Let's try this again...

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This is a backup of my other blog of the same name, which may turn into the main blog if I like the format better. Updates Mondays, but for now I'm porting over all my previous posts.

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INSPECTOR FURUHATA NINZABURŌ (1994) Answers the Question: "What if Columbo Was Evil?"

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I've been a fan of Columbo since childhood, so hearing that there was a series that was "like if Columbo was an ambush predator instead of a persistence hunter" instantly caught my attention. That series is Inspector Furuhata Ninzaburō , a Japanese crime drama from the 90s. The format is similar to Columbo—a "howcatchem" with special guest stars—but with a "Challenge to the Reader"-esque break before the climax where you're encouraged to try and figure out what trick Furuhata will use to corner the culprit. Furuhata also addresses the audience at the start of each episode with spectacularly unhelpful "advice" that hints at the key point of the mystery. "If you wear a blue shirt, black pants, and a purple jacket, please don't wear a red scarf," he informs us, "because you will lose some friends." Furuhata himself, played by Masakazu Tamura, is memorably and charismatically awful. While Columbo can irritate peo...
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Locked Rooms and Huge Kabooms in BLACK RUN (2021)

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"No point living if you've nowt to die for." The first book in D.L. Marshall's John Tyler series, Anthrax Island , was a surprise COVID-era gem. It got several rave reviews from the mystery blogosphere, and personally I found both the setting and the clever locked room mystery to be highly original. The version I read had this rather dour cover , so I was pleasantly surprised on picking up Marshall's second book Black Run to see these new editions pictured to the left. They really nail the tone of the series, that tone being "cheese popcorn". If you're not familiar with unconventional detective John Tyler, let me paint a picture: he's a grizzled super-spy from Yorkshire whose body is decorated with scars and "tattoos from everywhere he's done jobs". Some days he's stabbing a man in the throat with a screwdriver, and other days he's sat in a cafe with a Maigret novel drinking hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. He d...
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Locked Room Library #5: THROUGH THE WALLS (1937)

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As I mentioned in the masterpost for this blogging endeavour, French mystery authors are a bit of a lacuna in my mystery knowledge. Noël Vindry is one such author, a mystery novelist who wrote a string of meticulously fair-play "puzzle novels" in the 30s and 40s before quitting the genre, and is apparently almost as forgotten in French as he is in English. Thankfully, I don't have to lean on my shoddy French skills, as John Pugmire translated several of his best works into English through Locked Room International, including Through the Walls . The Locked Room:   A family is menaced by a mysterious intruder who leaves the house's upstairs without having entered, can kill in locked bedrooms and in broad daylight while facing the victim, and vanish in plain sight. The Story: Through the Walls leans towards the far extreme of the puzzle plot, which is to say, there's vastly more puzzle than plot. Petty bureaucrat Sertat comes to Police Commissaire Maubritaine looking...
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