The Mill House Murders (1988/2023) by Yukito Ayatsuji (translated by Ho-Ling Wong)

1987 saw the release of The Decagon House Murders, the debut novel of Yukito Ayatsuji. Breaking from the dominate mystery that focused on social realism, Ayatsuji’s book was a fantasy. The protagonists were college students, mystery fanatics who could reference the classics of the genre, and you knew they’d actually done the reading. The set-up of an isolated island where a vengeful killer stalked, a brilliant and eccentric detective, macabre twists…this stuff just doesn’t happen. But you really don’t care. But what elevated the book was its self-awareness. Ayatsuji wasn’t just copying the past to be contrary or to set himself apart in a crowded field, he wrote like someone who loved the mysteries of old and who knew them inside and out, and that knowledge meant he could both play with the format and turn a sharp gaze on the cliches. This was literally a genre-defining book, inaugurating the genre of shin-honkaku.

Its sequel, The Mill House Murders, had a lot to live up to.

The book takes place in the titular house, a construct by architect Seiji Nakamura. The house is situated in the middle of a valley, a place where time almost seems to have stopped. The only motion are the three waterwheels of the house that power it. Its master is Kiichi Fujinuma, who retreated to the house after being crippled and disfigured in a car accident. Besides him, there’s his much younger wife Yurie, who barely knows life outside of the house, and two servants. And the artwork. For you see, Kiichi’s father Issei was a brilliant painter, whose works could delight and move. Kiichi has bought all of them and keeps them in the house, only allowing a scant few people to view them once a year. And he doesn’t even show them his father’s rarest work, The Phantom Cluster, a painting that terrified its maker.

This September 1986, the normal guests have arrived: Mori, an art professor who discovered and encouraged Issei. Oishi, a greedy and unscrupulous art dealer who nonetheless handled Issei’s work. Mitamura, the surgeon who inherited the hospital where Kiichi’s life was saved. The three are here to gawk at the artwork and maybe haggle The Phantom Cluster out of Kiichi. But there’s an unexpected guest this year, a party crasher named Kiyoshi Shimada. He’s here because of the Nakamura connection; fascinated by the bloody history that seems to cling to his houses. And because, last year, there were two other guests. Shingo Masaki, a former disciple of Issei who was staying at the house for unknown reasons. His limbs were dumped into the furnace. And there was Tsunehito Furukawa, a Buddhist priest at the Fujinuma family’s temple. He vanished from the house one year ago and is the only suspect in Masaki’s murder. But he’s also an old friend of Shimada, who just can’t believe that he would do something like that…

Similar to Decagon, Mill House uses a dual-narrative structure. Half of the story is set on the fateful night in 1985, detailing the multiple deaths and art theft that happened under the blanket of a storm. The other half is narrated by the master of the house in 1986, as Shimada waltzes into this frozen-in-time house to poke and prod at the past. When I read the book, I felt like there wasn’t much meat on its bones, but I got more into it as it went on. Ayatsuji keeps the pace going on what could easily have been a very slow and draggy narrative, especially in the present one. Kiichi is being harassed by someone who wants him out of the house, which gives us something to chew on in the present. Shimada himself is pretty subdued. He gets a good bit early on where he uses one bit of evidence to decisively prove that a thought-accidental death was actually murder, but again, he doesn’t do much until the ending. The other characters aren’t super distinct either. You get your impression the moment they appear on the page, and they don’t waver from that. Oishi doesn’t show a hidden heart of gold, Mori doesn’t suddenly find a spine, etc. We get a little more going with our narrator, but that’s it.

Still, we read a book like this for the mystery. And it’s a good one! Most of the mystery is centered on the past narrative, and the two deaths that occurred a year ago. There’s also an impossible crime to contend with, as Furukawa vanished from an upstairs annex with two witnesses playing chess downstairs. The windows don’t open enough to leave through, and there are no other hiding places up there. The explanation is well-done; technically a small part of the narrative, but Ayatsuji ties it back into the main mystery very well. The ultimate solution to the book is great. The general consensus from other reviews I’ve read is that the solution is pretty obvious. And well, kinda. I knew what was going on because I’d seen some spoilers, but even with that knowledge, I couldn’t quite make it fit into the mystery, which speaks well of the complexity. There’s a lot going on here! I will say that I think Ayatsuji tips his hand near the end, but I see that as a final big clue, freely given to those who are still lost and confused.

