The Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen

An eminent art dealer is dead. his family and friends have gathered in his NY home to share their grief. The dead man possessed a large estate and an art gallery, he bequeathed his temporal belongings through a will. Now the will has gone missing! Its Chaos at the dead man's house, the lawyer who was supposed to read out the will panics and orders everyone to stay put. The Police are called and they search the entire house, family and the guests, but there is no sign of the will. Where did the will go? Enter the master of deduction, Ellery Queen.

Ellery is the son of NY city Police Inspector Richard Queen. Ellery is a brilliant, high brow amateur detective, who likes to quote Shakespeare and wears a prince nez. He also has trouble concealing his own hubris. Ellery takes up the problem of the missing will and deduces that there is no place that the will could be hidden except in the dead man's coffin. The Police decide to take up Ellery's suggestion and dig up the grave, they find much more than they bargained for. Alongside the dead body of the art dealer they don't find the will but they find something much more sinister, another dead body! Two dead bodies in one coffin. How could this be? Everyone saw the one body in the coffin, and then they say the coffin being lowered in the crypt. Who is this 'new' dead man? and how did he get in the Art dealer's coffin?

Elley has his task cut out for him in a mystery which would make him famous and this book a classic in the genre.

The Killing of Polly Carter by Robert Thorogood

The incorrigible, Detective Inspector Richard Poole is back. We last met him in the sublime "A Meditation on murder" He is also the star of the TV show Death in paradise, the book is based on the characters from the same show, written by the sane author.

Plot Summary: Polly Carter is a world famous super model. She is currently staying in Saint Marie with her twin sister, Claire, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair to move about. On one fine morning Claire wakes up to find her famous sister sitting in the drawing room and smoking. Claire and Polly never had a cordial relationship, but on that morning Polly looked distinctly perturbed with Claire. Polly ignoring Claire's caretaker Sophie, pushes her to the outside lawn to have a word with her invalid sister.

Soon, Sophie witnesses an argument between the two sisters. She watches Polly pushing Claire from the lawn towards the cliff. Sophie runs after them, when she reaches the end of the cliff, she sees Claire a little distance away from the edge of the cliff still ensconced in her wheel chair, but Polly is missing!  She walks towards the edge of the cliff and sees Polly lying dead on the floor below. Polly has committed suicide.

That is the only logical conclusion. No one else was on the cliff, Claire is paralyzed from waist down she could not have pushed her sister. So, it could only have been a suicide, but then what is Richard Poole doing investigating a suicide? Poole is sure this was a murder but he has three problems. Who did it and how? and the bigger problem of his mother visiting him on Saint Marie.

The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

Plot Summary : Richard Cadogan is a famous poet who reaches Oxford in the middle of the night on his holiday. While walking on Iffley road Cadogan notices a queer shop and when curiosity gets the better of him, he enters the shop to investigate. It turns out that the shop is a toy shop and above it are living compartments. Cadogan wants to check that nothing is amiss and ventures upstairs, to his horror he discovers the dead body of a woman lying on the floor. Cadogan tries to attempt a hasty retreat but is struck on the head and is rendered unconscious. When Cadogan wakes up he runs to the Police and narrates the peculiarities of last night. When Cadogan along with the Police arrive at the spot, they find that the shop is not a toy shop but a grocery shop and there is no dead body in the premises. The Police attribute Cadogan's fantastic story to the bump on his head and leave him to his fantasies.

Vexed and Confused Cadogan approaches the Oxford University Don Gervase Fen. Together the two of them get involved in a whirlwind murder mystery adventure.

Review: Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of Bruce Montgomery who wrote nine crime fiction novels featuring the Oxford Don Gervase Fen, who is the professor of English at the St. Christopher's College(a fictional institute). The Moving Toyshop and other Fen Stories were often influenced by the master himself John Dickson Carr. So did Crispin do justice to Carr and the Impossible Crime Genre?

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.

3 in 1 Miss Marple

I read three Marples recently while I was out on vacation, so please see below a 3 in 1 post about the same.

Books read:

1. 4:50 from Paddington
2. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
3. A Caribbean Mystery

4:50 from Paddington or What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw : Written by Agatha Christie and Published in 1957. 4:50 from Paddington tells the tale of  Mrs McGillicuddy who is travelling in a train to see her friend Jane Marple. On her way she sees a woman being murdered in a crossing parallel train. The Problem is that she could not identify either the murderer or the victim and the police are unable to locate the dead woman's body on the train. The Police think of this incident as hallucinations of an old women and curb any further inquiries. Mrs McGillicuddy  narrates this incident to Miss Marple, who hatches up a scheme to nab the killer.

The Problem of the Green Capsule aka The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr

 Plot: A mad man/woman poisons chocolates in a tobacco shop in the quaint village of Sodbury cross, which leaves a child dead and few others terribly sick. Marcus Chesney's niece is suspected of the crime but Chesney does not agree with these suspicions.

Marcus Chesney is a man with many idiosyncrasies. One of which is, he believes that eye witnesses are unreliable. Marcus postulates that people are poor observers and can seldom narrate simple incidents reliably. He wants to prove this to his family and friends, who often disagree with him.

