The Short Stories of Edmund Crispin – Part 2: The Later Works

Back to Crispin’s ingenious and oft-neglected short stories. Last time I looked at Crispin’s early short works and this week I will look at the collecting in Fen Country, which spans the later period of his writing from 1952-1979.

Love these 70’s covers with the painstaking composition or real objects. Including in this case a stuffed cats claw.

A tiny acknowledgements page at the back tells us that Fen Country is compiled of three different collections. Firstly, many of the 26 stories on offer are from the period between 1950 and 1955 where Crispin was writing stories for the London Evening Standard (oh, to have this back again!). Two stories are taken from editions of Ellery Queens Mystery magazine, and two are taken from a collection called Winter’s Crimes, a series that I have heard a little about but would appreciate more info from those in the know. The first volume is on sale on ebay currently at £103, so it’s a rarity now?

As with Beware Of The Trains each story takes one simple problem, or one very clever and specific idea and uses that as a fulcrum for the tale. I was told by my good friend JJ of The Invisible Event  said he felt that the stories here in Fen Country didn’t contain as good plotting, but the ideas were amazing. And that is a really good way to describe it. The shockingly rigorous plotting of Beware of the Trains is not at play here, but it seems like Crispin was having a huge amount of fun, and being much bolder in experimenting, with the central concept used for each tale. There is a focus on the modernist, meta experimentations that Crispin was so good at with his novels, but pushing them to the limit. One story plays with the idea that Crispin himself is the main characters, and plays with your expectations in the reader/author relationship.

Here are my tops tales from the collection:

Who Killed Baker – (1950)
Simply a genius piece of work. This is the first in the collection and kicks things off so well as it shows where Crispin had got to in terms of manipulating the form and subverting the form. Crispin was clearly having a lot of fun here, and I’m sure this story might ruffle a few feathers. I can’t say too much more but the whole piece revolves around the simple statement ‘Who Killed Baker?’ (Geoffrey Bush?)

The Hunchback Back Cat – (1954)
‘Were ALL superstitious… whether we realise it or not. Let me give you a test’. This is Gervase Fen’s opening gambit in a story that again could have made a full novel with all that is crammed into it. It tells the story of the Copping family, a family who, due to parricidal tendencies and tragedies, there are only two left of. The murder of one of them in a locked tower (very reminiscent in description of the room in Jonathan Creek’s The Grinning Man), leads to a wonderful set of double and triple bluffs that I never saw coming. How the superstitious angle closes the case is extremely clever.

A Case in Camera – (1955)
Detective Inspector Humbleby, Crispin’s series detective inspector in the Gervase Fen stories, is keeping a case open against his superior’s wishes. His intuition has convinced him, for the moment, that the suspects statements are a little too consistent. Their alibi rests on a single photograph which places them elsewhere at the time of a brutal murder. How Fen catches them out is such a lovely idea, and again feels like one of those simple happenings that Crispin saw or experienced in day to day life, and sculpted it to be a tale of crime. This type of writing feels very Carrian, and as I have mentioned elsewhere Crispin was inspired to take up the mystery field after reading Carr.

The Pencil – (1953)
When discussing this collection with fellow blogger JJ, this was the story that came to mind for him, and it’s no surprise. Spy thriller in style, The Pencil opens with a contract killer, known only as Elliot, being kidnapped by two assailants, all of which he know would happen and so has planned accordingly.  It has an absolute kicker of an ending and in four pages does more than some novels manage to do!

Death Behind Bars – (1960)
A longer, non series piece, Murder Behind Bars considers how a man being held on suspicion of murder is killed in his locked cell. There is no way of approaching the cell in the time specified, and the murder weapon is no where to be found. Although in ,many ways you can see the solution coming, I really loved it, and it has been used a lot since (and maybe was before). I even saw it in a recent episode of The Dr Blake mysteries even though it wasn’t a locked room scenario. And the motives are especially well spun in this one. But what makes this story even more brilliant is the form that the piece takes, and how that brings everything home to you as the reader, but I’ll let you experience that for yourself.

We Know You’re Busy Writing, But We Thought You Wouldn’t Mind If We Just Dropped in for a Minute – (1969) 
A deliciously dark story, clearly based on the frustrations that Crispin experienced being a writer. The setting is a small, isolated cottage in Devon which is exactly where Crispin lived and worked. The story tells us of one Mr Bradley a writer of adventure stories who has a deadline to meet, but keeps receiving endless interruptions of all kinds at his lonely cottage. The characters here are superb, and the way that Bradley desperately tries to remember the line he was writing as he is interrupted is hilarious. The closing line however, is one of the most chilling you’ll read in a short mystery.

Those are my top stories. I highly recommend this collection. Although they are a mixed bag, I think much of this was down to restrictions in time and word count, especially for the Evening Standard pieces. This struggle for deadlines is something that Crispin showed in full in ‘We Know You’re Busy Writing…’, maybe it was a confessional piece of sorts? If you see this on your travels pick it up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Men Who Explain Miracles – Episode 5: Our personal top 15 Locked Room Mysteries – JJ’S List

The fan’s gave spoken! You asked for it, and we made it. Off the back of our 3 parter podcast on the infamous top 15 locked room mysteries list, as complied by Ed Hoch in 1981, we bring you our own personal favourites. You can listen to part one here on JJ’s blog.

Over the next two episodes of our podcast myself and JJ of The Invisible Event will take you through 30 locked room novels in rapid 30 minute delivery. We hope you get some great recommendations, and that you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed making it.

Onwards!

5 More Impossible ‘Thrillers’ to Try (Part 2)

In my last post I gave a list of 5 brilliant locked room mysteries from the golden age of crime fiction, or written in the golden age mould, that work as for runners to the ‘thriller’ genre. Page turning mysteries that never hold up on the pace.