I don’t know how many actual clues there are. There are some bits you look back on and go, “Oh,” but they tend to be one-off statements that are easily missed in the moment. Clues seem a little thin on the ground. Even when Shimada spells out how he solved everything, it’s less through evidence and more through actually thinking through what happened that fateful night a year ago. But I don’t mind it, and I doubt you will either. The shock moment is great, the climax of a well-thought-out mystery.

So, not the same trailblazer that Decagon was, but that’s unfair to Ayatsuji. Any author would be proud of this book, and he has better to come. Highly Recommended. 

Other Reviews: Bad Player's Good Reviews, Puzzles, Riddles, and Murders, Ah, Sweet Mystery, CrossExaminingCrime, The Invisible Event, Beneath the Stains of Time, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, The Case Files of Ho-Ling, Stephen M. Pierce, Criminal Musings, 

Sleuth (1972), written by Anthony Shaffer

Among us mystery fans, the name Anthony Shaffer bring to mind fascinating-sounding-probably-good-but-we-don’t-really-know-for-sure-because-his-books-are-all-out-of-print mysteries: How Doth the Little Crocodile? or Withered Murder, co-written with his brother, Peter Schaffer.* But truthfully, Shaffer was a playwright and movie guy first and foremost. Most people know him through his adaptation of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. But for us mystery fans, he’s known for his play Sleuth. Debuting in 1970, Sleuth was a hit, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. In 1972, it was turned into a movie, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It was this film that me and my Discord friends watched.

Sleuth takes place at the home of Andrew Wyke (Lawrence Oliver), an author of classic detective fiction. He’s invited Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) over to discuss business. Namely, the business of Milo’s affair with his wife. Luckily, Wyke isn’t too bothered by it. He knows how demanding Marguerite is and has sought comfort in another woman himself. But he knows that she’s going to bleed Milo dry and so proposes a plan that should solve all their issues: They’ll stage a robbery of some valuable jewels. End result: Wyke gets the insurance money and Milo gets the resources to keep Marguerite out of Wyke’s life.

So the two go about setting up the crime, though the practical, working-class Milo is frustrated by how Wyke treats the whole thing like something out of one of his mystery novels (which in fairness, it kinda is), but he begins to get into the spirit of it. The first half of the movie is a light-hearted romp where Wyke and Milo make fools of themselves in an overcomplicated farce. The viewer knows this is going to blow up in their faces at some point. I’ll leave the details up to the interested watcher. But suffice to say that the first half of the movie ends in a shocking and visceral act of violence.

From here, the movie throws out twist after twist, so I’ll merely say that Act 2 involves a character showing up to piece together the fallout from the first half, and it becomes clear that what we saw happen and what we’re told happened don’t seem to match up…

This was a good movie. The movie spends a lot of time in Wyke’s house, and I love the design, with its creepy animatronics populating the living room. The cast is pretty limited, but they all do a good job. The dialogue is all sharp and witty until it shifts into dead seriousness. You’re never quite sure how sincere the characters are no matter what they say, tying into the theme at the center of the movie: games. The set-up just seems so silly, but it keeps going and going, with plays and counterplays. It’s almost a relief when someone finally tries to poke a hole in Wyke’s pompousness, but we’re very aware that this too, is a game, even if the characters haven’t figured it out yet. Some people might read *Sleuth as a jab at GAD fiction, but I don’t think so. I think the movie criticizes snobbery and elitism and detective fiction is just the lens Shaffer uses.

This isn’t really a fair-play mystery. There aren’t any real “clues,” or even foreshadowing. Which is fine, honestly. I will give Sleuth credit for taking a common mystery plot device that we usually think of as unrealistic and showing that it does totally work if you know what you’re doing.

All in all, Sleuth is a great psychological thriller. It’s intelligent and keeps you guessing from start to finish. And the final line is a killer. Recommended

Other Reviews: The Invisible Event.

*EDIT: I originally said that Anthony wrote The Woman in the Wardrobe. That was actually written by Peter (with some help from Anthony). I apologize for the error.

