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Marcus Chesney doesn’t have much faith in human observation. To prove his point, he arranges to put on a short demonstration for three witnesses, after which he will ask them questions about what they saw – secure in the knowledge, he says, that they’ll get the answers wrong. The demonstration goes ahead, as part of which a disguised figure enters the room…and poisons Chesney in front of everyone before vanishing. It swiftly becomes apparent that the murderer must not only be responsible for a spate of recent poisonings in the village but must also have somehow been one of only four people. The only problems are that one of them has a rock-solid alibi and the other three were all watching the performance…
My book-by-book breakdown of tree books and ebooks throughout the year looks like this, including the nine I borrowed having finally joined the library:
For those of you who lament the decline of the modern detective novel – and we are legion, to be sure – I have three words: Hans Olav Lahlum. The Human Flies, his debut novel, is by no means perfect – it’s in need of a good edit, as there’s a tendency to repeat ad infinitum information gleaned and interpreted elsewhere – but it’s honestly about as close to a classically-motivated, -structured, and -executed novel as I imagine you’ll find in the 21st century. The fact that it has almost the exact same setup as the likes of The Wooden Overcoat, The Black Shrouds and Our First Murder with a killing in a guest-house (here a small apartment block) of which one of the denizens is undoubtedly guilty certainly helps, but Lahlum is also smart enough to build on this base in very classical ways. But for a few dates and key events – it is set in 1968 – this could almost have been written in the late 1940s.
A quick word from me before the festive craziness starts to wish a very happy, safe, peaceful, and relaxing Christmas to you all. Many thanks for dropping by and getting involved in the few months The Invisible Event has been running – it’s been an absolute joy, and I feel immensely privileged to have had the discussion I’ve had with such passionate, knowledgeable, entertaining, and discerning people as yourselves.
A man seeing an old photograph of an unremarkable street scene on the cover of a book and being struck by an overpowering reaction of uncertain origin doesn’t sound like a promising start to an impossible crime novel. However, it turns out that such an opinion is simply a sign of your lack of inventiveness, as Paul Halter can spin one hell of a tale from just that. Well, okay, not just that, as there’s also the notorious Acid Bath Murderer going around destroying the remains of murder victims by pouring acid on them – and John Braid, our photo-phobic protagonist, is curiously unwilling to tell his young, trusting and rather new wife what he gets up to every day when he leaves the house. And he’s rather keen on not letting his briefcase out of his sight…