But as with all lists picking out just 5 was too difficult, and so many great books got missed out. So I thought why miss out, let’s do some more! So here are another 5 thrilling, high paced, page turning impossible crime works, to add to your list:

1 – Murder on the Way – Theodore Roscoe (1935)

Published originally as a serial under the title ‘The Grave Must Be Deep’ this is an absolutely rip-roaring mélange of impossible madness. Locked room shootings, lead to hovering guns, lead to impossible vanishings, lead to being buried alive, lead to a woman impossibly healed after being shot in the head, and that’s just a small selection of the book’s mysteries. Constant threat and a brilliant ticking-clock-set-up give this book it’s furious pace, and the maddening claustrophobia of being stuck in one house on one island (pre-Agatha Christie) make this into a perfect example of an early thriller. It is also a book of firsts: set in Haiti it must be one of the earliest golden age crime novels to have a totally mixed race cast, with most of the main characters being black, it is also one of the very first Zombie novels – not the kind of Zombie we know today, but in it’s original Haitian origins – and it opens with the phrase ‘funny queer not funny ha-ha’ which is original to Roscoe, and which thanks to him is now an everyday part of the English language. This book will be the subject matter of our next Men Who Explain Miracles podcast as my fellow podcaster and blogger JJ went on an amazing journey himself getting this book pack into publication.

2 – Captain Cut-Throat – John Dickson Carr

Set in 1805, during the assault by Napoleon on Britain, this is a stand alone Carr and is part impossible crime work, part spy novel and part historical thriller. A silent, invisible killer known as ‘Captain Cut-Throat’, with the ability to to kill without being seen is knifing sentries in the Napoleon’s vast battle-camp poised to sail on England.

Not being hugely drawn to historical works per-se I was totally surprised by this book. The natural flow of the narrative, and the tension built by Carr with every plot point meant that I couldn’t put it down. The impossible angle is played down but gives rise to everything that follows and creates terror among the sentries that makes for a brilliant sense of hysteria throughout. There are some of the best written scenes in any Carr book here, just for the their sheer pace and the depth of the contextual framework.

3 – The Judas Window – John Dickson Carr – as Carter Dickson (1938)

I am honestly trying not to have majority Carr works here, but he has so many good examples what can I say? He isn’t called the master of the locked room for nothing. The Judas Window is hailed as one of Carr’s best, and there is very good reason for that. I also think it’s another of his most thrilling. James Answell arranges to visit his future father-in-law, Avory Hume, at his London home. Hume pours drinks for the both of them in his strong room, fitted with metal shutters on the windows and a huge wooden door with sliding bolts. But after a few sips Answell begins to lose consciousness, finally passing out, his drink being drugged. When he wakes Hume is dead, stabbed with an trophy arrow taken from the back wall. Only Answell and Hume are in the room, and only Answell’s finger prints are on the arrow, all the windows and doors being locked from the inside. Answell says he is innocent and the only one who believes him is the magnanimous Sir Henry Merrivale.

The reason I add this one to the list is for the peril in which Answell finds himself, with the ticking clock of his arrest and impending trial in court, the closing chapters of which have to be one of the best and most fast paced court room drama’s there are. I was literally racing to the end to finish it on my first read.

4 – The Tokyo Zodiac Murders – Soji Shimada (1981)

Another master work from the land of the rising sun. A harrowing prologue sets the pace for a number of brilliant impossible crimes. Painter, serial womaniser and astrological obsessive Heikichi Umezawa is found dead in his studio, locked from the inside. Only his footprints are in the snow leading up to the door and he has a head wound inflicted by an object that is nowhere to be found. Upon his death his studio is searched and a manuscript is found containing an elaborate horrific plan for Umezawa to create the perfect woman, known to him as ‘Azoth’. He would create this woman by killing his daughters and step daughters, recomposing them. And you can see what’s coming next, even though he is now dead, his plan somehow begins to be carried out, and his daughters begin to go missing. Multiple modernist breakdowns and challenges to the reader are all the more maddening, but what makes me add this book to this list particularly is the use of horror to drive the plot. There are twisting moments that rely on some pretty chilling ideas to work, not used for the sake of making something horrific for shock value, but written as a natural development to all that has happened, and therefore all the more powerful.

5 – Big Bow Mystery – Israel Zangwill – (1892)

One of the first locked room mysteries proper, and a very early example of what are now considered both locked room and thriller staples. Mrs Drabdump, owner of a working class, east end boarding house pounds on the door of one of her lodgers, who unusually hasn’t risen from bed. The door locked on the inside she begins to be worried and calls in the expertise of her neighbour, the retired detective Mr George Grodman. Breaking down the door they find the young lodger dead in his bed, throat cut from ear to ear, all windows locked from the inside and no weapon to be found. This book is marvellously written and is a pitch perfect satire of class culture and the East End of London in the late 1800’s, from a man who lived and worked there, and was one of the first books to bring humour into a story of murder. This in many ways was born from the ‘sensation’ literature of the victorian era, but with fast paced, dark twists.

What makes this one a thriller in my opinion is the pitting of the old detective George Grodman against the young gun on the scene Edward Wimp, both of whom detest each other, battling it out with old and new methods of detection. The race to finish line becomes wild as the public outcry for justice builds, with crowds and riots in the street. The last few chapters, and indeed the last few lines are as thrilling as they come. The solution to the locked room was the first of it’s kind and has been imitated no end since.

Special Mention:

6 – Killer’s Wedge – Ed McBain (1959)

Well I couldn’t just do 5 could I? Killers Wedge sees Detective Steve Corella, out on the case of a creepy locked room murder. Back at the station Virginia Dodge walks into the 87th Precinct with a gun and a bottle of Nitroglycerin. One shot into the bottle, or one knock onto the floor is enough to blow the whole block sky high. Dodge plans to kill Corella, and stating that no one can come or go until he arrives she takes the entire station hostage. Taking a seat in the centre of the room, the bottle sits perilously on the edge of the table, and with no way of communicating with Corella or each other, the remaining officers must work out a way of getting to the bottle before Dodge can use it. The suspense is nail biting, and as the heat rises you are flying through the pages to see what happens. A number of perfectly timed phone calls and arrivals in the precinct up the ante all the more.