"Knockin' On Locked Door" (2014/2020) by Yuugo Aosaki

Image taken from Beneath the Stains of Time.

Yuugo Aosaki is a Japanese mystery writer. He debuted in 2012 with The Gymnasium Murder, which won the 22nd Tetsuya Ayukawa Award and earned him the title “the Ellery Queen of the Heisei Era.” As implied, his work takes its cue from Queen, featuring elaborate logical deductions from minor evidence. However, his only work that’s made it to the west is the anime adaptation of his Undead Girl Murder Farce novels.

However, thanks to Alex of The Detection Collection, I’ve been able to read one of his short stories: “Knockin’ on Locked Door,” original published in Dokuraku magazine in 2014, then published in the collection of the same name in 2016. Does it live up to the hype I’ve seen?

“Knockin’ on Locked Door” is the first entry in the Knockin’ On Locked Door series, staring the Knockin’ on Locked Door Detective Agency. The agency is comprised of Tori Gotenba, who specializes in impossible crimes, and narrator Hisami Katanashi, who specializes in “why” problems. The central idea of the series is that each story is a competition between the two men to see who will solve the case first. But the case they have here will require both their skills.

The victim is Hideo Kasumiga, a well-known painter. He was found stabbed to death in his studio one morning by his son and by one of his admirers. The door was firmly locked on the inside by a rusty lock; it can be opened from the outside, but not locked. This seems like a perfect fit for Tori, but there are some odd questions that need to be answered. First, why did the culprit vandalize one of Hideo’s works of art by painting it fully red? And why did the killer even create a locked room in the first place? There was no effort to disguise it as a suicide or accident, and the dead man wasn’t even in the habit of locking his door anyway. Hisami remains in the background for much of the story before coming in at the eleventh hour to snatch the last word from Tori.

This is a really solid story. The banter between our heroes as well as the police officer on scene, a former classmate, is amusing. And the locked room is no slouch either. There are only three suspects and none of them have much page time, so the locked room is the main focus. And it’s well-clued! A careful reader can notice the key clue that puts Tori onto the murderer, and by thinking more about what that clue implies, the reader can make a genuine attempt at seeing how the crime was done. And it’s a really creative solution. It’s not wild or improbable, just unconventional. But what elevates the story is the “why” part. I doubt that anyone would figure this out without some knowledge of a historical fact (or at least an educated guess), but it’s a really good motive and does an excellent job of justifying why there’s a locked room in the first place.

I first read this story for Alex’s New Locked Room Library. I’d binged a lot of locked rooms for that project, and when I got to this one, I was getting burned out. I’d read a lot, seen a lot of locked rooms, and was getting tired of the whole thing. There was no creativity, just the same basic solutions repackaged. And while you can argue that this is more of the same, there’s enough creativity on display in method and motive to elevate it. It’s fair to say that this story reminded me why I love locked rooms.

Obviously, this story comes Highly Recommended, and I hope to see more Aosaki in translation.

Other Reviews: The Case Files of Ho-Ling (review of entire collection), Bad Player's Good Reviews (ditto), Beneath the Stains of Time.

Monica, O My Darling (2022) directed and written by Vasan Bala

Over the past few months, I’ve been watching some murder mystery movies with friends on Discord. I wasn’t going to review them, since none of them are really classic whodunits, but I decided to put my thoughts down anyway.

Monica, O My Darling, is a Bollywood film currently on Netflix, directed and written by Vasan Bala (and co-directed by Yogesh Chandekar). The film revolves around Jayant “Jay” Arkhedkar (Rajkummar Rao), a poor boy made good: He’s a roboticist at a top-of-the-line company, he’s being promoted to the board of directors, and he’s engaged to his boss’s daughter. He’s also sleeping with the secretary, Monica. He tries to break the relationship off, but Monica tells him she’s pregnant with his child, and while she’s not not blackmailing him, she expects him to take responsibility. Jay is struggling with his next move when he’s lured to a hotel where he meets two other men: his boss’s son and the company’s CFO. Turns out that they’re also sleeping with Monica and she’s telling them she’s pregnant with their child.

