Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Young Carla approaches M. Poirot for his help in investigating a murder committed 16 years ago. Her mother was accused and then convicted for killing her husband, Carla's father, Amyas Crale. Crale was a famous painter and womanizer. He was known for his artistic temperament and promiscuous ways. He had several lovers in the past but used to always return to his wife. Things were different now, Elsa, his latest muse is a sublime young beauty. The middle aged Amyas has fallen for her and now wants to marry her despite him being married and having a little daughter.

Middle aged men often fall prey to their carnal desires but this man has gone too far he is keeping his muse and his wife under the same roof. The result is that foolish painter is found poisoned. His wife is accused of murder, the evidence and the battery of witnesses against her is too strong. She is convicted and dies in prison. Carla, her only daughter believes that her mother was innocent and that now she wants closure for herself and her mother. Poirot now has to investigate a murder committed 16 years ago.

Death in Five Boxes by Carter Dickson

Dr Sanders, a forensic working on a poisoning case is walking back to his home after a long day at the office. In the middle of the night he is asked for help by a beautiful young woman who asks him to accompany her to a a certain Mr Felix Haye's flat. On reaching there he is shocked too find a gathering of 4 people who look like dummies, all of them have been heavily drugged and Mr. Haye is found murdered.

 The Police find that the guests were poisoned by someone who rigged their drinks by putting atropine in their glasses. So what's so Carr(read impossible) about this murder? Once the remaining guests are revived, their statements corroborate that no one poisoned the drinks and that the glasses were watched all the time.

Add in the conspicuous disappearance of a prime suspect, another murder and a truck load of suspects and we have a case for the Old man.

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 Demon of Dartmoor by Paul Halter

At the turn of the Century in Dartmoor, a Woman was pushed down to her death from the stairs of her aesthetically beautiful home called Trerice Manor, by an Invisible hand. Fifty years later on Wish Tor peak in Dartmoor, a young beautiful woman is plunged from the peak to her death, the locals find playing cards scattered over her dead body. Next year, history repeats itself, another girl dies in the same way, witnesses claim that she was talking to an enigmatic stranger who they could not see, later two lovers reported that the poor girl was pushed in the abyss by an invisible man, again a few playing cards are splattered near the dead body. Same time next year, A third victim is claimed by the invisible man and this time the dead body of the poor girl disappears without leaving a vestige.

Few years later, Nigel Manson, a successful actor comes to Dartmoor with his wife and buys Trerice Manor, now lying in desolation. Nigel is smitten by the house and gets is restored. He invites his impresario, Frank, and his co-actor/mistress, Natalie, to spend the weekend with them. Nigel is sitting on the window ledge, of his splendid house getting photographed by his beautiful mistress who is standing at the ground below. Mrs Manson, Frank and the village doctor are in the same room as Nigel, suddenly Nigel is propelled out of the window and he cracks open his head on impact with the ground, Nigel immediately dies. Witnesses in the room, and Natalie claim that there was no one behind Nigel neither could he have slipped, so how did he fell? Witnesses claim that they felt that he was pushed from the ledge by an invisible man.

Dr Alan Twist, the famous criminologist and Inspector Archibald Hurst are called in to Dartmoor. The moors where legends of hell hounds, murderous invisible men and the red devil do the rounds in the local inn with rounds of beer, where legends and macabre tales are interwoven in the lives of the people. Twist and Hurst have to now lift the veil of superstition and catch the demon of Dartmoor before it strikes again.

The Natural Victim by Peter Raynard

Peter Raynard the author of this book, approached me to write a review of his debut novel. I would like to thank Peter for sending over a copy of this modern day murder mystery and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors and with the success of this book.

Plot Summary:

Dieter Fox, a skinny university student who along with his unnamed friend (who I'm assuming is the author) live together as the modern Holmes and Watson. Dieter is a great fan of detective novels and his home is a library filled with them. Soon there is murder in the University and Dieter gets a chance to play the detective. A friend of  Dieter's, is accused and arrested by the Police, he engages Dieter and pleads with him to do his own investigation and find out who is the real killer and get him off the hook.

Dieter has his task cut out, he now has to find the real killer among half dozen suspects, get his friend out of jail and stop the murderer before the killer can play out his/her machinations.

The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov

"He was an ideal man, almost an abstraction. Who could feel love, or even liking for such a man? A man without weaknesses serves only to make everyone else conscious of his own imperfections " - Detective Bailey in the Naked Sun.

Plainclothesman Bailey, from Earth is called upon by Solaria to investigate a murder on their planet, the first one in hundreds of years. Solaria was colonized by humans centuries ago, along with other outer planets in the galaxy. Earth is now reduced to underground cities, where people live in fear of open spaces and the Sun. Colonists who move to other planets are far superior in terms of military and technology and Earth men live in perpetual fear of these spacers.

Solaria in particular has made superlative advancements in Robotics. The ratio of 1 human to robots in solaria is 1:10,000. There are only 20,000 humans in Solaria who own large and self sufficient estates, with armies of robots to fulfill their every whim and fancy. Over a period of time human interaction has become minimum on Solaria, people seldom view each other and almost never see/meet. They use some advanced 3-D technology to interact with each other without ever meeting in person. On the other hand, Earth is over crowded and human interaction is a necessity, for this reason a detective from Earth would do a much better job of investigating a murder then a Solarian.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

What is the reason behind successful people? Did people like Bill Gates, Bill Joy, Robert Oppenheimer made it solely on their own or was there someone helping them. Gladwell explores with stats what makes the successful successful. Gladwell puts across his ideas backed by facts that success is not the work of a man alone but is the consequence of a number of factors including your heritage, your society and sometimes just sheer luck.

Gladwell argues that success of one man is never because of that man alone, but the combined efforts of his family, society and some times even rioters. Gladwell introduces and analyzes some thought provoking data, For e.g. Why most professional hockey players in Canada are born in the first calender quarter of the year, Gladwell states that the school session starts in January, now when kids are around 4-5 year old the try outs for the hockey team starts, those born in the beginning of the year have a natural advantage of their younger peers, as the extra 8-10 months give them a physical advantage over their younger counterparts.

Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot

What happens when summoning a spirit goes wrong? Grimaud Desanat got lost in the snow a year ago and now his family, friends and business associates are gathered in a remote cabin in the wilds of Northern New England. They want to summon his spirit to ask for his approval for a business proposition. sounds strange? we are only getting started. Grimaud's Widow who has now remarried is the conjurer. She does a trance in complete darkness, during a snow storm, and Grimaud's ghost pays the group a scary visit. The ghost talks, makes gestures and seemed to be floating in thin air.

Later, Mrs Grimaud or now Mrs Ogden, is found murdered in her room. people in her group saw from outside of the cabin silhouette of an axe wielding murdering her. When they get inside the room the murderer has escaped. There are footprints on the roof but no footprints on the ground below, there are no foot prints for a very long distance and then the same footprints appear in the snow and under such fantastic circumstances the only conclusion  the group could come to is that the spirit of Grimaud took possession of someone from the group and committed murder and turned him/her into a Windigo.