Why this is not in the main list is for the way the locked room plays into the plot. There was some discussion, between locked room aficionados JJ and TomCat in the comments of my last post, about how much it could be said that the locked room in Killer’s Wedge provides the thrilling element. In the rest of my list the impossible angle is the origin of the thriller narrative, where as here the locked room provides a reason for Corella not to be there but doesn’t necessarily play into the hold up back at the precinct. Having said that the complexity of the locked room, means that Corella doesn’t leave quickly (which you are desperate for him to do), although again this could be any complicated crime to keep him away.

However what I think does make the locked room a thrilling element in this book, is how it works on it’s own merit. What is revealed as the door is broken down stays with you for a long time. Also the solution is one of my favourites, and this book has pride of place in my locked room collection.

So there we have it, another 6 books to fill your shelves with. I do not apologise in anyway for burdening you with for books to add to your list.

Anymore recommendations from readers? Any more great thrillers from the golden age or in the golden age mould to try?

5 Impossible Crime ‘Thrillers’ to try

I got wondering recently – after writing on a new Spanish locked room cinematic piece and asking if thrillers and locked rooms can work together – what where my favourite examples of ‘thrilling’ detective fiction?

What I mean here is the kind of golden age pieces that read like modern thrillers or that set the path for modern thrillers. Not so much in that they deal with the psychology of the killer or are as brutal and depraved as can be (although there are plenty of examples of that in the golden age, I’m looking at you Endless Night), but that they run at lightning pace as real page turners that hit the ground running and never stop.

The difficulty that comes up in blending both the thriller and the locked room seems to be that in trying to combine them, one usually gets left behind in the wake of the other. The necessary high level of pace and the need for twist after twist of a thriller can negate the intricate, methodical nature of a locked room, and (as with Contratiempo) can mean that the ultimate solution to the locked room is underwhelming or not well thought out. In the reverse, the necessarily fair, open and highly composed nature of the solid locked room can – in the hands of some writers – lesser the constant threat needed to create a ‘thriller’ proper.

Both of these genres, Locked Room and Thriller, have their own rules and needs that  allow them to operate fully in they context that they have built over these many fine years. But genres can be broken, played with and can be misleading as well.

So, with this in mind, here are 5 locked room mysteries that for me combine something of both elements with flair. Locked rooms that operate within the fair play golden age genre or mould, but that crank up the thrilling elements. We could say they are possibly more ‘thrilling’ than ‘thriller’, but I want to give you a few examples of pieces that I think show the capacity for pure pace and twist in a locked room format, many of which predate the thriller genre itself:

1 – Till Death Do us Part – John Dickson Carr (1944) 

I mean this is obvious isn’t it? If you have never read this book, and especially if you are new to Carr, this is one to go to. For me it is one of the most thrilling works of GAD fiction, and is proved by the fact that I simply cannot tell you anything about it. I can’t spoil anything, everything has to be experienced fresh. What I can say is that this is fired from the gun and never slows for breath. This left me wondering around for a few days bewildered and gobsmacked (and not many books in any genre do that for me), and is possibly the only book of detective fiction that on finishing I could have immediately picked up and started again. What I can say is that the level of twist, and the maddening psychology of the book, read like an early thriller, and it’s the context in which Carr builds the locked room, which is still intricate, fair and methodical, which allows the locked room itself to be a central giver of pace and psychology within the story. I wrote a little more on this work here.

2 – She Died A Lady – John Dickson Carr (1943) 

No it’s not going to be a whole list of just Carr’s work (although it probably could be!), but this is another fine example of plot and impossibility creating pace. Again I wont say too much here as this is another to experience fresh, but what I will say is that just when you think you know what is happening Carr knocks you side ways, takes you somewhere totally different, but then reveals that it all makes sense with what has come before. This leads, through a lovely and unexpected character interaction, to one of the most page turning, high paced endings of Carr’s work, and of the Golden Age cannon. There, I’ve said enough! If you do want a little more context you can read more of my thoughts here.

3 – Through A Glass Darkly – Helen McCloy (1951) 

A classic impossible work, and a book that really straddles the genres of early thriller and horror with the hook and mystery of an impossibility. Faustina Coyle starts a new job at an exclusive girls school, but after a few days all the girls seem to be afraid of her, teachers hurry away, a culture of fear is building up around her. When she finds out that she is being seen in two places at once, and that when the second version of her appears she drops into a slowed trance like state, she is totally at odds to explain it. But this only the start of the horror. Again I think what makes this work is that the central mystery is so entwined with the elements of horror that one gives rise to the other rather than negating the other. And the final solution, although giving a rational and plausible ending, rather than stripping away horror makes it all the more horrific. That my friends, is not easy to do, and McCloy makes it look easy.

4 – The Perfect Insider – Hiroshi Mori (1996) 

I refer here to the Japanese TV series, created from the book Subete ga F ni Naru (すべてがFになる) literally ‘When Everything Becomes F’. There are some lovely locked room ideas here across this series, and I encourage you to check it out. It does have some knock-about classic Japanese drama moments, but over all you won’t be disappointed. There are disappearing bodies from locked rooms, impossible stabbings in sealed laboratories and each resolution is strong, with some original solutions being thrown at you. I refer for this post to episodes 5 and 6 in the series, titled together Everything Becomes F (although the whole series links together so don’t just watch these two, watch it from the start). I have never been as genuinely scared by a locked room mystery as I was with these two episodes, and the claustrophobic atmosphere and ticking timer keep you on the edge of your seat. An impossible murder in a room which has sealed it’s only occupant for 15 years. The ‘reveal’ of the body is just terrifying, but I’ll leave you to find that out. I’ll be reviewing the whole series soon. You can catch it here, legally streamed, at Crunchy Roll.

