Image taken from the Puzzle Doctor's review, linked below.
Off the Record doesn’t refer to reporting, but to recording. Specifically, to advances in sound recording. According to the author’s note, after fifty years of dominance, gramophones were challenged by radio, which easily surpassed them in sound quality. The only hope for them was to embrace electrical recording. Such is the issue facing Charles Otterborne, president of New Century Works. His salvation is in the form of Professor Carrington, who has invented a new method of electrical recording. Unfortunately, on the day he arrives to negotiate, things go horribly wrong. Otterborne is shot to death and Carrington is on the spot. His belligerence and history of mental problems do not serve him well, and he kills himself in his cell. The only salve for his reputation is that Otterborne’s death is ruled a suicide, as he was on the verge of being exposed for embezzling from his own company. That’s the end of it, as far as the police are concerned, but the "Stoke Horan suicides" cast a shadow over events to come.
A few weeks later, Hector Fergeson comes to Haldean with some concerns. His stepfather is Stephen Dunbar, the owner of the company that would have produced Professor Carrington’s machine. Oddly, even though his scientist and potential business partner are both dead, Dunbar is cheery, acting like he has an ace up his sleeve. Fergeson knows his stepfather is a ruthless man and asks Haldean to see what he can dig up. Haldean doesn’t get very far before someone shoots Dunbar in his hotel room.
The best suspect is Gerry Carrington, Professor Carrington’s son. He has a temper to match his old man’s and met with Dunbar minutes before his death. Half of the other suspects seem to think he’s guilty as well, but they dance around it out of sympathy. What about Dunbar’s wife, an actress and daughter of a murderer? She’s quick to challenge all suspicions against her in a dramatic monologue that’s one of the funniest scenes of the book. And then there’s Steven Lewis, Otterborne’s son-in-law, and his wife, Molly. And what does a violent assault on Lewis’s uncle have to do with this? Honestly, this is quite a violent book. There are six deaths by the end of it!
Gordon-Smith does a good job with a complex mystery. She has a firm grasp on pacing and doling out suspicion. Multiple times when reading I thought to myself, "You know, X hasn’t been mentioned in a while, I wonder if…" and lo and behold, every time, by the end of that chapter or the next, X had shown up and had plausible suspicion attached to them. Her characters are sympathetic enough that you can’t quite pin down who would be the best suspect. I know that some mystery fans will be on their guard as soon as the phrase “recording device” is mentioned, and while Gordon-Smith doesn’t do anything innovative with the idea, it’s still woven well into the plot.
The story isn’t perfect mind you. I had an issue with how Gordon-Smith uses a certain something. (ROT13: V qba’g guvax fvyrapref jbex gung jryy.) Also, while I thought that the plot was genuinely clever and that the main clue pointing to the big reveal was very good, it also felt to me like that was the only major clue. Once you realize X the mystery falls into place, but it didn't feel like there was as much pointing to X as there could have been.
My griping aside, I enjoyed this book. Gordon-Smith does an excellent job of writing a Golden Age-style novel that will challenge and entertain the reader. After I read it, I immediately wanted to pick up another one, and in light of that, I can safely Recommend this book.
Other Reviews: In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel and The Invisible Event.
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