To prove his theory he sets up an elaborate charade where he sets up everything as series of traps to confuse and vex the audience. During his Pantomime, an insect like man wearing dark glasses enters the stage and makes Marcus swallow a green pill. The audience think that this part of a preconceived plan. The only problem is that Marcus ends up dead after a few minutes and the person who was supposed to play the part of the Phantom or the man who looked like a "giant insect" is also found critically injured.

Chesney's theory becomes fact. There are witnesses but all have conflicting stories to tell and even the camera which caught the whole thing seems unreliable. Dr Fell is called in to solve the problem of the green capsule.

Review: Children getting poisoned, really? is this something that you would want to read. I mean this isn't something that happens only in fiction. Crimes against children are very common and in a recent TV program called "Satyamev Jayate" perhaps the eyes of a whole nation of hypocrites were opened. But we are not here to talk about real crimes we are here to talk about fiction. 

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Plot: Dr. Watson has returned to London from a brutal war in Afghanistan, broke and convalescing from his injuries, Watson needs a place to stay. Soon, Watson meets the eccentric and brilliant Sherlock Holmes with whom he will share his residence at Baker Street. Dr Watson finds out the Holmes is a consulting detective and is a polymath whose skills in deduction are unmatched.

Police Detectives are frequent visitors to the Baker Street resident, where they seek Holmes advise on unusual and tenebrous crimes. On one such faithful day, Holmes gets a letter from the Police about a most perplexing murder. A man was found dead in an abounded house without an injury on his body but there are marks of blood in the room and "RACH" is written in blood on the wall.

Lestrade and Gregson want Holmes to help them in the case where the next victim of the murderer is the Prime suspect.

Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie

Plot: Imhotep is a Ka-priest in Ancient Egypt. A man with immense power and wealth who is both hated and loved by his family. Imhotep who is a widower is smitten by the beauty of Nofret and takes her as his concubine. Nofret is the immediate target for the hate of Imphotep's family.

Norfet thanks to her vituperative tongue makes too many enemies in Imhotep's house and when the Ka-priest is away for business Norfet is found dead at the foot of a cliff. Imhotep's family somehow convinces Imhotep that Norfet died in an unfortunate accident. But there is another unfortunate accident when Imphoteps' eldest daughter in law is found dead at the same spot.  Then what follows, is a series of horrible murders.

One by One Imphotep's family is getting murdered, but by whom? The evil spirit of Norfet seeking revenge or someone more insidious

Review: Death Comes as the End came highly recommended, and I have always enjoyed recommendations of other mystery lovers. So how did this recommendation turn out?


After you have read a few Christie novels you can identify Christie "Formulas".

The Menagerie And Other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay

A few weeks ago I did the review of Picture Imperfect and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay as part of the Global Reading challenge 2012. This led to the discovery of a good Indian author with nice and easy to read mysteries. I had of course heard of the Byomkesh Bakshi TV series which aired on Doordarshan back in the 90's, but never had the privilege of watching the exploits of  Byomkesh on TV.

The Menagerie and Other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries are set in Post Independence Bengal as opposed to Picture Imperfect and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries which was set in Pre Independence Bengal. I'm going to do capsule reviews of the 4 stories from The Menagerie like I did for Picture Imperfect. So, did Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay did better then his last outing? or our famous Bengali detective got lost in translation?

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (a graphic novel)

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (a graphic novel)

Old Colonel Protheroe was by no means a popular man. He was hated by more people the Osama Bin Laden. even his young and beautiful wife wanted him dead and thought the world would be a better place without him.

One day the colonel is found shot dead through the head in the Vicar's study. Miss Marple solves her first case.

Review:

This is going to be a short review because I read this one as a Graphic novel and the it turned out to be 47 pages. So how did the portrayal of Miss Marple in a graphic novel go?

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Arthur Hastings who is convalescing from his injuries that he has incurred during the great war, is invited by an old friend to stay with him at Styles, Essex. Styles is ruled by the old but kind Mrs Inglethorp who has recently married a young guile man called  Alfred Inglethorp. Soon Hastings discovers that Styles is filled with Conjugal and financial problems.

One fateful night Mrs Inglethorp is taken seriously ill, her body goes through violent convulsions and she dies. later, a doctor confirms that the old woman had been poisoned through strychnine. Hastings suggests to the remaining family members to call in a detective. A detective who is an old friend of Hasting and would investigate the matter discreetly, A detective who is a Belgian, A detective whose green eyes light up when he has an idea and is living in the village because wherever he goes murder follows. can you take a guess who?

The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter

She was called the Swedish Maiden by the officers investigating her disappearance. She was a young, attractive Swedish Girl who went missing twelve months ago near Wytham Woods in Oxford, England. Now, the case has got a renewed interest with the appearance of Cryptic verses which someone has sent to the Police. The Police take the help of the general public in cracking the puzzle. The Police get an overwhelming response from the public who give them different solutions to the puzzle.

