I’ve been moved of late to give some thought as to what my favourite examples of my favourite subgenre of detective fiction could possibly be. And I’m finally willing to commit — so here are, for today at least, my ten favourite impossible crimes in fiction.
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I’ve already looked at one story with this title this week, so let’s complete the set, eh? This Blind Man’s Bluff (1943) is the fourth of Baynard Kendrick’s mysteries featuring Captain Duncan Maclain, and the second to be reprinted in the American Mystery Classics range. Having previously enjoyed The Odor of Violets (1941), I’m pleased to report that this is a stronger mystery, with a steadier core plot and enough unusual ideas stirred in to make a third visit with Maclain, should the AMC so wish it, rather appealing. The detective story and the pulp thriller have rarely meshed so well in my — admittedly, limited — experience, and I’m keen for more.
Published approximately a year ago, this translation of Un Assassin, Ça Va Ça Vient (1981) as Death on Bastille Day kept eluding my attention if only because I was holding out for a paperback edition. The vagaries of publishing have restricted it to Kindle only, however, and so I come to this story of a man in two places at the same time — dancing in front of some witnesses, while committing a murder in front of another — rather belatedly. And while I’m grateful for the opportunity to have read it, as with all translated works, I can’t help but feel that it would make an excellent short story, lacking as it does sufficient intrigue to support its far from excessive length.
Bodies from the Library 6 (2023) represents another delightful foray into the neglected and forgotten stories from many of the luminaries of the Golden Age, as editor Tony Medawar puts his enviable genre awareness to wonderful use bringing yet more gems to public attention.
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Astoundingly, Who Killed Father Christmas? (2023) is the fifth collection of seasonal mysteries collated by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics range. And, with the BL kind enough to provide me with a review copy, it seemed like the perfect excuse to start some Christmas reading a little earlier than planned.
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In these classic reprint-rich days, the work of Tom Mead — not just recycling the past, but building upon it by paying informed homage — feels like a breath of fresh air. His debut Death and the Conjuror (2022) was a genuine puzzle plot filled with the playfulness of this most spirited of genres, and if sophomore effort The Murder Wheel (2023) isn’t quite as successful, Mead deserves huge credit for the love he brings to his writing — and how superbly readable that writing is, never feeling weighed down by an excess of referencing or the weight of the history he is so lovingly revisiting. This is still bags of fun, and bodes well for what I hope is going to be a long and storied career.
I’m pretty sure that Sealed Room Murder (1941), the eighth and final novel by Rupert Penny to feature Chief Inspector Edward Beale, was only the second-ever book I read from Ramble House, and it made me an instant fan of Penny. So now I return to it to get my thoughts on record, and see whether I’ve been remiss in singing its praises for all these years.
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I’ve written previously about The Red Widow Murders (1935) — John Dickson Carr’s first take on the Room That Kills, originally published under his Carter Dickson nom de plume — but this American Mystery Classics reissue is a chance to look at the book more broadly and attach a star value to it. This third reading reinforced my impression that it’s perhaps too busy a book, redolent with the enthusiasm the youthful Carr brought to his early efforts when his eagerness outweighed his skill with juggling plot, but reading it three times also give me a good perspective on its many successes, not least of which is just how busy Carr manages to make it.
Season 4 of Monk is upon us — well, upon the blog, because it aired 18 years ago and I’m only just catching up — and, since I’ve approached the three previous seasons in slightly different ways, let’s mix things up again and rank the sixteen episodes here from worst to best, eh?
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Good heavens, after this second reading of Christianna Brand’s Suddenly at His Residence, a.k.a. The Crooked Wreath (1946) do I have plenty of Thoughts. Indeed, I have so many Thoughts that I’m deliberately writing about it on a Thursday so that my self-imposed 1,000 word limit stops me going on for about four times that length, to the enjoyment of no-one. So: Sir Richard March, tiring of the attitudes of his grandchildren, threatens to rewrite his will, retires to the lodge in the grounds of Swanswater Manor for this express purpose…and is discovered dead the following morning. Having been visited by various people throughout the previous evening, who actually poisoned him?
The Invisible Event 