#734: The Wailing Rock Murders (1932) by Clifford Orr

Dartmouth Wailing Rock Murders

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Let the record state that The Wailing Rock Murders (1932) is the seventh title I’ve read from the Roland Lacourbe-curated Locked Room Library list to not actually contain an impossible crime. Others of this distinction have run the gamut from wonderful to utterly forgettable, so an absence of impossibility is not to be held against it, and Clifford Orr’s second and final novel undeniably contains plenty of locked rooms…but they’re the ‘locked from the outside’ variety, whose very nature should not be confused with the sort of thing we (are meant to) mean when throwing a term like ‘locked room mystery’ about.

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#596: The Dartmouth Murders (1929) by Clifford Orr

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The name Clifford Orr first came to my attention on account of the Roland Lacourbe-curated ‘100 Books for a Locked Room Library’ list featuring Orr’s second and final novel, The Wailing Rock Murders (1932).  So when that title cropped up in this twofer of Orr’s complete output, I snapped it up and just had to wait for sufficient snow to clear from the peak of Mount TBR.  And, as it happens, I’m posting this review of his debut novel The Dartmouth Murders (1929) a mere two days after what would have been Orr’s 120th birthday — entirely by accident, as anyone who has met me in real life will be able to attest.  Such organisation is not one of my strong points.

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