5 – The London Eye Mystery – Siobhan Dowd (2008) 

A YA novel no less, and one of the best modern golden age works out there. A boy steps on to the London Eye, his pod is watched the whole time, but when it arrives at the base he has vanished. Why I include this as part of this list is that it simply never stops, there is no dropped line, no superfluous idea, every single element feeds into the building of tension and mystery, and the solution is a cracker. I reviewed this book here and my self and JJ from the Invisible Event interviewed author Robin Stevens, as part of our locked room podcast series, on creating the next in the seres The Guggenheim Mystery. 

6 – Rim Of The Pit – Hake Talbot (1944)

Okay I couldn’t resist giving you one more (in fact as I write I realise this list could keep going and going), the impossibility fest that is Rim Of The Pit. For all it’s faults this book just moves with huge action, which is facilitated by the sheer number of problems that Talbot presents. Impossibility follows impossibility reveals absurdity reveals impossibility and so on, with some of the best cliff hanger chapter endings I have read in a long time. A motley crew of family members are closed into a Canadian log cabin by a fierce snow storm. During their stay they aim to contact the spirit of a dead family member, to ask him a question, but this has terrible results, leading to locked room murders, multiple impossible footprints in the snow, appearing messages and a plethora of side mysteries. It’s the way that Talbot knocks down impossibilities one after the other, while preserving the overarching mystery that gives it its pace. This points forward to claustrophobic thrillers, and backwards to the Sherlockian style of presenting you with fast paced deductions and solutions as you go. We also discussed this with and without spoilers in our locked room podcast which you can listen to here. 

There is of course one glaring omission in this list which I will mention now so that readers don’t start thinking I’ve lost my mind, and that is of course And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. But we all know this is the fore runner to basically every good thriller ever written, so I wanted to give you a few you might not have devoured yet on your journey. But suffice to say if you haven’t read And Then There Were None, go and do it today, right now.

What are you suggestions for thrilling locked room mysteries and high paced classic detective fiction?

The Men Who Explain Miracles, Episode 2: Interview with author Robin Stevens

Super excited to announce that the second episode of The Men Who Explain Miracles podcast is now online! Started by myself and JJ of The Invisible Event, the series explores locked room mysteries and impossible crime fiction. In this episode we had the great privilege of interviewing the hugely popular YA detective fiction author Robin Stevens.

In this interview we talk writing locked room mysteries for a modern audience, Robin’s MA in classic crime fiction, female agency in detective fiction and much more. We also discuss Robin’s new book The Guggenheim Mystery which was written as the sequel to Siobhan Dowd’s wonderful impossible crime novel The London Eye Mystery, which I reviewed here.

We hope you get as much insight, intrigue and laughter as we did recording it. Enjoy, and do let me know what you think! (The Podcast can also be downloaded for listening on your devices by clicking the download button on the top right)

 

Helen McCloy: Cue for Murder (1942) – Meta-narratives and scripts for death

‘The murder mystery at the Royalty Theatre was solved through the agency of a house fly and a canary. The fly discovered the chemical evidence that so impressed the jury at the trial, but the canary provided a psychological clue to the murderer’s identity before the murder was committed. Basil Willing is still troubled by the the thought that it might have been prevented if he had read the riddle of the canary sooner.’

So opens Cue For Murder by Helen McCloy, her 5th Doctor Basil Willing mystery, and in my opinion an unsung treasure from the Golden Age of detection. As always I will be talking about elements of plot, character and set up, there will be no solution spoilers, but if you aim to read this book fresh then come back after reading!

Dr Basil Willing is a psychiatrist working for the DA’s office, but is more than helpful on the crime scene when things get complicated. McCloy uses Willing as a vehicle to explore the psychology of the criminal at work, asking why they would behave in a certain way, and looking at what the crime says about the kind of person who could have perpetrated it. And in Cue For Murder, Willing is presented with a psychological mine field.

A re-staging of the infamous nihilistic play Fedora by Victorien Sardou is taking place at the Royalty Theatre in New York. Willing knows the costume designer for the play, Pauline, and receives a ticket for the opening night. But during the first act tragedy strikes. At the back of the stage set there are a set of double doors opening onto a little alcove. When these doors a flung open during the play they reveal a corpse, lying prostrate and still, staring with dead eyes out to the crowd. This corpse however, is the actors role, and part of the corpse is usually played by a friend of the cast, made up with corpse paint to look as dead as possible. But when the curtain drops for the end of the first act the actor doesn’t move, and when the bed sheets are pulled back, the man has been stabbed in the chest with a surgical blade.

There were only four actors on stage, and only three of them approached the alcove. But when examined, none of them know the man, assuming each other had invited him to play the part. The problem then becomes how a murderer managed to stab the unidentified corpse in front of a full audience, but also why they went to such lengths.

What I love about this set up, and how McCloy uses it, is the growing layers of meta-writing she pulls off. Shortly before the play begins, Willing finds himself backstage, seeing everything from the other side. The back of the luxurious room as appearing from the audience, revealed to be chip board and stage paint. Willing then comes through a door into the audience which McCloy calls ‘the frontier between reality and illusion’. This frontier becomes the meta-narrative of the whole book.

This is further emphasised when the script is analysed, and acts as a literal script for the murderers actions, revealing the multiple moments when each of them could have done it (literally their ‘cue for murder’), a constant blurring between the fake and the real. This then leaks into every aspect of the case, with chief inspector Foyle reflecting in chapter four: ‘Its a world of make-believe–false names and false faces! How can I tell which one of these is playing a part?’ And this ‘playing a part’ is what Willing tries to untangle and decode, leading to wonderful observations about character, motive and identity. We see the struggles of fame and money, actors on the way up or the way down, and the hidden desires for appreciation.

