We approach the sharp end of things now, with 64 names reduced now to a mere eight, and only three rounds of voting before the legally-binding World’s Favourite Golden Age Sleuth is crowned.
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I’ve enjoyed mixed fortunes with the work of E.C.R. Lorac, from the high of The Devil and the C.I.D. (1938) to the low of Murder by Matchlight (1945), and a return to her work has always been on the cards. And so, with the British Library kind enough to send me a review copy of Crook o’ Lune (1953), the eleventh title by Lorac to be reprinted in their august Crime Classics series, we return. There can be no denying that Lorac has been a huge success for the BL, undoubtedly allowing the taking of a risk on some more obscure titles elsewhere, so I knew that there were plenty of others in print for me to read if I enjoyed this one.
Another modern mystery promising an impossible crime, which I’m reading for my own interest on the pretext that it could pique the interest of the internet’s expert on the subgenre, TomCat, and another crossover mystery in this cause, with crime and SF aspects jostling for position.
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It seems almost indecent that someone should have the inspiration to write a book like Payment Deferred (1926) before Anthony Berkeley had conceived of his Francis Iles nom de plume and written Malice Aforethought (1931). And yet there’s something unformed about C.S. Forester’s tale of ill-gotten money, murder, and general moral decay that speaks to the callowness of the undertaking. Land sakes, don’t read this if you’re having a bad week — its unrelenting grimness and domestic horror would dent even the sunniest of dispositions — and avoid it, too, if you want a tight criminous plot with even a sniff of Iles-brand irony. This is dark stuff, unleavened at any stage.
The Four Corners stories by Theodore Roscoe, concerning mysterious and suspenseful happenings in the so-named town in northern NY, are legitimate masterpieces in setting and tone — and ‘There Are Smiles That Make You Happy’ (1939) is another beautiful example of the storyteller’s craft.
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More Elementary, the modern update of Sherlock Holmes starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in the lead roles. This time, my recommendations of five episodes from season 4, which first aired in the US between November 2015 and May 2016.
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“I don’t want to die. I… I… don’t want to die. I have to get home. My three sisters will be murdered. But… but… I’m done for. Kindaichi-san, please… please go to Gokumon Island in my place…” — thus is Kosuke Kindaichi exhorted by a dying brother in arms as they are demobilised after the end of the Second World War. And so the detective goes to Gokumon Island, meets Chimata Kito’s family, and tries to untangle the maelstrom of violence and confusion that descends upon the island as, sure enough, Chimata’s three sisters Tsukiyo, Yukie, and Hanako are killed one by one. In principle it’s a gripping idea, but in practice it made for me the least interesting of the four Seishi Yokomizo mysteries thus far translated.
Relatively late in his career, Theodore Roscoe wrote a book about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, The Web of Conspiracy (1959), and it’s difficult not to wonder if the seed for that might have been planted in this visit to the fictional town of Four Corners, NY.
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The Invisible Event 