The son proposes a plan: They’ll kill Monica. Specifically, they’ll gamble on it. One person will actually kill Monica, the other two will transport her body in stages. To ensure compliance, the men sign a contract and stamp it with their fingerprints. Jay finds himself on body disposal duty, and, after some antics, leaves Monica’s body in a swamp. Suffice it to say, the plot gets increasingly complex from there. Someone’s gotten their hands on that contract, and there’s a perceptive police inspector poking around…

The reason we watched this film is because it’s an adaptation of Keigo Higashino’s Heart of Brutus, which has never been translated into English but must have been accessible to the filmmakers. Based on comments from someone who’s read the book, this more or less follows the plot beats, with a few changes (Higashino didn’t have murderous cobra attacks). Jay is also more likeable than that book’s protagonist. You aren’t quite rooting for him to get away scot-free—this situation is his own fault—but you are hoping he gets himself out of the mess he’s found himself in. There are quite a few moments of black comedy as Jay keeps running into complications while trying to dispose of evidence.

The movie also has some mystery elements as Jay tries to figure out the third party who’s rampaging in the background. I really can’t call this a fair mystery per se. The movie really makes no effort to disguise the mastermind, only their motive for doing what they do. The only reason I didn’t figure it out sooner is my face-blindness. What the movie does well is foreshadowing. Almost all of the twists are set-up in advance, and multiple times I had the experience of seeing something happen and remembering how the movie had laid the foundation for it earlier. This only breaks down at the very end, with a couple of last-minute twists that left even my fellow watchers baffled.

Oh, and the police inspector deserves her own movie series.

All in all, this is a fun little movie. If you’re a mystery purist you may want to look elsewhere, but if you like crime dramas, black comedies, or just a good movie in general—or if you’re a real Keigo Higashino addict—I’d Recommend this. Check it out

The Thefts of Nick Velvet (1978) by Edward D. Hoch

A few months ago, I read some of Hoch’s Nick Velvet stories. Velvet is a gentleman thief with an odd MO. For $20,000 ($30,000 for dangerous jobs) he’ll steal anything you want…as long as it’s worthless. No gems, gold bars, or valuable paintings. Nick Velvet will steal movie props, pennies, and trash. And yet, he always has customers. The Thefts of Nick Velvet is a collection of the best of the then-released stories.

I’ve already read the first two stories, “The Theft of the Clouded Tiger” and “The Theft of the Onyx Pool” in the last collection, so we’ll move on to “The Theft of the Toy Mouse.” Velvet goes to Paris to swipe a 98-cent toy mouse being used as a prop in a movie. Nick gets the request by mail, and his client doesn’t give his full name, but a paycheck is a paycheck. This is one of those stories where the heist is the main attraction; stealing the mouse proves to be a harder job than Nick intended, but of course he pulls through. The reason for the theft is perfectly fine. I feel like it comes a bit out of nowhere and it’s based on something that I’ve never heard of. I’m sure that this thing exists, so I accept it.

“The Theft of the Meager Beavers” sees Nick hired by the Minister of Information of the Republic of Jabil, an island nation with its own baseball team, but no one to play against. Nick is supposed to find them an opposing team. He settles on the titular Beavers, a low-ranking team who’s kidnaping won’t disrupt the season. The kidnapping is surprisingly mundane for such a bonkers premise. This is the story the Open Road Media e-book advertises on the blurb, and for good reason. It’s eye-catching, and the story is deeply silly. That’s not to say that Hoch neglects the plot. Velvet can’t shake the feeling that this is about more than a baseball game. While there’s no way for the reader to figure out what’s going on, there’s a great moment when Velvet spells out and connects a bunch of information that any reader can notice and piece together. The whole thing is a bit too unreal to feel satisfying, and while I get the final line it didn’t set well with me, but you know what? I enjoyed it. Feels like Hoch noticed an odd coincidence and decided to write a story about it.

The next story has an interesting publication history: It was originally published in the British version of the magazine Argosy, and its appearance here was its first American publication. Nick Velvet is sent up to New England by a resort owner who’s facing competition from a resort up the road. The main attraction? A sea serpent! The client thinks it’s a fake but wants Velvet to snatch it anyway to strike a blow to the competitor. But the resort’s guests seem very convinced that they did see a serpent. And Velvet himself sees it up close, right before finding a body. The explanation for what the serpent is, again, silly, but I accept it in the spirit it was intended. It’s clear that Hoch was paying attention to sightings of sea serpents, noticed a certain trait, and made a story out of it.

