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For as long as he can remember, 16 year-old Hisataro Oba has found himself randomly, several times a month, caught in a time loop he dubs The Trap: waking up on the same day nine times in a row, with only the events of the final day of the loop becoming the canon version of the day for everyone else in existence. Having realised this, and in part as a coping mechanism, he has been able to exploit The Trap — cheat on a test, win a bet, etc. — but now things are different. Because now a murder has been committed and he would like, if possible, to avert it in the ninth and final version so that it does not become the reality for everyone else.
Crossover Mysteries
#1379: No Police Like Holmes – Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot [ss] (2018) ed. Michael A. Ventrella & Jonathan Maberry
I stumbled over the Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot [ss] (2018) collection, in which thirteen authors offer wildly varying alternative versions of Sherlock Holmes, when searching for more criminous tales by Jonathan Maberry, one of the highlights of the C. Auguste Dupin-extending collection Beyond Rue Morgue [ss] (2013).
Continue reading#1352: Little Fictions – ‘A Matter of Gravity’ (1974) by Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories, where murder and magic mingle in an alternate-history Europe, being a closed set, I had never really thought to consider the gaps between them before now.
Continue reading#1349: Little Fictions – ‘A Stretch of the Imagination’ (1973) by Randall Garrett
A gap of six years followed Randall Garrett’s sole Lord Darcy novel Too Many Magicians (1967) before he returned to the universe. Was that time well-spent in creating another strong fusion of mystery, magic, and murder?
Continue reading#1346: Little Fictions – ‘The Muddle of the Woad’ (1965) by Randall Garrett
More magic, mummery, and misdirection from Randall Garrett’s alternate history Europe, and this time a bit of an impossible crime thrown in to boot. Not that he makes much of that element.
Continue reading#1343: Little Fictions – ‘A Case of Identity’ (1964) by Randall Garrett
Another Tuesday, another Lord Darcy story, in which Randall Garrett mixes magic and detection in an alternate-history Europe.
Continue reading#1340: Little Fictions – ‘The Eyes Have It’ (1964) by Randall Garrett
Perhaps two decades a go, I read some, but not all, of the Lord Darcy series of stories by Randall Garrett, in which detection is augmented with magic. And I’ve been telling people they’re good ever since. So for Tuesdays this, and another as-yet-undetermined future, month let’s take this Fantasy Masterworks volume of the complete stories — 10 shorts, and the novel Too Many Magicians (1967) — and see how they stand up.
Continue reading#1312: Curious Incidents in the Night-Time in The Mystery of the Invisible Dog (1975) by M.V. Carey
Mary Virginia Carey was not, it seems, scared of a little velitation in her stewardship of The Three Investigators.
Continue reading#1228: “So you admire the man.” – Dear Mr. Holmes [ss] (2011) by Steve Hockensmith
I thought that the novel Holmes on the Range (2006) by Steve Hockensmith was the first time he wrote about crime-solving cowboy Gustav ‘Old Red’ Amlingmeyer, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that some earlier short stories had featured the character first.
Continue reading#1220: “About ghosts in particular he was a blatant and contemptuous sceptic.” – Wicked Spirits [ss] (2024) ed. Tony Medawar
Let’s take a moment to reflect on what Tony Medawar has done in recent years for GAD fans, with Wicked Spirits (2024) being the eighth collection of lost, forgotten, and so-rare-they-doubt-their-own-existence stories by GAD luminaries Medawar has edited under the …from the Library label. Whether we get any more after this or not, and I sincerely hope we do, it’s a wonderful body of work, and only the tip of an iceberg of effort he has been putting in for decades now.
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