Meanwhile Inspector Morse is summoned from his holiday to take over the case which has seen no success in the last one year. Morse and his faithful Sargent Lewis hit gold immediately. They discover human remains in the Woods. Trouble is that the remains are of a male and the elusive Swedish Maiden is still at large. Morse and Lewis investigate a case of Sex, Lies and Photographs.

Review:

By far the most viewed post on my blog has been Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter, and since I gave it 3 stars out of 5, I decided to give Inspector Morse another try. So how did the supposedly best book in the series fare?

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 Case of the Amorous Aunt by Erle Stanley Gardner

Linda Calhoun is afraid for her Aunt, Loraine Elmore. Linda thinks that her aunt is at that foolish age of 48 where people are often impetuous and do things extempore. So, Linda along with her boyfriend approach the famous criminal lawyer Perry Mason and tells him that her Aunt has run off with a dangerous and quirky sort of a fellow who might murder her for her money. Mason and his detective friend Paul Drake trace down the amorous aunt but it turns out that instead of the Aunt getting murdered the ignoble and beguiling boyfriend has been murdered.

The Local DA and the police now wants to prosecute the Aunt, who they believe that she seemingly under the effect of drugs murdered her boyfriend . Perry Mason gets entangled in the case of the Amorous Aunt.

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?

The Jackal Man by Kate Ellis

Clare Mayers was walking back home after a few drinks. on the solitary dark road to her house she noticed a belligerent animal, the size of a man running up towards her. The frightened girl turned and ran back but soon she found herself being strangled around the neck with a wire. An approaching car proved to be her life saver as the attacker ran on seeing the headlights. Clare described to the police that the perpetrator of her ordeal was a man wearing a dog mask.

Later, the police found another victim and this time she is not lucky. The enigmatic attacker has succeed where he failed earlier. He strangled the victim and then tore off her clothes, cut out her organs and put them in a pile neatly besides the body, and then wrapping her in linen clothes Prepared her for the afterlife just as the ancient Egyptians would.

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 Crooked Candle by Erle Stanley Gardner

Perry Mason the famous crime lawyer is hired by Carol Burbank to help her father Roger Burbank circumvent the law. Roger Burbank is accused of murdering a business associate abroad his Yacht. The victim is Roger Milfield, a man who superficially seems harmless but had many dirty secrets and had a countless list of enemies. Perry Mason has to get his client extricated, in order to do that he will have to solve the puzzle of the crooked candle.

A candle is found besides the dead body which is little burnt and is 17 degrees from perpendicular. so what about it? This seemingly frivolous candle turns out be the most vital clue in the case.

Review: Erle Stanley Gardner was one of the most prolific writers of his time. Gardner was one of the best selling authors of all time and certainly
the best in the mystery genre. but he also had his detractors like Rex stout, for example, once claimed that the Perry Mason books weren't even novels. so how did Mason and Gardner do in the case of the crooked candle?

Some buried Caesar by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe, the famous New York Detective is travelling with his assistant Archie Goodwin to an Agricultural fair north of NY. In the way the meet with an accident and the Stout Wolfe somehow ends up in the path of Caesar, no not the man who created the Roman Empire from the Republic but a prized bull who is also the focal point of a great controversy in the region.

Caesar is owned by Mr. Pratt, who is a wealthy restaurateur and plans to BBQ the prized bull for publicity. This is vehemently opposed by the Guernsey League and Mr. Pratt's neighbor Osgood who thinks that this is a ploy by Pratt to humiliate the Osgood's. Clyde Osgood makes a 10 grand bet with Pratt that he won't be able to barbecue Caesar. A worried Pratt seeks the service of Wolfe to have Archie protect the bull from any malevolent machinations, which Wolfe agrees to.

Something goes wrong the same night Clyde Osgood is found dead in the Pasture and apparently he has been gored to death by Caesar. The case is simple enough Clyde went in to steal Caesar in order to win the bet but instead got Gored to death. Two people don't believe this Clyde's father and Nero Wofle. Osgood Senior hires  Wolfe to find out what really happened.

Review:

Mystery book sellers voted Some buried Caesar as one of the top 100 favorite mystery books of the 20th century. Why not? It has everything a gripping plot which is also comical. A hardboiled Detective and his eager and impetuous Assistant, beautiful women and a decent mystery. so did it work for me?

Last bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter

A beautiful, young blonde is found raped and murdered outside a bar in Woodstock. It is discovered that the victim and a friend had earlier hitched hike to the bar in Woodstock in a red car. but neither her friend nor the
person who gave the ride are to be found, and with no witnesses to the crime The murder in Woodstock becomes an enigma.

The case is handled by the eccentric Inspector Morse and the scrupulous Sergeant Lewis. The two work meticulously to uncover modicum clues and secrets and found out that the murder could have been committed by a perverted voyeur, a cheating husband, a depressed house wife or even by one of the staff at the office where she worked.

Review:
After hearing a lot about Inspector Morse and the writing prowess of Colin Dexter, I decided to give this one a try and I chose the first book in the series. There are in total 13 books in the Inspector Morse series and a very popular and successful TV show which its acolytes swear by.

How did I find the book?