And on top of all of all of this is the maddening clue of the canary, which Willing is certain relates to the whole case. A burglar broke into a knife-grinding shop, just next to the theatre, but didn’t steel anything, but only freed the owners canary from it’s cage:

 ‘Why risk incurring the severe penalties for burglary by breaking into a shop without stealing anything? Why prolong the risk by lingering on the premises to free a canary from it’s cage?’ 

The canary becomes a touch stone throughout the whole book, and it’s presence haunts the crime, revealing more each chapter.

The thing that most impressed me most over all about this book was why the killer went to such lengths to murder someone on stage, and what is says about their psychology. And with that the motive is an absolute punch in the stomach when all is revealed.

Criticisms? I could say that the book gets off to a slow start (but that might just have been me) and the whole thing clocks in at longer than your usual GAD novel, so could have been cut down in places, but I’m not going to fault McCloy for that really. Because, as with my thought in my last review on Christianna Brand, McCloy is another writer who seems simply to love the process of writing, and loves filling the pages with deft observation after deft observation.

There were some thoughts from a panel discussion at the Bodies From the Library conference at the British Library earlier this year, in response to a question about why so many women flourished in the detective writing genre. The panelist said that so many women became writers of detective fiction because in some ways ‘it wasn’t taken seriously’, therefore that women were ‘allowed’ to write this sort of thing. This now deeply outdated world view, in a wonderful subversion of itself, of course gave women the agency of writing which they used to excel, express and subvert that very claim, and you can see and feel McCloy using that to it’s absolute maximum. Giving us a deeply intelligent, rich novel, with quotes from classical literature, psychological and philosophical study and historical references at every turn, with a few satirical comments about ‘novel’s written by men’ thrown in too.

The ever knowledgeable Mike Grost on his writing about McCloy said that this was her most famous book for a time, and that McCloy’s works from this point only got better and better. So I’m excited for the next McCloy and exploring her oeuvre post 1942. This post 1942 list contains of course Through a Glass Darkly, which is one of the best and most creepy impossible crime novels ever, and if you haven’t read it yet go and read right now.

 

 

Christianna Brand: Suddenly At His Residence (1947)

A double impossible crime novel from a master craftswoman of strained family ties and explosive endings.

It’s funny isn’t it how you build up a certain idea about a book. Usually from half remembered things you have read, which are usually actually about another book. And I’m frustrated I waited so long to read this work based on those thought. This is my first step into the world of Brand, as it is just marvellous.

I will talk from here about plot, character and impossible set up. There will be no solution spoilers, but if you aim to read this book fresh then come back after reading!

Brand has a lovely way with words, and you can see she is a writer who really just enjoyed the process of writing and constructing, and has fun with it. All through the book is an subtly acerbic, knife edge wit, gently handled, which is both cutting and hilarious. Brand starts us out in Suddenly At His Residence with a muddled set of family ties. There are mistresses everywhere, illegitimate children, eccentricity abounding and a husband with a second lover whom his wife knows and they all hang out together. The whole set of relationships are quite absurd, but feel totally believable, and are all the more biting in satire for how ridiculous they are. For a contemporary reference, it feels like something Sally Wainwright would pen, in the mould of Last Tango in Halifax. 

Brand’s motley crew find themselves together at Swans Water, a large country mansion house owned by the blustering Sir Richard March along with is second wife Bella. March is the grandfather of many of the characters, all of whom have been have been called, along with their significant others, to Swans Water for a very specific ceremony.

His first wife of 25 years, known as Grandmama Serafita, although dead for many years is certainly not forgotten. March had begun an affair with Belle while himself and Serafita was still married, bearing Belle a son. But Serafita is a force to be reckoned with, and chapter two opens with a conversation she has with her two sons, an exhibition of her lingering power:

‘Perhaps you may outlive her, Maman,’ the sons would suggest, laughing again. 

‘No, no, I am too tactful to grow old,’ Serafita would say complacently. ‘You shall see. I shall die, still young and beautiful’ (she was at this time well over forty), ‘and your father will never forgive himself. He will bring her here, this Yarmouth Belle, with her illegitimate brat, and she shall live in my home and listen to the nothing but “Serafita”, “Serafita”, “Serafita” till she is sick of the very sound of my name –’ 

This was exactly what happened. 

The ceremony then, that Sir Richard March insists on observing each year, is a memorial service to the memory of Serafita. Prayers are said, hymns sung, portraits covered in wreaths and all the family must attend, even his second wife Belle. March then spends the night in the psuedo-Grecian style temple that Serafita had erected near the entrance gates of Swanswater, the place where she breathed her last. He takes an all night vigil in the temple ‘often holding out for as much as twenty minutes before falling off into his customary untroubled slumber.’ The grounds are also to be kept perfect for the ceremony, and her favourite flowers are planted and furiously maintained by March and his groundsman.

This means that Serafita through painting, object, and smell (a sense underused in fiction) haunts the entire of Swans Water, looking down at you from every room, and has this eerie presence over each character. This was a great way to establish atmosphere, and charges the book with an extra kick.

Later in the day when strains on the family are too much, and complications about the family inheritance are brought to breaking point, March classically marches to the temple to change his will, cutting out his entire set of grandchildren, and does not wish to be disturbed in doing so. He is found the next morning, slumped at the desk, poisoned. But one problem remains, the paths were freshly sanded after he went in, and there are no foot prints, apart from the person who found him. And he has been dead since the middle of the night.

What really impressed me about this book was the sheer amount of false solutions that Brand draws out. As the relationships in the house become more and more strained, accusations fly about how March was killed, characters accusing one another both in jest and in seriousness. These accusations present more and more ingenious false solutions, many of which I would never even have thought of and that would have made lovely solutions in other books.