“The Theft of the Seven Ravens” opens with Velvet being hired not to steal something. An agent of the British government wants Velvet to help protect the titular ravens, gifts from the nation of Gola. They’re an important animal in Gola and protecting them will help avert a diplomatic incident. Of course, the story would be pretty boring if Velvet just sat around and went home, so he’s approached by a young woman working on behalf someone who wants Velvet to steal the ravens. Velvet expertly plays both sides and collects his fee. There’s no real mystery here—Velvet discovers all the key information off-stage—but I thought the reason the ravens needed to be stolen was clever.

“The Theft of the Mafia Cat” sees Velvet approached by a childhood friend who has Mafia connections. He wants Velvet to swipe the right-hand cat of Mike Pirrone, a big-time man. Pirrone’s house is built like a fortress, so Velvet will have his work cut out for him. The focus here is on the heist, and it’s a joy to see Velvet at work. But the story does make it very clear how much of his success is down to him getting very lucky and rolling nat 20s on his Charisma checks; he gets off too easily in the end. The reason why his old friend needs the cat is predictable, but still clever.

Velvet has an unusual job in “The Theft from the Empty Room.” His client is Roger Surman, who’s trucking business has made him a wealthy man, but not a happy one. He wants Velvet to steal something from his importer brother Vincent's house. What is that something? Well, Surman doesn’t get a chance to tell Velvet due a surgery that will leave him incapacitated for a time. And when Velvet goes to the house, he finds that the back room is totally empty! And not just empty, but covered in a layer of dust, meaning there’s no chance that anything was in there recently. Roger’s brother claims that he’s unstable and trying to break up his marriage, but what’s really going on? The dual hook of Velvet not knowing what he’s meant to steal and the impossible aspect of nothing being in the room is great. And Hoch’s explanation is clever and set up well.

“The Theft of the Crystal Crown” is another “Velvet in Ruritania” story (there are a surprising amount of these). This time he’s in New Ionia and his target is the titular crown (actually made of glass), which is said to give its wielder de facto rulership of the nation. But outside of the actual theft of the crown—I like how Hoch manages to make each theft feel different from each other—there’s really not much to this story. There’s another plot going on in the background, but the cast is too small to have the solution be a real surprise.

“The Theft of the Circus Poster” opens with Nick meeting his client while the man is wearing clown makeup. He wants Nick to steal a circus poster from a former clown who now lives with his granddaughter. The client has already made a failed attempt at the theft which has made the granddaughter paranoid. And she is, much to Nick’s horror, a snake charmer with plenty of snakes for anyone trying to sneak in at night. Here the mystery is less “Why does the client want an old circus poster?” which gets explained partway through and more, “Why go through all this effort to steal a worthless poster when the owner would happily give it away?” and the answer to that is a good one. Nick’s final deduction hinges on an interesting trivia fact that Hoch read about, but you get all the information you need to figure out what the issue that Nick notices is. This is a fun story.

“The Theft of Nick Velvet” opens with Nick being lured to a parking lot by a man calling himself Max Solar where he’s bashed over the head and wakes up handcuffed to a bed. His captor is a former employee of the real Solar who was cheated out of a computer program. He knows that Solar was planning to hire Nick for something and preempted it. Nick, who has little interest in lying around handcuffed, talks the man and his girlfriend into stealing the item for them. The item in question is a ship’s manifest, although as usual both Nick’s clients and Solar himself are tight-lipped about why Nick needs to steal it. I enjoyed seeing how Nick steals the manifest, but then the story indulges in Hoch’s weakness: the unnecessary murder. The crime is perfunctory and Nick catches the killer out in a trivia fact. Good opening, slightly weak ending.

