A Meditation on Murder by Robert Thorogood

DI Richard Poole loves England. The afternoon tea, cold weather and the formal attire. Unfortunately for him he has has been transferred to the gorgeous Saint Marie island in the Caribbean. Most folks would give their right hand to be sent to the tropical paradise, with pristine beaches and friendly faces, but not DI Poole. Poole hates the sun, the food and is not too fond of people. The man insists on wearing a blazer, tie, trousers and formal shoes in the sweltering heat; putting him in perpetual discomfort and earning him the title of pucca sahib.

 Besides Poole's poor people skills and inappropriate attire, the man is a brilliant detective. He has already solved a perplexing murder earning him the respect of his subordinates and locals. Now, Poole has another case on his hands. A seemingly kind and gentleman has been murdered in a meditation room. The room made up of paper walls was locked from inside. A meditation session was in progress with 5 people in attendance besides the victim. Cries were heard from the hut, when it was broken in, the victim a new age guru, was lying dead and a woman with a bloody knife was standing on top of him, while the other people looking dazed and confused. The woman confesses to the crime but has no recollection of how or why she killed this man? Everyone thinks that they have got the killer except DI Richard Poole.

Whistle up the Devil by Derek Smith

I have been trying to get my covetous hands on this book for sometime now, it was not in print but then the good folks at Locked Room International(LRI), led by John Pugmire made it available for mystery lovers. The paperback is still pretty expensive around $20. I kept on procrastinating because of the cost and wanted to buy an old JDC, which was around $25. Also, for some reason LRI does not publish books by the grand master. Anyways, this Christmas I did muster up the courage and finally made the purchase. Totally worth it!

A man steeped in family tradition, wants to seal himself in the middle of the night, in an old dark room, at the back of his house to have an encounter with the family ghost. Mr. Querrin does not believe in ghosts, but wants to go ahead with the family tradition anyway.  His family is not of the same opinion, they are scared out of their minds and seek help from the police and an amateur detective to help protect Querrin. Here goes: 

The room is at the end of the house, has two entrances a french window watched by a cop, who is standing a few meters away constantly gazing at the french window doors, and on the other end a a door locked from inside by Querrin. This door leads to a hall which is watched by the detective and Querrin's brother. So before midnight Querrin enters the room, shuts both the doors from inside and the two doors are now being watched from the outside, on top of that heavy run has muddied the soil outside the french windows, anyone trying to gain entry will surely leave footprints.

Impossible to get murdered right?

Seven Wonders of Crime by Paul Halter

"Beauty following the sun's example, prevents us from seeing what's around it whenever it appears." - Philon.

A Serial Killer is on the loose, he is committing one miraculous murder after another. An old man is burnt on top of a lighthouse, he is locked inside alone with no one there for miles, the police are perplexed on how was the man set on fire? It reminds the Edwardian dilettante and amateur sleuth, Owen Burns, of the lighthouse of Alexandria. The killer has a peculiar idiosyncrasy, he sends a painting of the murder and clues to the name of the victim to the police before perpetrating a wonder of crime. The killer wants to emulate the seven wonders of the ancient world in his own twisted way. His next victim, is shot on the nape by an arrow that seems to be shot from heaven, the police and the detective are baffled on how can some make this impossible shot at the back of the neck. This reminds them of the temple of Artemis.

The murderer continues to kill with impunity and each murder is more impossible, more incredulous and more baffling than the last. The murderer not only kills by sending clues before hand to the police, he also murders in a fashion which leaves the police befuddled, on top of that each murder reminds one of the seven wonders of the world. Thus, our detective in the piece calls them the Seven Wonder of Crime.

The Riddle of Monte Verita by Jean-Paul Torok

"Her Face became the face of the pretty wife, and she ran out to meet her husband."

Jean-Paul wanted to write a book which ended with now the famous last lines of Carr's "The Burning Court." - perhaps the greatest mystery novel ever written? Thinking about the ending of the The burning court still makes the hair at the back of my neck stand up. Alas, we are not reviewing the master's work.

Jean-Paul, a self confessed Carr fan tries to write a novel in the fashion of those good old GAD days. That too an impossible locked room crime novel. Jean-Paul's Pastiche is remarkable work of detective fiction especially the last 30-40 pages.

Summary:

Monte Verita, situated in beautiful Switzerland is holding a symposium, where the theme is detective fiction. Recently married, Pierre is accompanied by his young wife Solange. Pierre is an erudite on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Professor Lippi, another erudite attending the symposium, makes a speech and pokes fun of detective fiction, especially of impossible crimes, locked rooms and murders in hermetically sealed chambers. The German, Dr Hoenig and Lippi get into a raucous argument. Dr Hoenig claims that he will bring a locked room challenge in front of all present. Little did Hoenig knew that he will himself become the centre of a locked room murder. In view of two guards posted outside Hoenig's Villa, he is murdered by what appears to be a woman. The guards rush from their own villa to Hoenig's but found it locked, once they force themselves inside the killer has disappeared in thin air.