As for the impossible crimes themselves, the solution to the first is still growing on me, but it works, and is very clever. The solution to the second one in my opinion is even better and is very nicely clewed. I know Kate reviewed this earlier in the year and there were some reservations about the impossible crimes, so I would love to hear your spoiler free thoughts on that.

I had read a few times recently that Brand was a master of the killer ending, and this book does not disappoint! Wow. A sudden change of pace, that also rapidly moves the plot on and reveals the killer, straining the family to their limits. I’d read the book just for that.

The thing that snagged for me with this book was the presence, or lack of presence, of Brand’s detective Cockrill. He comes into the investigation very much on the back foot, which is a great idea, but then that doesn’t seem to be expanded on. And after that we don’t really see him. The characters are the ones who bring us the main deductions and clues, Cockrill buzzes around, and does his fair share of stirring up characters to anger, and therefore hopefully to honesty, but I didn’t feel he did much else. Is this indicative of Brand? I would be interested in hearing more.

However that is an aside, and doesn’t spoil the book over all. Simply put, I cannot wait to get onto the next Brand! And thanks to Ben as well over at The Green Capsule, whose glowing reviews of some of Brand’s other work inspired me to get on and read one.

Siobhan Dowd: The London Eye Mystery (2007) – Modern impossibilities and original forms of detection

London, 24th May, 11.32 am. A young boy steps into a pod on the London eye. His two cousins watch him enter with excitement. They follow and time his entire journey. But when the pod lands and the doors open, the boy is nowhere to be seen. He has vanished into thin air.

In Young Adult fiction the is a current boom for detective fiction, impossible crimes and mysteries that call to, and draw from, the Golden Age mould, and with titles as good as The London Eye Mystery it’s no wonder.

The book follows the exploits of young Ted Spark and his big sister Kat as they try to work out what happened to their cousin Salim after vanishing from his sealed capsule on The London Eye. Dowd deftly explores family tensions, divorce, racism and death, all held in an enthralling mystery which leads Ted and Kat in a race all over London to find the solution. There are cyphers, mysterious photographs, and GAD references all over the place. What more could you ask for!

We see the story unfold from the first person perspective of Ted, whose brain, he tells us runs on ‘it’s own unique operating system’. This is a lovely way of describing Ted’s Aspergers syndrome, which gives him a different way of seeing the world, bringing him both unique insights and unique struggles as the mystery develops.

The story explores the Spark family’s loves and struggles, with a focus on Kat and Ted’s growing understanding of one another. Kat learns more and more that Ted is able to observe and understand things in a unique and critical way, able to store vast amounts of information and piece together the mechanisms of the puzzle piece by piece. But when it comes to reading body language, understanding the correct thing to say in social situations, and critically, when and how to lie to your parents, this is where the gung-ho Kat takes control of proceedings. This makes for a balanced sleuthing duo, which brings it’s fair share of ups and downs.

Ted’s ‘unique operating system’ has also given him a deep passion for a particular subject: the weather. This knowledge and memorised information about all things meteorological becomes a context for Ted to understand everything around him. A really simple tool that is used with flair by Dowd; is there a storm brewing, clouds covering his judgement or is it all a quiet front?

So what about the mystery itself? In a recent review of John Dickson Carr’s last book The Hungry Goblin, Ben over at The Green Capsule quoted and discussed a view of detective fiction construction that Carr placed into the mouth of his main character:

“Be fair with your readers; tell ‘em everything.  But don’t tell ‘em everything in a simple minded way.  First decide what the average reader will suspect – anticipate it, and fool him.  Then decide what the clever reader will suspect – anticipate it, and fool him.  Thus, all openly, you prepare your thunderbolt for the end.”

This is a great mantra for detective fiction, and one on which Dowd delivers. I had an idea of how the vanishing occurred before I read the book, which I thought was pretty high up there in terms of possible solutions, but when that was knocked down a third of the way through, along with a brilliant chapter when Ted gives us a list of 8 possible solutions to the mystery, I realised Dowd was taking the level up. And the solution is just brilliant, and a lovely twist on proceedings. I thought I was there with it by the end, but one element caught me off guard, which clue wise is fairly slapping you in the face the whole time. Dowd does not hold back in the clueing, the plotting and the solution, which would be the envy of many locked rooms writers from the Golden Age.

To refer to the title of this post, one aspect that impressed me was the actual ‘detection’ that Dowd gives us. Ted very often struggles to understand what the world is all about, especially when things don’t seem logical. He spends lot’s of time (perhaps a little too much time) telling us how he find all sorts of strange phrases and emotions difficult:

‘Mum told me it is wrong to eavesdrop on people. (Eavesdropping is a strange word. Eaves are the part of roofs that project over the wall. The only thing that drops from them is rainwater and rainwater cannot hear.)’  

Therefore when it comes to ratiocination, with regard to logical stepping stones, Ted is in his element, but when it comes to understanding how to apply those thought processes, the right moment to act, and how to tell if someone is sad, happy, confused or lying, he is at a loss. Therefore to grip onto those situations he tells us what someone else has told him is the best way to read someone, and to read a situation; a smile, teeth showing, lips bent down, hands clenched. Mr Shepherd, who we never meet, but Ted talks about as his teacher from school and one of only three friends at the start of the novel (including his Mum and Dad), comes up as a recurring figure through what he has told Ted to do in different situations and how to read other’s behaviour.

These memorised observations, as we hear Ted think through them, sound like a classic detective trying to emotionally break down his cast of suspects. Therefore there is the interesting combination between Ted’s logical mind, plus what I want to call the ‘received detection’ of those around him. I think this is an striking way of creating a ‘detective’ lead, who deduces through received wisdom. Added to this is Kat, who with her fiery, full hearted, teenage character is the one who kicks things into action each time, chasing down the lead whatever the cost.

Tragically Siobhan Dowd died of cancer in 2007, the same year this book was published, and is a huge loss to us. The Siobhan Dowd Trust was set up in her memory to give more young readers the opportunity to get their hands on books.

