#539: The Origin of Evil – Contrasting Malice Aforethought (1931) by Francis Iles with The Colour of Murder (1957) by Julian Symons

June 15, 2019June 14, 2019 / JJ / 6 Comments

Genre is essentially the formalisation of deja vu. Those of us who return to — or avoid — particular genres do so because of the essential ingredients that recur there, whether through implicit rules or otherwise.

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#521: Spoiler Warning 10 – Tantei Gakuen Q/Detective School Q: ‘The Kamikakushi Village Murder Case’ (2003)

May 4, 2019March 21, 2020 / JJ / 38 Comments

Apologies, we’re a bit late — there were some hold-ups on my end of things — but here at last are the thoughts of the blogosphere’s resident impossible crime expert TomCat and myself on ‘The Kamikakushi Village Murder Case’, part of the Tantei Gakuen Q (Detective Academy Q) anime based on the manga of the same name.

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#515: A Little Help for My Friends – Finding a Modern Locked Room Mystery for TomCat Attempt #10: Angel Killer (2014) by Andrew Mayne

April 20, 2019June 12, 2021 / JJ / 40 Comments

The appeal of detective fiction and impossible crime novels for me is their potential for elegance, for taking something that seems utterly baffling and rendering it clear through intelligent deployment of a few key ideas. This achieved peak density during the Golden Age, which is why that era earned that sobriquet, and it feels like it’s been downhill ever since.

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#509: Fair-Play/Cipher – The Baffle Book (1930) by Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay [ed. F. Tennyson Jesse] Problems 1 to 7

April 6, 2019March 20, 2021 / JJ / 11 Comments

You like puzzles, you like detective fiction, so you’d love a puzzle book about detective fiction. Lo, I give you The Baffle Book — originally running to at least three volumes from what I can ascertain, and here boasting two authors and an editor for reasons that will soon become clear.

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#491: Spoiler Warning 9 – Mr. Priestley’s Problem, a.k.a. The Amateur Crime (1927) by Anthony Berkeley [a.p.a. by A.B. Cox]

January 26, 2019March 21, 2020 / JJ / 2 Comments

Here we go again, with the usual warnings: this post discusses in spoiler-heavy detail elements of the plot of Mr. Priestley’s Problem, a.k.a. The Amateur Crime (1927) by Anthony Berkeley, also published under the name of A.B. Cox.

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#464: The Wrong Stuff – Patience and the Detective Story via Station (2008) by Johanna Stokes and Leno Carvalho

November 24, 2018November 23, 2018 / JJ / 10 Comments

I was lured into Station by its format as much as its premise: a graphic novel telling a tale of murder on the International Space Station.

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#455: With Reiterated Crimes He Might Heap on Himself Damnation – Failure (Holy) Writ Large in The Sinister Student (2016) by Kel Richards

November 3, 2018November 2, 2018 / JJ / 22 Comments

Had I gotten round to this sooner, it may have qualified as a Modern Locked Room Mystery for TomCat attempt, but TomCat has already read this one and so really all that remained was to see if I was equally underwhelmed by it.

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#446: Spoiler Warning 8 – Halfway House (1936) by Ellery Queen

October 13, 2018March 21, 2020 / JJ / 70 Comments

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay our respects to the detective fiction novel Halfway House (1936) written by Manfred Lee and Frederic Dannay under their Ellery Queen nom de plume. As the title suggests, there will be spoilers — lots and lots of spoilers, so only proceed if you’ve done the necessary pre-reading…

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#418: Spoiler Warning 7 – Fog of Doubt, a.k.a. London Particular (1952) by Christianna Brand

July 28, 2018April 4, 2024 / JJ / 36 Comments

As discussed previously, we are here today to find out how good I am at spotting clues and things in the detective novel London Particular, a.k.a. Fog of Doubt (1952) by Christianna Brand. We’ll be doing this by examining my thoughts on a chapter-by-chapter basis and there will be spoilers. Do not read futher if you wish to remain unspoiled.

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#412: On the Appeal of Impossible Crimes – At Death’s Door…

July 14, 2018July 15, 2018 / JJ / 11 Comments

I’ll he honest, I’m not really sure what this post is about. See, I’ve been mulling the appeal of the impossible crime novel for, well, years now, and having previously looked at what makes something an impossible crime the thing I’ve been mulling lately why the concept of an impossible crime is so appealing. This, then, is the end result of those lucubrations, unfocused as they are despite being pinned on a very small area of interest.

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