“This has been no ordinary mystery. There have been more bodies, more clues, more deceptions, than even Joseph Spector is accustomed to. And yet there remains only one solution. A single answer to this concatenation of puzzles and impossibilities. Spector has found it. Have you?” (p. 239)
When I was reading Ellery Queen’s early mysteries back in the 1960s, I was always thrilled by Challenge To the Reader, Here’s the one from one of my favorite Queen mysteries:
Challenge To the Reader
And so once more I come to what might be termed the “seventh-inning stretch” of my novels. Time out, ladies and gentlemen.
I ask in a variation of a theme I have harped on now for four years: Who killed the two horsemen in the arena of the Colosseum?
You don’t know? Ah, but really you should. The whole story is now before you: clues galore, I give you my word; and when put together in the proper order and the inevitable deductions drawn, they point resolutely to the one and only possible criminal.
It is a point of honor with me to adhere to the Code. The Code of playfair- with-the-reader-give-him-all-the-clues-and-withhold-no thing. I say all the clues are now in your possession. 1 repeat that they make an inescapable pattern of guilt.
Can you put the pieces of the pattern together and interpret what you see?
A word to the small army of well-intentioned hecklers who worry the life out of the author each time he blithely lays down a challenge. The contents of the telegram which in the story I send to Hollywood, and the contents of the reply thereto, are not necessary to your logical solution. As you shall see, a solution is possible without knowledge of either; they are merely confirmation of logical conclusions arrived at from analysis. So that actually you should be able to tell me what my telegram said! —Ellery Queen, The American Gun Mystery (1933) p.176
I’ve read Tom Mead’s Death and the Conjurer (you can read my review here) and Cabaret Macabre ups the locked room/impossible crime ante. Mead loves the classic locked room mystery and models his approach after John Dickson Carr.
A complex series of murders in this impossible-crime mystery are set in the run-up to Christmas 1938. Lady Elspeth Drury hires professional illusionist, Joseph Spector, to save her husband from the death threats he’s received from Victor Silvius, a man who stabbed her husband years ago. Five more murders, plenty of red herrings, and some mind-twisting plotting makes Cabaret Macabre (2024) must reading for locked room/impossible crime fans! GRADE: B+
I’ve been meaning to read Mead since the first book came out, but something else always seems more pressing so I still haven’t read one. By coincidence, just yesterday I read his introduction to the Ed Hoch collection, THE WILL-O’-THE-WISP MYSTERY (now that I finally got my replacement copy from Crippen & Landru).
Jeff, you’re going to enjoy THE WILL-O’-THE-WISP MYSTERY!
Word Press strikes again, George. I see at least five new posts lined up after this one!
Deb, WORDPRESS continues to torment me by posting incomplete reviews that I haven’t finished writing. It’s so aggravating!
I used to be a lot more clever in figuring out this sort of mystery. I fear it relies on a better memory than I have lately.
Patti, Tom Mead is clearly a classic mystery fan. He loves locked rooms!
Echoing Deb, George. What have you done to anger the WORDPRESS gods?
And, yes, I look forward to reading tom Mead.
Jerry, I have no idea why WORDPRESS posts my incomplete and unfinished reviews. Very frustrating! It’s hard to work ahead with these AI shenanigans going on!
Another writer of that era, Englishman Rupert Penny, is worth your attention. He wrote 8 mysteries featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Edward Beale. In the Introduction to his first book, The Talkative Detective (1936) Penny cites Queen as his mystery writer role model, and Queen’s Challenge rules are scrupulously followed in each book, with a pause (Interlude) near the end where he states that all the information to solve the mystery has been fairly presented. All the books are in print from Fender Tucker’s Ramble House (where Harry Stephen Keeler’s vast work may be found, but Penny is very definitely in the Queen tradition). I’m in the midst of a 3rd traversal through the canon, and certainly suggest you give him a try. Sweet Poison is a good place to start.
Art, I’ll be ordering Rupert Penny today! Thanks for the heads up!