Nick goes to Washington in “The Theft of the General’s Trash” and is hired by some reporters to go through a general’s garbage. Said general is the president’s advisor on foreign affairs. The reporters want his garbage, but he dumps it in the incinerator every day. Also, they don’t actually know when whatever it is they’re looking for will be in there, so Velvet has to infiltrate his apartment complex multiple times. This part is great, with Velvet effortlessly slipping into what should be a very secure area and dealing with complications. I didn’t care for the resolution of the story, which involves a lot of plot twists dumped on the reader at the last second. This story also has more focus on Nick’s partner, Gloria. For the most part she hasn’t done anything but moon over Nick, but here she gets…not development, not really. The resolution feels sexist honestly. But it clearly gave Hoch a little more freedom in constructing these stories. This story is also clearly Hoch’s reaction to the then-current Watergate scandal, which is interesting.

“The Theft of the Bermuda Penny” sees Nick hired by a young woman who does want him to steal something of value. One-cent worth, to be exact. She has a penny with a mark on it and wants Nick to get its twin from gambler Alfred Cazar. Nick poses as a reporter to get close to the man and his bodyguard and ends up in a car on a road trip to Saratoga. During this Velvet gets scammed twice by Cazar, but Velvet confirms that he has the penny on him. But after a pit stop, something bizarre happens. Velvet gets in the driver’s seat, with Cazar behind him. He hears Cazar gets in, hears his voice…but when a trooper pulls the car over for speeding, Cazar is no longer in the back set! And this stretch of road is already infamous for other cases of a hitchhiker vanishing from back seats…

I first read this story in Otto Penzler’s The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries and loved it. On this read, I’ll admit that there’s one aspect of the solution that’s a little cheesy, but otherwise the central problem is very good. There’s a lot going on here, from the disappearance to the reason for the theft to the scams Cazar pulls on Velvet, etc. There’s a really strong forward pace here, and Hoch mostly keeps a hold on his plot threads (except for the one about the hitchhiker, which even Velvet feels is a let-down). The story ends with a brilliant reversal that elevates it just that little bit more. But man, Nick lets the mastermind off real easily considering what they’ve done, and for little reason too.

Like I said in my last review, once I started reading the Velvet stories as heist stories rather than mysteries, I enjoyed them a lot more. Hoch varies up the thefts with every story and keeps them fresh. And this collection did a better job at giving a variety of reasons for stealing whatever item Velvet was after. I’d say that “Empty Room” and “Bermuda Penny” are the highlights, but this is an overall good collection. Recommended

Other Reviews: Mystery*File, Beneath the Stains of Time.

The Case of the Baited Hook (1940) by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Baited Hook opens with a great hook for Perry Mason. A man wants Mason to defend an anonymous, masked woman who won’t even speak to Mason. Defend her from what? He won’t say. How will Mason know if his other work will conflict with this? He can contact the client anonymously. Is this the shadiest thing imaginable? Absolutely. But the client cuts off part of a ten-thousand-dollar bill and gives part to Mason and part to the woman. If she gives him the other part, it’s a sign that she needs his help. The whole thing is too mysterious to not attract Mason’s interest.

This being a Mason novel, things continue to escalate. In the next chapter, Mason is approached by Mrs. Tump for some legal help. She wants Mason to help her with an issue regarding her semi-adoptive daughter, Bryl Gailord. Bryl is the child of Russian immigrants who died at sea while fleeing the Bolsheviks. Mrs. Tump was entrusted with the girl, but the orphanage she sent her to sold the child to a couple. Mrs. Tump has tracked her down and believes that her stepfather, Tildings, is misusing her trust fund. Tildings is a member of a hospital’s board of directors…that’s currently being investigated for embezzlement. And Tildings himself has vanished. All that’s left of him is his bloodstained car, with a bloodstained jacket with a bullet hole in it and a handkerchief with lipstick on it in the pocket.

Until Mason and Paul Drake find his body…

Baited Hook is a rush. There’s always some new turn of events or new connection between the characters. There are multiple factions acting against each other, so Mason always has some lead to follow. This is one of the Masons where he never ends up in court (there are more of those than you think), but he still has plenty of opportunities to be the shady lawyer we all know and love. Honestly, he gets vicious in this novel; he’s at his most unscrupulous here. But in fairness, this is one of the books where everyone who says more than five words to him is either playing coy or actively lying to him. As he tells Della, “The best fighters don’t worry about what the other man may do. And if they keep things moving fast enough, the other man is too busy to do much thinking.” It’s interesting to contrast this with my last Mason read, where he was on the backburner for most of the book and even got outplayed a few times. Here he’s constantly in people’s faces, not always ahead but never behind.

