on because Gwinny receives some information (that we’re not privy to) and she tells us she’s deduced the answer…but nothing that preceded that revelation in any way indicates that the named party is the killer. The reason everything appears so well hidden is because, honestly, with all his filigree’d touches and minor character notes, Johnston isn’t actually concealing anything. Gwinny’s telling bit of information could easily be something else, and you could easily pick another of the six or eight suspects to be the killer, and nothing before that would need to be changed.

I can highlight the main problem here in the structure: there are a bunch of chapters in the middle of the book where Gwinny just wanders around the house and grounds and bumps into people who then tell her stuff that there’s no real other way for her to learn. Nothing about her as a detective comes into play here, she just happens to be there and they happen to talk to her. This occurs about five times in a row, so that after this clutch of escapades you’re left with a hazy impression of what everyone could have done and how they might be guilty — good — but no real sense of how the information was achieved or what else may have occurred in the meantime — less good. This is not detection, and the arbitrary pinning of the motive and deed on the random person at the end demonstrates this all too clearly.

I’m also not a huge fan of the impossible stabbing, either in execution — surely the person would have to be standing differently for that effect to be achieved — or in detection, this being divined because the Jack Russell just happens to return from the woods with the one piece of evidence which gives it all away. Had she, more likely, picked up literally any other object, the means remains obfuscated…and that’s just not my style of detection, I’m afraid. Also, gleeps, that is one busy murderer once they all access the crime scene. I mean, could someone really get away doing all that?! Unseen?!?!

There’s also, leaning into its cosy credentials, a thoroughly redundant subplot where Gwinny thinks her new boyfriend and her best fried are having an affair. Spoilers: of course they’re not. The end.

Johnston writes well, as I’ve said, and I can’t regret the time spent reading this because it really is very easy and light, but I’m afraid I would prefer a little more rigour if we’re going to start talking about this as detective fiction, and especially if we’re holding it up as an example of the notoriously tricky impossible crime subgenre. Were I struggling to fill my TBR I might cast an eye over the earlier entries in the series, but since I don’t lack for reading material I think I’ll part ways with Gwinny here with no bitterness. It was enjoyable while it lasted, and those of you not really looking for observed traditional mystery tropes in your modern crime fiction will fare better than I did, but I’m back to foraging in the undergrowth for more impossible delights in the modern age.

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