Author: JJ

#129: Some Reflections on Editing A. Demain Grange’s ‘The Round Room Horror’ (1911)

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Ye Olde Book

As Ye Olde Book of Locked Room Conundrums edges ever closer — 11 of the 15 stories are now typed and ready, and TomCat is beavering away editing a twelfth — I thought I’d share my thoughts on certain aspects from the preparation, because it’s been an interesting insight into some things I’ve previously had no experience with.  My apologies in advance if this seems self-aggrandising, I just think some of this will be of legitimate interest to you and have no desire to make it all “hey look how much work I’m doing”.  No-one is making me do this, after all, and it’s honestly a huge amount of fun.  Yes, my notion of fun is not like that of other people.

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#127: ‘The Third Bullet’ and Other Stories [ss] (1954) by John Dickson Carr

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Third BulletI haven’t reviewed (or read, come to that) a short story collection for a while, and it’s 1954 this month for Crimes of the Century at Past Offences meaning the time is ripe for a long-overdue (har-har) return to John Dickson Carr.  I had read a couple of the stories contained herein before, but the majority were new to me, and as ever it’s a delight to see Carr’s imagination wrangle with the shorter form.  Given how frequently stories of this ilk fail to conceal their workings and/or killer, it’s also great to see him do both over and over again with consummate ease, as if saying to his contemporaries “C’mon, guys, it’s simple –just do this“.  We’ll take them one at a time as is my usual approach with collections — and, yes, most of these were originally published before 1954 and so might be inadmissible.  Let’s just get on with it and an independent official enquiry can determine the eligibility of this at a later point.

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#125: A Sudden Flush of Youth (or Two) in Agatha Christie’s Endless Night (1967)

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Although Agatha Christie’s later works put her out of era for this blog, I’m still keen to look at these books on account of the level of impact she had on the genre.  So The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1962) was an early review when I was less rigid in my restrictions, but alas I had nothing to say about The Clocks (1963).  Then came the one-two punch of A Caribbean Mystery (1964) and At Bertram’s Hotel (1965) before Poirot once again got a short shrift with the rather forgettable Third Girl (1966), which Brad has analysed with typical adroitness here.  So, because I’m reading these chronologically, this brings me to Endless Night.

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#124: Invisible Green (1977) by John Sladek

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Invisible GreenJohn Sladek is better known these days as a furiously inventive author of decidedly loopy SF — and I mean that as a compliment — but he did publish two detectives novels in the 1970s that each contained several impossibilities.  The first, Black Aura (1974), has two disappearances and a man flying outside a third-storey window (without anything so amateur as wires holding him up, you cynic), and two-thirds of these are explained away superbly — the second disappearance in particular.  It is a very good book, if perhaps a little slow in places, and boded well for the next time Sladek opted to dip his toe in our waters.  Invisible Green, then, is very much the realisation of this potential, being superior in every single respect, and therefore something of a bittersweet read as we know now that nothing else followed it in the realm of the unachievable provably done.

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#122: Broken Bottles and Bloodspots: A guest post by Matt Ingwalson

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Owl and Raccon #1 and #2

Author photo: Chris Sessions

The Owl and Raccoon novellas of Matt Ingwalson update the impossible crime to a modern setting and, as I have said previously, are hugely recommended reading for anyone with an interest in a good story convincingly told.  Ahead of the publication of the third story, Not With a Bang, I asked Matt if he would be willing to oblige us with an insight into his writing and he very kindly offered the following.

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#121: On the Many Wonderful Faces of Dr. John H. Watson, MD – Part 2 of 2

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Sherlock Holmes collection covers

So, as established yesterday, there’s much more scope in Watson than there is in Holmes.  The obvious question then becomes: So what do you do with this?

Take the simple cosmetic changes out of the equation — the casting of Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson in the US series Elementary, for instance, easily one of the least disruptive changes it’s possible to get away with — and what you’re left with is the fact that Watson, being our entry into the Holmesiverse, is allowed to do anything that reflects the experience and perspective of the reader.  As discussed yesterday, there are aspects of the character, the constants I referred to, that don’t become him — making him the proprietor of a burgeoning dog-walking business, or a respected scholar of nineteenth century Gothic poetry, or giving him a form of OCD which means he must always cross his legs in the opposite manner to Holmes unless it’s a Tuesday in which case…, etc — but let’s put this aside as given and look at the way certain authors have expanded on Watson without desecrating him beyond all recognition.

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#120: On the Many Wonderful Faces of Dr. John H. Watson, MD – Part 1 of 2

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Sherlock Holmes collectionLately I’ve read an unusually high concentration of Holmes pastiches — Caleb Carr’s The Italian Secretary (not good), Stephen King’s ‘A Doctor’s Case’ (not terrible), Colin Dexter’s ‘A Case of Mis-Identity’ (extremely good), Michael Kurland’s The Infernal Device (loadsa fun), Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range (fabulous) and a superb piece of unpublished fan fiction sent to me via email — and it’s made me realise that while Watson, and specifically the Watsonian voice, is vital in undertaking Holmes, no-one can quite agree what Watson is, how he should be written, and this makes him far and away the more interesting of the two men when it comes to analysis.

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