It looks like I might be making these ‘Ten Favourite…’ lists a thing, having previously done fictional detectives and British Library reissues; today, we turn our attention to the great work done by Ramble House, publishers of an unusual mix of crime and weird fiction.
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In the back of my mind when I started The Invisible Event was the idea that exactly half of what I’d post about would feature impossible crimes, locked room mysteries, and/or miracle problems — and although this proportion started an irreversible slide after the first 500 or so posts, the impossible crime remains my first love.
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Stage magic and Golden Age detection go hand-in-hand: we go in knowing we’re being fooled in both cases, but there’s little more enjoyable than seeing it done well. Clayton Rawson and Hake Talbot were professional-level magicians who turned their minds to the dark arts of fictional (as far as we know…) murder and crafted some wonderful stories in doing so, and the name Bruce Elliott can also be added to the magician/detection-writer set with this country house mystery that benefits from his magical background by stirring in an impossible crime. This is yet another book that’s foisted an unexpected impossibility upon me, and while it’s not exactly perfect, it’s still a bloody good read.
The Invisible Event 