RISING (FROM THE UNDEAD) CLIMAX: Murder on the Way – The End

It’s the moment that you’ve both all been waiting for: the chance to see me (and hear Flex and Herds, fellow sleuths and hosts of the Aussie podcast Death of the Reader) prove our mettle as armchair sleuths – or fall on our faces before the annoying superiority of blogger, podcaster and two-time book editor JJ McJJ of The …

“MURDER ON THE WAY” PLAY-ALONG: Chapters 6 – 9

“The whole thing was as unbelievable as Episode Six of The Perils of Pauline.” Greetings, ghoul lovers! If you were with me at this same time last week, you know that I am playing along with Flex and Herds, the genial and tack-sharp hosts of Death of the Reader, the Australian podcast dedicated to reading and unpacking …

IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS: Death Among the Undead

Like the holiday displays at Hallmark Cards, Locked Room International has delivered the perfect Halloween murder mystery two months early. Publisher John Pugmire and translator Ho-Ling Wong have teamed up to unleash the latest example of shin honkaku mystery fiction on the English-speaking world. And this one is something extra special. It’s another debut novel along the lines of …

DONE IN? DONE GOOD: Why It Has to Be Murder

In a recent post at The Invisible Event, one of JJ’s readers ended his response, full of interesting observations, with this:  “Finally, a point that’s been bugging me for years. Why does so much detective fiction, especially the novels, focus on murder? Detective short stories, at least, tend to be a bit more diverse and focus …

ACDC PART NINE/BOOK CLUB ’38: Death in Five Boxes

I have just finished reading a review of Carter Dickson’s Death in Five Boxes, written by my pal, the Puzzle Doctor, and I must say – I am confused.  Make that doubly confused. My puzzlement first stems from Book Club, of which PD and I are both members. Last month, you might have heard the collective groaning over the Zoom …

THE EENSY WEENSY SPIDER MURDER MYSTERY: Penelope’s Web

It’s always a cause for excitement when Locked Room International’s very own John Pugmire translates another Paul Halter novel. What sort of impossible crime or locked room will the French heir to John Dickson Carr give us this time? Will he take us to the Golden Age world of his Gideon Fell stand-in, Dr. Alan …

BEATING PUZZLE DOCTOR AND KATE TO THE PUNCH: The 2021 Mystery of the Year

It’s February 28, and I know exactly what you’re doing: you’re waiting with bated breath for 306 more days to go by, the amount of time it will for the Puzzle Doctor and Kate at Cross Examining Crime to finish sifting through the respective books they’ve read all year (about 2000 for PD, and 6953 …

COFFEE TABLE BOOK TALES: Everson’s Trio of Crime Film Classics

William K. Everson (1929 – 1996) was a film historian, educator and archivist who was one of the guiding lights in preserving films from the silent period through the 1940’s. Born in England, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1950 where he put his experience in film publicity to use for Monogram Pictures, a small, …

TOO MUCH META IN MY DIET: Lending the Key to the Locked Room

Here we are at the start of 2021, and the Western world is facing an existential crisis of enormous proportions while the Eastern world seems to have things pretty much under control. I’m speaking, of course, of the efforts of thirty or so bloggers to transform public opinion in America and Europe as to the …

FANGS FOR THE MANORYS: The Strange Case of the Barrington Hills Vampire

It has been forty-five years since we could all savor the prospect of a “Christie for Christmas.” Alas, that time is passed, so I propose a new tradition: a “Byrnside for Boo-time!” The classic-style impossible crime mysteries penned by modern-day scribe James Scott Byrnside are, by turns, mystifying, sometimes fear-inducing, and most of the time …