He Wouldn't Kill Patience by Carter Dickson

Edward Benton is a worried man, he is the director of the Royal Albert Zoological garden and Hitler's war is coming ever close to the Zoo . Edward lives with his daughter at their home inside the Zoo complex. Edward has become a shell of his former self, he is in perpetual agony concerning the fate of his precious animals.
The government wants to shut down the Zoo and eradicate the animals. Edward wants to save the animals and hopes to have them transported to safety and far away from the horrors of the war.

Enter a couple of warring magicians, who are invited to Edward's home for dinner along with the "Old Man", Henry Merrivale. On reaching the Benton's house they find his daughter missing and the house being conspicuously empty. Soon they discover that Edward Benton's study is locked and then the poor man is found dead inside. People around him start contemplating that since the room was locked from inside and Edward was very stressed he might have committed suicide. There was only one problem "He Wouldn't Kill Patience"

The Fourth Door by Paul Halter

Henry has had the gift since he was a child. He could perform spectacular magic tricks and bedazzle his audience with his skills as an acrobat and a conjurer. Henry lived with his father and mother, in a little village outside Oxford. Tragedy struck and Henry's mother was killed in an accident. Henry's father, Arthur, turned to a medium for solace.

The medium called Alice Latimer lives with her husband in a haunted house close to Henry's. One day Arthur is badly attacked, and left to die. His son goes missing and is blamed for the attempt on his father's life. Henry's best friend and the Latimers claim to see him at the same time at two different railway stations, but how can one man be at two places at the same time, is someone mistaken or another clever trick by Henry.

A few years later Alice Latimer, wants to do a seance and drive out the malevolent spirit from the haunted house, her husband, Patrick Latimer, offers to lock himself up in the haunted room and face the wrath of the enigmatic spirit. In front of witnesses the room is locked and sealed from outside, there is no way to either get in or out, a classic locked room, and where there is a locked room, murder can't be far behind. Poor Patrick is found murdered, but on careful scrutiny it is determined that the murdered man is not really Patrick. As more and more mysteries keep piling, the dead bodies also start piling up.

Paul Halter has been crowned the king of locked room mysteries and a successor to John Dickosn Carr, but does such an opulent title really suit him and his work?

Case For Three Detectives by Leo Bruce

Mrs Thurston is an amiable, benevolent, harmless middle aged woman. She loves to entertain and play the hostess, one evening when she was playing her part as a hostess to perfection, sleep induces her to leave her party and retire to bed. A few minutes later the guests in her drawing room below hear blood curling screams of a woman, the party rushes upstairs only to find Mrs Thurston's bedroom bolted from the inside.

They break open the door and find the poor lady murdered, her throat has been slit and there is no sign of the killer, there are two windows in the room, but looking outside they see no one and the flower bed beneath the window is undisturbed. After a through search of the room no one is found hiding in the room and there is no indication of a secret entrance. Then, where did the killer go? pretty soon people realize that they have all just witnessed a locked room murder, a locked room murder is obviously out of the league of local police sergeant, Beef.

Enter Lord Plimsoll, Amer Picon and Monsignor Smith, three amateur detectives who will remind the reader of three very famous literary detectives, as the three detectives race against each other to solve the crime, Sergeant Beef sits contemptuously in the background shouting that he has the solution, but will anyone listen?

The Incredulity of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

Continuing my reading into the Father Brown Series, and having read The Innocence of Father Brown and then the Wisdom of Father Brown, I have now corollary moved to the The Incredulity of Father Brown, which is chronologically the third book in the Father Brown series. I'm going to do capsule reviews of the eight short parables which make up The Innocence of Father Brown.

The Resurrection of Father Brown - Father Brown is perambulating in a South American town, when he is struck by two men who come from nowhere and leave the inconspicuous priest lifeless, but wait is he really dead? or is at an elaborate scheme against Christianity and the Church. No mystery here, this is the worst opening story that a book could have. The characterization is so pathetic that it is difficult to remember and care about the characters, they just seem too fanatic for my taste, either a character is too religious or too atheist. The story serves as a reminder to everyone who have forgotten the virtues and nobleness of Catholicism and the ignobility and vices of the heathen religions and the depravity of Atheism.

