Lately I've been on a Golden Age kick. I think it's because so many of the manuscripts coming in have been so weak on plot and detection, and I've been hankering for a truly mysterious mystery. In a lot of the older/Golden Age books, the reader is put in the position of needing to be smarter than, or just as smart as, the detective. I like that sort of contest - the type of book in which clues are planted and the killer is fingered through good, old-fashioned thinking, logic, and deduction.
One of the "classic" mystery plots, which I think most ambitious writers have tried their hands at once or twice, is the locked-room mystery. All the greats have done them. Why? I'm guessing here, but it seems to me that the locked-room puzzle is a particular challenge for writers who want to push themselves. After all, how do you write a locked-room puzzle without doing what someone else has already done? On the face of it, it doesn't look like there are too many ways to deal with a dead body in a locked room. At the same time, a locked room is often a treat for readers, who get to sit back and scratch their heads wondering: Is there a secret passage? A trap door under the carpet? A hidden window? If we're talking about mysteries as opposed to crime fiction, I can't think of anything more mysterious than a corpse in a room that nobody was able to get into or out of (the room, not the corpse, that is).
I was fortunate enough to read two terrific locked-room mysteries in the last couple of weeks, one by an old pro and one by a newbie, and I'm happy to recommend them here.
Schemers
Bill Pronzini
Pronzini probably needs no introduction. He's a Grand Master of the genre with more than 30 books to his credit, almost all of them with one-word titles. (He also happens to be married to Marcia Muller.) His Nameless detective was ground-breaking, though in the later books we do hear his name once or twice (for those who don't know it, I won't ruin the surprise). The books have evolved over the years, yet each stands alone - no mean feat for a series that's been running for decades. What I particularly like about Pronzini is the fact that he doesn't rest on his laurels and doesn't write the same book over and over again. The cast has changed, grown, and evolved over the years; but the joy of reading a Pronzini book is the sense that you know these characters even if you've not read a Pronzini before, because the author so deftly characterizes them.
I also love the spareness of Pronzini's prose. Not a word is wasted; he wrings the maximum meaning out of sentences and paragraphs. But he's never dense or turgid - I usually finish his books in two sittings because the pacing is breakneck and perfect.
In Schemers, Pronzini juggles several plots and narratives. The first, investigated and narrated by Nameless himself, revolves around the theft of several precious first editions of classic mysteries, such as Christie's And Then There Were None. That's a treat for mystery lovers, of course, but it evolves into an even bigger treat as it leads to a locked-room mystery with a clever solution. If I personally had to be murdered, I couldn't think of a better place for it to happen than in a library filled with valuable first editions of mystery classics. The second plot, told in third person, follows Nameless' associate, Jake Runyon, as he investigates the stalker who is trying to wreck the lives of two brothers for reasons known only to the perp. The third plot revolves around "sex and the single girl" and is a bit of a cautionary tale.
If you haven't read Pronzini - if you like a locked-room mystery - or if you're just looking for a great read with strong plot and strong characters, pick up Schemers (or any Pronzini book) - I know you will thank me!
Nine Man's Murder
Eric Keith
Given that one of the rare books stolen in Schemers is an inscribed first edition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (also known as Ten Little Indians), it was quite a treat to read this homage to that very work. I can't think of too many books that all mystery lovers have read, but I'd venture a guess that And Then There Were None is one of them.
Like Christie, Keith gathers a group of people in a remote location and begins knocking them off one by one. All are graduates of a detective-training school, and they have clearly pissed someone off badly. But motives seem hard to come by, and the murders continue. Because the cast is composed of people with detective training, they bring all their skills of logic and deduction to figure out what is going on - and they are still unable to stop the killer.
Suspense aside (and this is a book that will keep you reading, simply because it is so puzzling that you must know what happens next), Nine Man's Murder is one of the strongest locked-room books I've read in a long time. I once heard someone describe Europe as a region of "peninsulas on peninsulas" - I would describe this book as locked-room mysteries inside locked-room mysteries, so there's triple or quadruple the pleasure for those who love these types of plots. There's a fairly large cast to keep track of - efforts in that regard are helped out by the Characters list in the frontmatter - all with secrets and grudges, and somehow you never know what's going to happen next or who will be the next victim. Like Christie and the Golden Age writers, Keith plants clues throughout - I was able to figure out one of the major plot points, but the explanations of all of the locked-room murders took me by surprise, which delighted me, as I enjoy an author who is several steps ahead of me. This is an old-fashioned mystery in the best sense of the phrase.
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