Gardner raises some interesting questions throughout the book. Why were the dead man’s shoes removed? Why is the granddaughter of the hospital’s founder insisting on suspecting the trustee who is being open and transparent during the embezzlement investigation, but implicitly trusts the one who’s gone AWOL? Some of these questions get good answers, others get pretty basic ones. Penzler cheerfully admits in the introduction that the clues are rather thin on the ground here, which isn’t quite true. There are some good moments of deduction here. About halfway through, Mason overturns a major assumption about the crime and debunks a character’s story using details that the reader should have picked up on but didn’t. Mason’s reasoning as to the identity of the mysterious woman is a little vague but solid enough. But I have to admit, there’s a lot of sturm und drang building up to a pretty basic who-and-why solution. I didn’t see the killer coming and the explanation is logical, but Mason delivers it with little build-up. Not to mention that, as Mason himself points out, the police can solve it really quick by looking at a piece of evidence, which they never do until he tells them to.

But overall, I enjoyed this book. It’s what I’ve come to expect from Gardner: a rapid, ever-shifting plot, hard-boiled tone, some interesting observations of people, a lawyer’s job, and society itself, all as part of an overall wild ride. I was hooked. Recommended.

Other Reviews: The Invisible Event, Vintage Pop Fictions, Dead Yesterday, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel.

The Phantom Ragdoll (2019) by DWaM

This is the third book in a row I’ve reviewed that mixes “murder in transportation” with an impossible crime. I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s how it ended up.

DWaM’s The Phantom Ragdoll is his second original novella. I enjoyed his first novella and was looking forward to this one. And just like Leviathan, a surreal and bizarre impossible crime takes center stage.

The narrator is Noel, a frustrated man whose marriage—an open one—is on the rocks. He’s sent by his company to a distant town to do some insurance work, and he’s looking forward to trying really hard not to think about the man his wife is sleeping with. But when the old-fashioned train goes through a tunnel, Noel finds himself with plenty of distractions. After the train emerges, there’s a scream from the corridor. He emerges to find two college students outside of their compartment. The woman thinks that there’s a dead body on the floor, and claims that it just “appeared.” When Noel goes to investigate, he finds that it’s actually a ragdoll. Still no answer for how it just appeared in the few seconds they were in the dark, but that doesn’t matter. Noel barely gets back to his compartment when the woman screams again. The ragdoll is gone…and in its place is a corpse. Of a man no one recognizes. Who couldn’t have got on the train.

Noel and the other passengers are semi-detained in a nearby town where Noel meets K, a real, actual detective who’s here to investigate the murder and wants Noel to be his assistant. Not that Noel wants to be. K is the other man, you see.

It’s the dynamic between these two men that gives Ragdoll some flair. We see their relationship go from one-sided loathing on Noel’s side to more tense to mutual contempt to…certainly not respect, not even understanding, but to some sort of connection between the two men that gives the ending a little more heft. K is a fun detective character to follow anyway, with the right level of snide superiority mixed with playfulness (well, not so much from Noel’s point of view). K drops plenty of teasing hints while never explaining what exactly his thought process is, while Noel tries to deflate him in his narration. He’s very insistent that K is lying about something but seeing as what he insists are lies are really just uncomfortable facts about Noel’s marriage, it’s hard to gauge how much of this is K and how much is Noel.

But as I said, the two men do have some kind of connection at the end, to the point that I feel that the end of chapter 6 feels like a more natural endpoint and conclusion, with chapter 7 more wrapping up the mystery as a postscript. I enjoyed said mystery a little more than I did Leviathan, but it’s nothing objective. The solution hinges on multiple moving parts and coincidence, but I was able to instantly grasp what was happening, whereas with the previous DWaM I was checking back at the map to make sure I got it. I think there could have been more clues—one of them gets one mention—but in the end, if a reader really makes an effort to think about what’s actually going on, and follows K’s philosophy of never making assumptions, they can at least grasp the outline of what happened.

This was another great work by DWaM. And, like most of his stuff, you can pay what you like. Recommended.

Other Reviews: Genmajou (number 12 on the list), The Invisible Event.