The Murder Wheel (2023) by Tom Mead

Last year, I reviewed Tom Mead’s debut novel, Death and the Conjuror. I thought that the book was a solid if slightly flawed attempt at the classic locked room mystery. That didn’t stop me from looking forward to reading the next book staring ageless magician Joseph Spector: The Murder Wheel.  

“Can You Solve the Ferris Wheel Murder Case?” asks London newspapers. Edmund Ibbs hopes that he can. He’s recently taken over the defense of Carla Dean, the woman at the center of the case. She and her husband, Dominic, went for a ride on the Ferris wheel, but when the wheel was at its height, a shot rang out and the man collapsed with a bullet in his stomach. Carla’s fingerprints were all over the weapon, and the case appears to be open-and-shut. But what if…? If Carla isn’t the killer, then how was the crime committed? Could it be the“limping man” some witnesses reported seeing slink away from the crime scene? What does this have to do with the murder of a security guard at Dominic’s bank, which is connected to the shady but untouchable gangster, Titus Pilgrim? Ibbs has his work cut out for him but has little idea that the investigation is about to plunge him into the most intense 36 hours of his life.

Ibbs attends a magic show put on by “Professor Paolini,” a magician eager to cover up the damage done by the upcoming book The Master of Misdirection, an expose of magic tricks. Paolini and his assistant, Martha, wheel out a crate in which they construct a suit of armor. The crate is then spun around, and opened to reveal…well, what’s supposed to be revealed is a walking suit of armor, but instead this armor has a corpse in it. A vital witness to Ibbs’s case!

In spite of what the title might suggest, it’s this crime, not the Ferris wheel crime, that is the center of the novel. Magic, specifically the public performance aspect, is the major theme of the book. The armor murder has a lot of moving parts and suspects about, most of whom are theater staff. And yet Mead, with the help of some very nice diagrams and maps, makes this all much clearer than it has any right to be. No matter how the investigators go about it, the crime seems impossible. There’s a spare crate that could have been used in the crime, but the crates were constantly in sight of the staff and most of them can account for each other’s whereabouts during the performance. But Spector is quick to note that there were three gauntlets in the dead man’s crate, not the expected two…

But our focal character is Ibbs. Ibbs is an appealing protagonist. He’s an amateur magician himself, and he has enough intelligence to propose some good solutions to the crimes. I really liked his solution to the Ferris wheel shooting. Alas, he’s wrong. This book is much more of a Carr pastiche than Conjurer, and Ibbs is a very Carrian hero. He spends most of the narrative shadowing the investigators, being jerked around, falling in love…and finds himself at the center of another locked room. He’s approached by one of the characters with information on Dominic Dean’s murder, but when the two meet in the man’s dressing room, Ibbs is hit over the head. He wakes up to find his informant shot in the head and gun glued to his own hand. And the door is, of course, locked. Inspector Flint starts to suspect that Ibbs is a locked-room manic, forcing him to go on the run, and to Spector, to clear his name. But to give him credit, he does finally produce the solution to the Ferris wheel shooting…and this is where the problems begin.

Ultimately, I do not like the solution to the shooting. The clue that points Ibbs in the right direction is a good one, and it’s a plausible win over Spector. But I just don’t care for the solution, for reasons hard to explain without spoilers. To give Mead credit, the solution isn’t just a one-and-done deal totally disconnected from the other locked rooms: the central idea is also the main thrust of one of the other deaths. So Mead tied it together thematically, I just didn’t like the idea. I liked the other two impossible crimes better. I was worried that the armor murder was going to be overly convoluted, but while it’s complex it’s actually not finicky or pedantic. In fact, we get a good explanation of why the killer did what they did and some clever deception to make the plan work, with a nice macabre touch to top it off. The dressing room shooting wasn’t as clever, but I still liked it, in the end. The main clue is discovered off-screen, but I felt that Mead gave enough detail that a reader can at least make a plausible stab at the solution.

But that being said, I find myself dissatisfied with Mead’s cluing. I just came off reading Anthony Horowitz, and he’s very good at cluing. If the mystery hinges on the killer having a peg leg, buddy he’ll set up the killer’s peg leg. But when Mead does it, the clues feel too thin. They exist, certainly. He even footnotes them! But I just don’t see how any reader can look at the cited clues and from there deduce the killer’s love of antique dolls, for example. The book just feels a bit overstuffed with the three locked rooms, the book, the gangster, etc.

But I will give Mead credit: Carr would have been cackling at the ending.