The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr

 Mark Despard is disturbed. His uncle Miles Despard has died and he thinks somebody poisoned him. Mrs Henderson, the maid, claims that while the house was empty and Miles was in his room, she saw the silhouette of a woman standing over his bed, giving him a drink and then disappearing through a door which was not there. Mrs Henderson could not make out who this women was but she did describe the dress that she was wearing, she was wearing the dress worn by Madame de Brinvilliers, the french serial killer who poisoned tens of people and then was caught by an ancestor of the Despards. In 1676, she was guillotined and then burnt at the stake.

There was another detail about the enigmatic visitor that Mrs Henderson missed but later recited, she felt that  the neck of the woman wasn't properly "fastened"! The Despards now think that it was the ghost of Madame de Brinvilliers who came back to take revenge on the bloodline of her nemesis, and that is how the specter escaped from a door that was not there.

Mark Despard wants to now exhume the body of his dead uncle and check if he was poisoned or not. Mark enlists two old friends for this clandestine task. Together they open the crypt where the Despards keep their dead, then they open the wooden coffin and find that apparently Miles Despard has escaped from his grave. The Coffin is empty. The Crypt has remained unperturbed since the day Miles was buried with his ancestors. Furthermore, the crypt is made of granite which is impregnable and the question of hidden passages is ruled out. So where did the dead body of Miles go? and who was the women who entered Miles room on the night of his murder and where did she disappear? In this tale of the occult, witches, poisoners and murders nobody is what they seem.

The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton was greatly inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. In 1911 Chesterton created Father Brown, a Catholic Priest who is the complete opposite of Sherlock Holmes. While Holmes used deduction and logic to solve tenebrous cases, the cleric Father Brown used intuitive and sympathetic worldliness to solve mysteries. Father Brown in most stories is accompanied by a master thief turned detective Hercule Flambeau.


The Innocence of Father Brown is a collection of short stories which were published in 1911. There are 12 stories of whose capsule reviews and plot summary you can see below.

The Blue Cross - The famous master criminal Flambeau is in London and he is being tracked down by Valentin himself, the head of the Paris Police and the most famous investigator of the world. Valentin who is searching for Flambeau all over London notices some very queer incidents involving two priests and decides to follow them. These bizzare incidents might be the work of a lunatic or of a brilliant, eccentric amateur sleuth.
We get introduced to Father Brown and also to Flambeau. Father Brown in his own stories is self effacing, he is of the Miss Marple category of detectives and not Poirot or Sir Henry Merrivale. A nice introduction to Father Brown stories.

The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson

Plot:Sir Henry Merrivale’s favorite sex siren, Marcia Tait has been murdered. She is found bludgeoned to death in a room called the Queen’s mirror, which was the 17th Century trysting place for King Charles II. Queen’s mirror is surrounded by a frozen lake if anyone steps on it then the ice would crack and that person would die a freezing death. Entry and exit to the room is restricted by only a pavilion, which is covered by snow.

Now, what is baffling the police is that there is only one set of footprints which leads towards the room. So, how did the murderer managed to escape without leaving another set of footprints?

And like in all murder mysteries there is another murder and that too of the most likely suspect.

HM and the newly promoted Chief Inspector Master’s investigate the White Priory Murders.

Till Death Do Us Part by John Dickson Carr

Till Death Do Us Part by John Dickson Carr

Dick Markham is one lucky fellow. He is a local celebrity and a successful play writer, he is also engaged to the beautiful, rich, 28 year old girl(who does not look a day over twenty) called Lesley Grant. Life could not get better for Dick. The two of them attend a local fair and Lesley insists on seeing the fortune teller alone. She is apparently unaware that the fortune teller is being played by Sir Harvey Gilman, the Home Office pathologist and expert on crime. After her conspicuous meeting with the fortune teller Lesley looks visibly perturbed. Dick confronts the fortune teller about the same and just as the fortune teller is about to make Dick Privy to a secret about Lesley Bang!  There is a shot fired and Sir Harvey Gilman is shot through the back accidentally by Lesley.

Later, Dick gets a call from the local GP's home. There he meets the convalescing Sir Harvey Gilman. Sir Harvey has dark deep secrets about Lesley. Sir Harvey tells Dick Diabolical tales about Lesley's Antecedence, he tells him that she has been married twice and engaged once and all three suitors were found dead in a locked room. All three of them committed suicide by injecting themselves with Prussic Acid. Woha! also the sweet innocent looking Lesley is actually 41 years old!

The Peacock Feather Murders by Carter Dickson

The Peacock Feather Murders aka The Ten Teacups by Carter Dickson

Mr Vance Keating a prodigal adventurer is on the lookout for his next kick, and it comes in the form of a secret society called the "Ten Teacups". Keating receives a note inviting him to the meeting of the teacups. Chief Inspector Masters also gets a note telling him about the meeting of the Ten Teacups. This makes Masters very nervous, why? because the last time there was a meeting of the ten teacups someone had been murdered under enigmatic circumstances.

