Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

There’s a certain fascination people sometimes have with ‘impossible’ mysteries. In many of those stories, the challenge is to figure out how anyone could have committed a murder when, for instance, no-one is seen leaving or coming in during the time the murder was committed. There are a lot of mysteries like that, which testifies to their appeal. This blog only has so much space so let me just mention a few.

Agatha Christie isn’t especially famous for ‘impossible’ mysteries, but she did write some of them. For example, in the novella Dead Man’s Mirror, Gervase Chevenix-Gore hires Hercule Poirot to find out who is stealing from him. Shortly after Poirot arrives at the family home Chevenix-Gore is killed in his study. The study window is locked, and so is the study door, so it looks very much like suicide. Poirot isn’t so sure of that, though, as little pieces of evidence suggest a murder. However, it’s hard to see how anyone could have got into the study, shot Chevenix-Gore and left again without anyone noticing. Little by little, Poirot uncovers the truth. You’re absolutely right, fans of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas.

If you like ‘impossible’ mysteries, you’ve probably read John Dickson Carr’s work (The Three Coffins and The Problem of the Wire Cage are two notable examples of his ‘impossible murders). But he’s hardly the only writer of the age to create that sort of mystery. Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop, for instance, sees Richard Codogan taking a holiday in Oxford. Late one night, he’s taking a walk and happens onto a toyshop with its lights still on. Out of curiosity, he goes inside. In an upstairs room, he finds the body of a woman just before being knocked unconscious. When he wakes, he’s locked in a closet. He gets out and summons the police, but by the time they get there the toyshop is gone, and a grocery store is in its place. Codogan knows what he saw, but as you can imagine, the police are not inclined to believe him. So, he asks his friend, Oxford don and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen, to investigate.

Slightly more recently, Hake Talbot’s Ring of the Pit takes place during a New England winter at a property called Cabrioun. Formerly owned by Grimaud Désanat, it’s now the property of his widow, Irene. Désanat and his business partner Luke Latham made a fortune in specialty wood furniture. However, the company relies on a particular type of wood that grows in only one place on the property now owned by Irene. She says that her husband had made her promise not to log the land for twenty years after his death. But, the company may run out of wood (and therefore, go out of business) without new logging. Irene, her daughter, Latham, and a few other people gather at Cabrioun to hold a séance so they can communicate with Désanat and get his permission to log the land. Shortly after the séance, Irene is murdered. There doesn’t seem a way that a killer could have got out of the room in which her body was found without being noticed. And there’s untouched snow outside; no-one could have, say, climbed up to the window from the outside and then escaped that way. It’s an odd mystery that challenges itinerant gambler and amateur sleuth Rogan Kincaid, who is one of the guests. Still, he puts the pieces of the puzzle together.

Keigo Higashino’s Malice is the story of famous author Kunihiko Hidaka. One night, his wife Rie and his friend Osamu Nonoguchi discover his body in the room where he writes. Immediately the police are called in and Inspector Kyoichiro Kaga begins the investigation. As you’d guess, his first suspects are the two people who found the body. However, home security footage shows that neither was in the house at the time of the murder, and both have provided solid alibis that hold up under scrutiny. Along with that, neither has an obvious motive. Now, Kaga is faced with a challenge: if neither of these two suspects killed Hidaka, then who did? How did that person get in and out again without leaving evidence? It’s a difficult case, and Kaga will have to delve into Hidaka’s past to find out the truth. You have a good point, fans of Salvation of a Saint.

And then there’s Tom Mead’s historical series featuring Joseph Spector. It’s the late 1930s, and Spector is a retired stage magician who’s turned amateur sleuth.  Because of Spector’s history, he’s very well acquainted with the ‘smoke and mirrors’ that killers can use to make a crime look impossible. That’s how, in Death and the Conjuror, he’s able to solve the murder of famous psychologist Anselm Rees, who’s found dead in his locked study. In The Murder Wheel, Spector finds out the truth about the murder of Domonic Dean, who was murdered while at the top of a Ferris wheel. His widow, Carla, was with him at the time, and seems to be the only one who could have killed him. But she swears she’s innocent. Her lawyer, Edmund Ibbs, will have a real challenge to defend her. And that turns out to be the least of his problems… He turns to Spector to help him find out the truth, and it turns out that this case is a real web of deception. Cabaret Macabre, the third Spector novels, comes out 16 July.

‘Impossible’ mysteries may be closely associated with the Golden Age, but they’re still popular, and authors are still writing them. They challenge thinking, and they can be absorbing. Do you like ‘impossible’ mysteries? Which have stayed with you?

*NOTE: the title of this post is a line from Russ Ballard’s You Can Do Magic.