I was very sad to think that this would be the end of Ted and Kat’s adventures. But a wonderful light in all of this is that Robin Stevens, another brilliant YA detective fiction writer and author of the hugely popular Murder Most Unladylike series, has been given the opportunity to take on the mantle of the London Eye Mystery, and has written The Guggenheim Mystery which is released this month!

Myself and JJ at The Invisible Event will be interviewing Robin for our Men Who Explain Miracles locked room mystery podcast, so watch this space!

 

John Dickson Carr: The Men Who Explained Miracles (1963) Part 2

The Men Who Explained Miracles, is a collection of shorter stories and uncollected works from the master of the impossible crime John Dickson Carr. In my last post I focussed on the last piece in the book, a twisty novella entitled All In A Maze. For this one I will move to the eclectic range of tales that make up the first part of this collection.

There are 6 shorts in total, divided into three sections: Department of Queer Complaints contains two uncollected Colonel March stories. The blustering ex-service man tasked with explaining the more troubling crimes of Scotland Yard. Under the heading Dr Fell Stories we are presented with two shorts from the infamous hat and caped detective of some of Carr’s most famous novels. And Secret Service Stories presents us with two stand alone, non-series pieces, the first set in France and the second an historical thriller.

This all makes for a diverse range of works, spanning a number of years and containing almost every detective or type of story Carr dealt with in his career. In order of appearance:

1- William Wilson’s Racket – Colonel March

The first story in the collection considers a curious problem that the socially distinguished Lady Patricia Mortlake presents to the Department of Queer Complaints. For the past month her husband, the Right Hon. Francis Hale, has started to display strange behaviour. Every time he sees a certain advert in a news paper, he seems to go ‘off his head’. The advert only appears in the best papers and simply reads ‘William and Wilhelmina Wilson, 25Oa, Piccadilly’, nothing more. The company and the names are not listed anywhere. Lady Patricia takes in upon herself to visit the address and upon bursting into the office she finds her husband sitting in a swivel chair, a young red head on his lap, arms around his neck. After shouting and slamming the door, she waits by the main door, expecting him to come and apologise, but he doesn’t come out. When she goes back to the room to investigate, the red head and her husband have gone, leaving no trace. There are no other exits, so Frances Mortlake seems to have escaped from a watched room, and stranger still, he seems to have left all his clothes behind.

It’s just a brilliant set up! Unique to the March stories are where the impossibility itself is totally left field and also funny. The solution is a as unique as the set up, and although audacious, and not groundbreaking, all the clues are there. The story also ends with a nice little twist, leaving you wondering if all was what it seemed.

2 – The Empty Flat – Colonel March

The chilling set-up for the second Colonel March short is one of the best from the collection. Douglas Chase cannot concentrate on his late night studies as someone seems to be blaring a radio a full volume in the flat below. He heads down to speak to the owner, a Miss Kathleen Mills, also studying late night, who presumes Douglas is the one blaring the radio. They both realise that it is coming from the locked and empty flat next to Kathleen’s. No one has taken the flat on, as it is said to cause strange things to happen to it’s tenants. Douglas manages to find a way into the empty flat through the service hatch. Standing in pitch darkness he finds the radio blaring in a dark and empty flat in the room beyond. Entering the room turns it off, leaving the flat in silence. Douglas leaves thinking that it is empty, but the next morning, some building workers find the body of barrister Mr Arnot Wilson, crumpled up in the bedroom. The doctor in attendance declares that Wilson has died of cardiac and nervous shock, caused by fright.

There are two interested things to note from this tale. Firstly there is very similar opening character relationship to the start of The Case of the Constant Suicides (you’ll see what I mean when you read it). And secondly the solution to the frightening to death of Wilson, is the exact same solution, but to a different type of crime (not a frightening to death), from one of Carr’s novels. This novel was printed before this short story, but only picked up by penguin after the short story was published, which makes me wonder if Carr only re-used the solution it because the book wasn’t as popular until penguin took it up so he felt he could? (Thought on a postcard please).

3 – The Incautious Burglar – Dr Fell 

A particularly beautifully written Fell story, this short considers the problem of three super valuable paintings, two Rembrants and a Van Dyck, owned by successful businessman Marcus Hunt. There are some curious questions surrounding the paintings. Why has Hunt just moved them out of secure storage to a poorly locked room? And why has he left them in blaring sun light, which might bleach out. It is suggested that he want’s them ‘stolen’ so he can claim the insurance money.  The only problem with that suggestion, he hasn’t insured any of them for a single penny.

That night, the worst happens. A break-in wakes one of Hunt’s house guests who rushes down to find a masked burglar in a pool of blood and glass, stabbed in the chest. When the body is examined, it turns out to be Marcus Hunt, the owner of the paintings himself. The question then, why would the owner stage a break in to steal his own paintings, even though they are not insured, and who would kill him in the act?

A really nice clue about the scratches on a tea set and the width of the blade leads Dr Fell to the solution, which has a lovely misdirection. Each element is perfectly placed.

4 – Invisible Hands – Dr Fell

A lonely cliff top beach house in North Cornwall (which feels very much like the house of She Died A Lady) is the setting for the second of the Fell shorts. Society beauty Brenda Lestrange is found strangled on ‘King Arthurs Chair’, a natural rock formation in the shape of a throne, surrounded by untouched sand. And of course, there are no footprints leading up to the body or away part from her own. The solution to this one is mad, but could work, (although I think I had a better one in mind). But to Carr’s credit he makes a secondary piece of misdirection work well to solidify how the killer could get away with it.

5 – Strictly Diplomatic – Monsieur Lespinasse 

Over-worked businessman Andrew Dermot is forcibly signed off by his doctor to a spa in the south of France. Telling the Doc that he hasn’t got time to fall in love, the ironic and inevitable happens, he meets Betty Weatherill. All is going like a dream, when Betty suddenly declares she has to leave the spa that very night, and won’t explain why. Getting up from her chair she walks to the ‘arbour’ at the back of the hotel, an arched tunnel of thick flowers and vines that leads to the main building. Dermot watches her go in, but reliable witnesses on the other side say that she never came out the other end.