Keating visits an abandoned house for the meeting, the police follow Keating and watch the empty house clandestinely. Very soon shots are fired from inside the house and the police found Mr Keating dead, lying next to a table which has ten teacups arranged in a circular manner. Keating has been shot through the back of his head and spine. The Police search the whole house and not a living soul is found. No one came inside the house, no one went out. How did Mr Keating managed to get shot?

Picture Imperfect and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay

Byomkesh Bakshi was a popular TV series in the early 1990's which aired on Doordarshan, having never watched the show and hearing many encomiums about it, I picked up the book on which the show is based. now you might ask why would I not just watch the TV show instead of reading the book? very candidly speaking I have  entered a few reading challenges this year that require me to read a mystery from Asia or your home state/country. Also I thought it would give me the opportunity to analyse Indian mystery writing to its European and American counterparts.

The stories were was originally written in Bengali and have been translated in English. Since the book consists of multiple stories, I'm going to write short capsule reviews of each one. 

The Case of the Constant Suicides by John Dickson Carr

Dr Alan Campbell a Scot, who has never been to Scotland gets a letter inviting him to meet others members of his Clan following the death of a family member. The departed soul is of Angus Campbell, a man who has plunged to his death from the window of a  locked bedroom chamber atop a tower. The insurance agent calls it a suicide but Angus's relatives call it murder. The perplexing question to be asked is how can someone murder a man who is alone in a locked room bolted from inside, and the only window to the room is inaccessible from both below and top. The relatives come up with their own conundrum which is the discovery of a dog carrier bag under the bed of Angus, the relatives contemplate that something could have escaped from the bag that would have led Angus to jump in sheer fright from the soaring high tower.

Meanwhile these questions linger on, there is another suicide attempt off the tower and a third locked room suicide, making this a Case of Constant Suicides for Dr. Gideon Fell.

Review:

The Master of the locked room Returns! For me reading Carr books releases the same endorphins as sex or chocolates. His books have everything which a being like me wants to pass over time in this world full of  otherwise mundane and monotonous sources of leisure. An Impossible Crime, eccentric and aged detectives, hint of the supernatural, mystery and magic. Enough with the Carr encomiums, lets do the book review.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux

Le mystère de la chambre jaune by Gaston Leroux.


Professor Stangerson a famous scientist on the cusp of success in his ongoing experiments is living in a Chateau outside Paris. One unholy night the professor's daughter who is also assisting the professor in his work is found grievously injured in the yellow room. When the door to the room is opened which is the only entry and exit to the room it is found that there is no one inside the room.

The Yellow room is the locked room in this book. and if you are a jd carr fan like me then you know that the locked room is the most interesting thing on God's green earth. In this book : The room has one exit which is the door and the other exit is a steel barred window, there is a bed in the room and few other furniture, and no hidden or secret passages. The solitaire door to the room is watched by the professor and his faithful servant, they were working outside the yellow room in there lab when the incident happened. after hearing the cries of the daughter, professor and the servant somehow manage to get inside the room but find no one there. how can someone hurt Miss Stangerson if no one was found inside the room? no one was seen coming and escaping from the room. The Windows were not tampered with and so was the door. The Baffling case becomes an enigma for the police and a Monica Lewinsky scandal for the media.

Enter Joseph Rouletabille, the journalist cum sleuth, with Rouletabille's advent in the book comes another mystery which is also mind boggling. Rouletabille along with some help trap the killer in a corner but he somehow manages to escape their clutches by vanishing into thin air!

Can the 18 yr old solve this case and prove the great french detective Larsan wrong? or will the yellow room always remain an enigma.

Review:

The Yellow room is written by Gaston Leroux also known worldwide for The Phantom of the Opera, you read the first 20 pages and you understand why JD carr called it the "best detective tale ever written" but that is where the best part ends the book becomes a drag after that, It feels like the author just wants to procrastinate the end, honestly I would have want to cut the novel short because although there is a lot happening in the book, the characters feels very far you do not relate them. I can say in criticism that they are not well drawn and are not seamless.

About the detective, Rouletabille: he is a journalist, but he in no Tintin. Rouletabille to me as a wannabe Sherlock Holmes who fails to create the same aura as that of the Baker Street resident. He says curious phrases to people in the novel and they react even more curiously and these phrases make no sense or reason and also Rouletabille discloses or discusses the case very little.

The Mystery and the murderer are the saving grace of the book it is no doubt an unbreakable locked room and the murderer reminds you of another ending of a famous Agatha Christie(I won't say which because this is a spoiler free blog). The explanation of the assassination attempt is satisfactory but like all locked room endings you have to be a little credulous to buy into it.


Ratings: 2 out of 5