Another book, bought because I understood it to contain an impossible crime, which has been left lingering on my TBR because it’s a later entry in a series I’ve not otherwise read. More than that, this is a continuation novel, so not even by the series’ original author.
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I have an undeniable fondness for the work of Edgar Allan Poe, having looked at his tales of ratiocination on this blog as well as written a novel inspired by one of his most famous stories. So Beyond Rue Morgue [ss] (2013), a collection of stories edited by Paul Kane and Charles Prepolec purporting to extend the career of Poe’s unfathomably influential detective C. Auguste Dupin, was certainly an intriguing find.
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Not to split hairs, but if you receive an anonymous note on the 1st June telling you that you have thirteen days to live, the person threatening your life is going to kill you on 14th June, not the 13th. Either way, the wealthy George Hayling waits the best part of a week, receiving one note a day along similar lines — including a threat to poison his dog, which is duly carried out — before consulting the police. As luck would have it, he’s ushered into the office of Chief Inspector Floyd just as that worthy is completing a discussion with the esteemed Sir Arthur Sinclair, and something about Hayling’s case piques Sinclair’s interest. Only, with so little time remaining, can Sinclair keep the man alive?
Tuesdays this month will once again be dedicated to digging books out of my TBR pile that have lingered unloved and are likely to remain so without drastic intervention. First up, Mind Over Magic (2009) by William Rabkin, a tie-in novel from the TV show Psych (2006-14), which I’ve left unread because I figured I should watch the show first. But then I read it anyway; wow, I’m so ungovernable.
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Given the state of limerence in which I exist when it comes to the impossible crime in fiction, it was with great excitement that I received a copy About the Murder of the Circus Queen (1932) by Anthony Abbot, which has not one but two entries in Adey.
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In principle, the core concept of Murder by the Clock (1929), the debut novel for both author Rufus King and character Lieutenant Valcour, is a good one: the youthful Mrs. Endicott calls the police because she fears her husband has gone out that evening to pay off a blackmailer, only for Valcour, the policeman who responds to the call, to find Mr. Endiciott dead in his closet at the close of the first chapter. Thus, the focus of the mystery becomes the Endicott ménage itself, as the questions of who would have killed the master of the house, and why, take understandable prominence. And some fun ideas remain, but the book containing them doesn’t quite compel as it might.
Having given up on no fewer than three Sherlock Holmes pastiches in this final entry for my Tuesday undertakings this month, I return to the source: what was for me the book that got me reading stories about Holmes not written by people called A. Conan Doyle or J.D. Carr, The House of Silk (2011) by Anthony Horowitz.
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Something a little different today: knowing that I’m a fan of the Australian dramatist and novelist Malcolm ‘Max’ Afford, Tony Medawar — the closest thing the GAD firmament has to Indiana Jones — sent me a selection of Afford’s thus-far-uncollected short fiction, as found in a variety of Australian publications from the Golden Age, and I’ve read them and am going to write a little about each one.
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I have, since encountering the work of Charlotte Armstrong, developed a newfound appreciation for the novel of suspense. And so when Kate at Cross-Examining Crime mentioned that The Hours Before Dawn (1958) by Celia Fremlin was among her favourite debuts in the genre, I was willing to put my scepticism aside — Kate and I so rarely agree, y’see — and dive into this lovely Faber & Faber reprint. And, y’know, while it doesn’t completely work for me, this story of a new mother trying to fathom whether she’s being driven slightly mad by the sleeplessness induced by her new son, or whether there’s something more sinister behind the oddnesses she keeps encountering, has a lot to recommend it.
A second Sherlock Holmes pastiche from the pen of Robert J. Harris, The Devil’s Blaze (2022) sees him once again take his cue from the Second World War setting of the Basil Rathbone films rather than Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Victorian milieu.
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The Invisible Event 