I’m in a weird position here. Mead clearly had a blast writing this book and tying everything together, and it’s technically better than Conjuror. But I find that I liked that book just a little bit more than this. Everything clicked into place for me more there. I guess where I stand is that I read a library copy and enjoyed the experience, but if I’d bought it full price I might have been miffed at the end. If you liked Conjuror or locked room mysteries in general, I’d check this out, but I don’t know if I’d make this my first Mead, nor would it make a believer out of someone who’s not already on board with Mead or impossible crimes in general. So, with that in mind, this is Recommended, with Caveats.

Other Reviews: In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Ah, Sweet Mystery, Tangled Yarns, The Invisible Event, Crime Fiction Lover, Lesa's Book Critiques, Stephen M. Pierce, and Beneath the Stains of Time.

Moonflower Murders (2020) by Anthony Horowitz

It's been a while since I’ve read one of Anthony Horowitz’s works.

Magpie Murders is one of my favorite mystery novels, expertly combining a classic, Golden Age style mystery with a modern, more serious one, with some excellent meta storytelling. I was surprised when I heard that Horowitz was doing a sequel, since the book didn’t really lend itself to one. But now that I’ve read Moonflower Murders, I can safely say that Horowitz succeeded.

After the events of Magpie, Susan Ryeland has moved to Crete with her partner, where they run a hotel. One day, Susan is approached by Lawrence and Maureen Treherne, a couple who own a hotel of their own back in England called Branlow Hall. They need her help. Their daughter, Cecily MacNeil, has suddenly disappeared, and they believe it’s connected to an old murder at their hotel. Eight years ago, on Cecily’s wedding day, the body of a guest, Frank Parris, was discovered in his room, savagely beaten with a hammer. Suspicion quickly fell on one of the hotel’s workers, Stefan Codrescu—there was blood on his clothes and bloody money was found under his mattress—and he was duly arrested. But Cecily became convinced that he was wrongly convicted. It’s because of a book she read. Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, by Alan Conway.

So Susan troops off back to England to look into the past murder and figure out what Cecily saw in the book. Conway took a perverse joy in inserting real people into his books, often in very unflattering ways, but Susan can’t see the relationship between the book and real life:“There was no advertising executive, no wedding, no hammer.” Horowitz takes some joy in teasing the reader with the future contents of the book. He’s not so crass as to spoil the killer, but does drop a few tidbits, building anticipation for when Susan finally bites the bullet and returns to Conway.

In the meantime, Susan digs up what she can on Parris’s murder. While the crime seems straightforward, there are questions that need to be answered. Why did the dog cry out on the night of the murder? How was the killer able to enter Stefan’s room to plant evidence? Who moved the Do Not Disturb sign on Parris’s door, leading to his body being discovered? Horowitz is good about crime scenes with weird details. And then there are the suspects…sort of. Because as Susan quickly realizes, almost none of the suspects have any obvious motive for killing Parris. The only exceptions are the shady Williams’ next door. They clearly know something about the murder, but the husband likes to play games, and his wife is deeply hostile to Susan. Cecily’s unmarried sister Lisa hates her, but did she kill Parris? Cecily’s husband, Aiden, is the perfect picture of a grieving partner, but he’s quick to shut down any serious questioning. Even Alan’s ex-wife Melissa turns out to be hanging around the night of the murder. It’s a baffling and challenging mystery.

But the clues are there. I really think that Horowitz got better and better at writing mysteries. Both Moonflower and Takes the Case are loaded with clues and hints. There are multiple plausible false solutions and red herrings for readers to chase after. And the explanations are satisfying. There’s even foreshadowing for some of the twists that aren’t necessary meant to be mysteries. It’s all very well-constructed. Like in Magpie, Horowitz contrasts the complex, deliberately implausible solution from Takes the Case with the “actual” solution. I do think that it’s a little more involved than *Magpie, but that’s because Horowitz gives a lot more clues and Susan’s chain of logic leading to the killer is more involved. Some of the clues for the outer narrative are a bit slight, but during the summation I kept nodding along whenever Susan mentioned something and going. “Yes I remember that…and that…and that…” The book also contains one of the funniest clues I’ve ever seen in a mystery novel. One clue hinges on knowledge of Italian opera, but other than that I have no complaints about the cluing.

My main issue is with the pacing. Don’t get me wrong, Horowitz uses his page count wisely, and he has Christie’s knack for good conversation and description that keeps the plot moving. But some of his characters don’t really get enough screentime. I think here of Cecily’s sister, who gets one chapter very early on and then barely appears for another 300 pages. This all reflects the looser nature of Susan’s investigation, but it is a disappointing part of the narrative. There are also a couple of plot threads, like the one with Susan’s own sister, that don’t get much attention or are quietly dropped (but those are very minor ones).

But overall, I really enjoyed this book. I doubted him, but Horowitz pulled through with an excellent two-in-one mystery novel. It’s a touch below Magpie in quality, but just a touch. Recommended.

