The Murder Wheel

“He has two locked room mysteries; this one starts with a detective going to interview a woman accused of murder—but then you have a murder in a theatre as well, which happens in real time, so to speak. So you’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and how these two things are connected. I’m just in awe of people that can site down and plan these things.” Read more...

The Best 1930s Mysteries

Louise Hare, Novelist

“It’s the sequel to my first book, Death and the Conjuror. Like Peter Lovesey, it’s a love letter to the Golden Age, but mine is set in 1938, at the height of the Golden Age. It’s a locked-room mystery that features not one but two seemingly impossible crimes. It begins with a young lawyer, Edmund Ibbs, who is working for the defence in a very controversial murder investigation, where a woman is accused of shooting her husband dead in bizarre circumstances. That is the jumping-off point for the plot but that murder, which takes place on a Ferris wheel, is not the focal point of the plot. Ibbs finds himself roped into a bizarre conspiracy with a complex tapestry of conflicting plots and motives. It all unfolds in the backstage corridors of a fictional West End theatre, so it is effectively a theatrical mystery as well. It sees the return of my fictional detective Joseph Spector, who appeared for the first time in Death and the Conjuror. Spector is a retired musical magician and, in classic Golden Age style, he is a consultant to Scotland Yard because of his unique insight into the unravelling of complex and seemingly supernatural, inexplicable phenomena. Spector and Ibbs are both present at a magic show at the fictional Pomegranate Theatre when a murdered corpse seemingly appears from thin air during the magician’s performance.” Read more...

The Best Locked-Room or Puzzle Mysteries

Tom Mead, Thriller and Crime Writer