Again, as with All In A Maze this is a tale where Carr manages to work in the threat of spies, international espionage, double clues, secret identities, the question of reliable witnesses and an impossible situation all into about 15 pages. The solution isn’t mind blowing, but a solid entry, and again a unique location and plot.

6 – The Black Cabinet – Stand Alone Historical Psychological/Thriller

This one is a total surprise in the collection, a tale which travels through the moral and emotional struggle of revolutionary Nina Bennet, as she works out a plan to assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte. There is a brilliantly written opening scene where we see things through the eyes of a young Nina, and how her hatred of the Emperor seeded itself. We are then brought up to the present day as the clock ticks down to the assassination. Nina and her Aunt Maria, whose radical leanings have slipped away over years, battle out Nina’s decision in fraught discussion, until another strange and unexpected historical character enters the scene. Not a mystery here, or impossibility, but this one is reflective of Carr’s historical style of work, where fast paced writing explores one persons relationship to another in power.

What I found most impressive about this short, which again shows of Carr’s early feminist/pro-women out look, is that the whole story is about and told from the perspective of three strong women characters. All of whom are complex, wildly different and not parodied. There is even an interesting discussion in this story about love and beauty verses hate and revenge.

So overall, a wildly different set of stories, with some solid entries that will be loved by Carr fans for sure. This isn’t Carr’s strongest material by far, but you can see these are stories where he was stretching and expanding the form, trying things that he might not have done else where. And from that perspective, seeing a master of plot and form experiment is a fun and insightful experience.

My question in part one was why and how this collection was pulled together. My thought is that as this was published the year Carr had his stroke, and was then limited to the use of one arm, that publishers still wanted to publish something. So they brought together this mixed collection of works that weren’t as of yet on the market, so that they could still put something out? That’s my guess anyhow, but if you have anymore historically accurate knowledge than that do let me know!

John Dickson Carr: The Men Who Explained Miracles (1963) – Part 1

After finishing Carr’s short story collection The Department of Queer Complaints I was devastated. Not because it was bad, but because it was brilliant, audacious and ridiculous, and contains some of the most original impossible crime set ups going.

I wish Carr had kept producing Colonel March stories in his spare time (which I doubt he had any of, sometimes writing 7-8 novels a year, plus radio plays), and that there were another 10 collections of Queer Complaints where he could have let loose on his most mad locked room ideas. Ideas that he couldn’t try anywhere else.

With this in mind, and with my recent Carr kick going on, I was super excited to find on my last London second hand bookshop walk the collection The Men Who Explained Miracles, which contains another two Colonel March stories, alongside 4 more shorts and a novella.

As there is so much content here the short stories will have to wait till the next post, and today I will go to the end of the collection for some thoughts on the novella, a Henry Merrivale story titled All in A Maze. To have a Merrivale story alongside Colonel March, may seem odd, but in fact the collection contains his detectives March, Merrivale, Dr Fell, French detective Monsieur Lespinasse – written much in the same way as Carr’s first detective Henri Bencolin – alongside a stand alone historical short thriller. Why and how this mix-and-match collection came together, and quite late in Carr’s career, is unknown to me and if any of you have more info out there it would be great to hear it, as I imagine many of these stories were not written as late as the 60’s?

All in a Maze is a gorgeous little piece, with Carr flexing his plotting and impossible muscles to try a few more original ideas out. The story begins with Jenny Holden running out of St Paul’s cathedral, so terrified that she is flying down the main steps at unnatural speed. Journalist Tom Lockwood, seeing her impending fall, manages to catch her. They both run to the safety of a local cafe where Holden tells Lockwood that she believes someone is trying to kill her. For a story of just under 60 pages Carr manages to weave in international spies, switches of identity, double clues and a great dose of humour all round.

All in a Maze also presents us with two impossible problems. Firstly, how could Jenny, in the whispering gallery of St Paul’s cathedral, hear a voice tell her that she will die, when there is no one that could have spoken it? And secondly, later that evening, how did someone enter her locked room, turn on the gas from her fireplace to gas her to death and then escape while the room was securely locked and bolted from the inside?

I would love to know more about how Carr reached his impossible crime ideas, as it often feels he must have been inspired by a location or a generally interesting domestic occurrence to create an impossible puzzle. You can imagine him on a day out with his wife and kids, or at a friends house and seeing the cogs suddenly turning as an new idea comes to mind when someone tops up the electric meter or shuts a window in a funny way. It’s those relationships to a particular setting, atmosphere or everyday situation that gives much of Carr’s work it’s original feel, and the puzzles their unique quality.

The whispering gallery solution is basically the only one there could be, but I won’t fault Carr for that, and the locked room solution is super tidy, and could have been a sub mystery to a larger novel if Carr had wanted. The proofs for the locked room are also really tight, and I appreciate the dedication to plot and solution that Carr strives for even in a short story. It’s not going to blow your mind, but it will leave you feeling satisfied for sure.

But a really memorable part of this novella, is a brilliant and super clever connection between the first impossible problem and the second, with the misunderstanding of a single word uttered by Merrivale. It’s a genius move by Carr as it could throw you off the scent in a clever way, and feels like it could be a part of a central mystery in a Jonathan Creek episode. I’ll leave you to find that one out. The final few pages are a high-speed finish, from which the story gets the nice double meaning of it’s title.

Part two, the short stories, to follow soon.

UPDATE: You can now read part two of my review here.

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P.s – I am also aware of the Merrivale, March and Murder collection, which I hope to get at some point, although it doesn’t contain any other new Colonel March stories that are not in this collection or Department of Queer Complaints. Although the other pieces in there look great.