Other Reviews: CrossExaminingCrime, Ah, Sweet Mystery, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Stephen M. Pierce.

Atticus Pünd Takes the Case (2009) by Alan Conway

Image pulled from Britbox Australia's Instagram account. For some reason it's really hard to find pictures of the book cover.

It’s been a while since I’ve read one of Alan Conway’s works.

Atticus Pünd Takes the Case is the third entry in Conway’s beloved series of classic mysteries starring Holocaust survivor and great detective Atticus Pünd . I admit it’s a bit weird to be reading someone’s books so soon after their death, but I figure that Conway would rather be remembered for his detective fiction than anything else.

The book is set in the small village of Tawleigh-on-the-Water, a gentler, long-forgotten England. The intro to the book is a little slow, as we get a bird’s eye look into the villager’s lives. The central figure is Melissa James, an actress creeping close to being past her glory days. She’s the owner of the local inn, the Moonflower, but suspects that she’s being ripped off by the managers, Lance and Maureen Gardner. Not to mention there’s domestic trouble at home: She’s growing distant from her husband and her butler, Eric Chandler, has a secret of his own. Finally, she has an unpleasant run-in with Simon Cox, a producer who’s based his upcoming script around James…and she’s not interested. There are also some other hangers-on who will play a role in the plot. Such as Algernon Marsh, who’s introduced thinking about how he’s scamming Melissa and other investors before hitting a man while driving drunk. Then there’s his sister, Samantha Collins, who might be able to come into a large inheritance, and her husband, the village doctor. Conway does a good job at setting up his cast and laying the groundwork for the murder, which comes at the end of chapter 4, when Melissa is found strangled to death in her bedroom.

At this point, we introduce Atticus Pünd, fresh off solving the Ludendorff Diamond case. Which is actually a locked room mystery where jewelry vanishes from a safe to which only three people know the combination and with only one key, in possession of the owner. I liked this, it’s a good little mystery, but it does slow the plot down right when it should be ramping up. I wonder what his editor was thinking. Anyway, Pünd is contacted by Melissa’s agents to investigate the crime, and he agrees. He’s assisted in his investigation by his assistant, Madeline, and the local police officer. This guy is a great side character. He’s worked in this sleepy little town all his life and is getting close to retirement and is frustrated that his last case is a publicized murder that’s he making little progress on. I really liked his interactions with Pünd; he’s not the typical “stupid cop” of fiction.

The mystery is pretty good on the whole. Pünd quickly picks up on some odd facts about the crime. Such as the tissues in Melissa’s house, two in the bedroom, one in the living room, and a ten-minute gap in her schedule that the murder must have been committed in. Pünd is on good form, and I really liked his explanations. Conway is good about crime scenes with weird details.

The characters are good, if a bit shallow. Like I said, we get a good bird-eye view of them early on, but some get more attention than others. But they are well observed; almost as if they were pulled from life. Some of them come off quite badly—Eric in particular —but they are at least memorable.

This is a well-clued mystery. As usual for Conway, in spite of all the chaff thrown around the central crime is quite simple. While there is one implausible bit about the murder—I suspect most of you will know what I’m talking about—this is easily overlooked. We get some solid cluing and even multiple false solutions, with proper evidence for each. Even some of the smaller plot twists get cluing! It’s all very well done. And the final twist is excellent. One clue hinges on differences between English and American culture, but other than that I have no issues.

All in all, this is another excellent mystery from a writer taken from us too soon. This tale of murder and skullduggery beside the English sea is another worthy mystery. Recommended.

The Tragedy of Y (1932) by Ellery Queen

A few months ago, I reviewed The Tragedy of X, the first novel written by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee under the Barnaby Ross pen name. I admired the book more than I really liked it. I wanted to read an Ellery Queen and I was in the mood for something dense, but I acknowledge that it has problems. But the Queen cousins were busy beavers during 1932, publishing four books, including X, and they followed up the book with a sequel, The Tragedy of Y.

The book begins with the discovery of York Hatter’s body floating in the Hudson. A suicide note found on the body makes it clear that his death was self-inflicted. And no wonder, so tuts New York high society, when you consider that he was the second husband of the tyrannical Emily Hatter. Emily rules her family with an iron fist, and her husband was verbally beaten down over the years. And then there are their children. Barbara Hatter is“the most nearly human of Emily’s leaping blood,” a brilliant poetess. Conrad Hatter is much worse, a drunken playboy with a series of controversies dogging him, including one death. His long-suffering wife Martha is mother to Jackie and Billy, a pair of screeching demons who torment every adult in range. Youngest daughter Jill sleeps around, a sure sign of madness and insanity. And there’s Emily’s daughter from her first marriage, Louisa. Born blind and mute and having long grown deaf, Louisa is dependent on her mother and personal doctors for help and a board of Braille letters for communication. And yet, she has great strength and gentleness. What she does not have is the love of her siblings, who see her as an object of pity at best and a pest to be squashed at worst. Not helping the tension is that she is the apple of her mother’s eye and Emily will do anything for her daughter. But it seems that that tension is finally boiling over.

More than two months after the discovery of York’s body, someone poisons Louisa’s daily glass of eggnog. She is only spared because Jackie swipes it and gulps it down himself, barely surviving. Emily is outraged, and while she abhors the publicity, the might of the NYPD descend on the Hatter household. However, Inspector Thumm and District Attorney Bruno make no progress, even when they call about the great actor Drury Lane for his insights. Then,“a little less than two months later,” disaster. Emily Hatter is found dead in her bed. It seems that she interrupted another effort to poison Louisa and took a blow to the head from, of all things, a mandolin.

The pacing in this book is much better than in X. In retrospect, it was a mistake to have Drury bragging in that book about how he solved the case by page 100. It made him look smart but also meant all of the key information was frontloaded and made the rest of the book a drag. Here the cousins do a better job at disguising the downtime between incidents. There’s more going on as well as a more active investigation by the police and Lane. He’s still pretty sure of the solution early on, but he doesn’t brag about it and still focuses on gaining proof of the killer’s identity and making sense of the weird clues. These come from Louisa; she interacted with the killer on the night of the murder and reports that they had a smooth face and smelled of vanilla. The hooks are much stronger that its predecessor.

That being said, it does share an issue with X. The characters are memorably grotesque but are pretty shallow otherwise. We spend most of our time with Louisa and her caretakers, and while the character is memorable and the Queen cousins treat her with some respect, there’s also not much depth there. Her siblings aren’t much better. We get about one interview each and then they all but drop out of the book. And that’s not counting the family’s various hangers-on who also don’t do much after their introduction (though in fairness, most aren’t mentioned in the main cast of characters, so the cousins didn’t plan on us spending much time with them). We get more depth on Jackie and Billy’s tutor than we do some of the family members! And even then, it’s solely based around any motive he has for the crimes. The characters do what they need to do and leave. It’s efficient, if not impactful.

The mystery is very good, however. Lane’s final explanation of the killer and their actions is ruthlessly logical, debunking some casual assumptions from much earlier in the book and showing why the killer did what they did. Again, while the last book frontloaded the mystery, here the Queen cousins do a better job at sprinkling clues throughout the book. There’s even a point where I’d argue that any reader can sit down and solve the mystery, but the Queen cousins are rightfully confident that most readers won’t seriously consider the solution. Said solution is one of the best shock moments I’ve seen in a mystery novel, but the build-up to it is, again, very logical. Only the motive is a little obscure, but again, the cousins give you what you need. The reason why the killer used a mandolin? Brilliant, excellent, a real forehead-slapper that makes you go, “Why didn’t I see that!?” I did have some issues, but the overall idea is too solid to dismiss. To be as vague as possible, the solution depends on the killer making some very specific misunderstandings.*

The tone of the book is very good. Instead of the dry investigation of the previous book, we have a book that wallows in the Gothic. The doomed and grotesque family and parts of the solution pull from Gothic novels. However, some of this is not handled well. The “explanation” for the family’s madness isn’t actually stated flat-out due to the mores of the time, so if you’re not familiar with the few hints they do give, you’re going to be lost a key moment. Also, I can’t say that I’m fond of how much the cousins pound in how the state of the Hatter family is 100% on Emily and her diseased blood. And that’s not a metaphor! The misogyny is impossible to ignore.

The end of the book centers Drury Lane. He gets up to some high-handed acts that normally I’d roll my eyes at, but the cousins did a good job of building up to his decision. He doesn’t take it lightly and his summation is as much him wrestling with the magnitude of what he did as it is an explanation of the crime. It’s an interesting take on the “failable detective” idea that the Queen cousins would explore more later in their career. The “tragedy” consumes him as well. He’s still a shallow character overall, but he has some depth here.

Yes, I quite enjoyed The Tragedy of Y. There are some issues, and I don’t know if it would turn a Queen hater into a fan, but it has a better chance of that than most. This is a fascinating Gothic mystery novel that will linger in the memory. For Queen fans this is required reading, for everyone else, it’s Highly Recommended. 

Other Reviews: The Case Files of Ho-Ling, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Noah's Archives, The Green Capsule, Reading Ellery Queen (contains spoilers), Dead Yesterday, At the Scene of the Crime.

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