“I get the willies when I see closed doors,” says Bob Slocum, narrator of Joseph Heller’s 1974 novel Something Happened. Of course it’s not really the doors that frighten Bob; it’s what they represent. It’s the idea of something secret going on in another room. The closed door symbolises Bob’s paranoia; his pathological fear of secrets and betrayal that will set him off on a path toward madness. The closed door—that single, seemingly innocuous image—takes us to the heart of the character’s psyche, and the root of his fear.
Now, Joseph Heller is perhaps an unlikely reference point for a piece about a vintage-style whodunit, but I mention him here for a reason. You see, I’ve written a series of Golden Age-inspired mysteries which are built around my great fascination with the recurring motif of the locked-room mystery. For the uninitiated, the locked-room mystery is a subgenre of crime fiction dealing with so-called impossible crimes; typically murders with an air of something supernatural about them, as though the criminal possessed otherworldly powers. Inevitably, though, the solution to the mystery is rational, earthly, and eventually deduced by an ingenious sleuth via the process of ratiocination.
The locked-room mystery is the most ornate, labyrinthine construction in the crime fiction world; it’s a self-consciously surreal exercise in puzzle-making where logic and lateral thinking are paramount. But it’s also a surprisingly blank canvas for creative expression—at least, I’ve always found it that way. Once you’ve established the parameters of your puzzle, you can go pretty much anywhere. I tend to think this is the reason locked-room mysteries—more than any other crime subgenre—crop up in so many other fields of literature, including science fiction (such as Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel, or Adam Roberts’s The Real Town Murders) and fantasy (Randall Garrett’s Too Many Magicians). There is so much scope for imagination and flights of fancy that it is a positively irresistible challenge for writers of all genres.
For me, the puzzle is important for several reasons. When done right, the locked-room mystery is a work of art akin to a perfectly constructed Swiss watch. Its moving parts all converge and coalesce to produce a single, immensely satisfying effect for the reader. But that’s not all; the solving of a mystery, or the restoring of earthly logic to a seemingly illogical world, is deeply cathartic.
There is often talk of classic mysteries scratching our collective itch to see justice done, and to see the good guys foiling the bad guys. Maybe this is true in some instances, but to me it’s an oversimplification. I think the real thrill of a locked room comes from its exploration of a deeper psychological mystery. The seemingly impossible puzzle upends our understanding of the world; it makes us question our senses, our logic, our very selves. And by the time the solution to the mystery is presented, and we see how we have been tricked, we’ve gained a deeper philosophical understanding of ourselves. We see that our perceptions are shaped by our interactions with the world around us. The locked-room mystery places this strange dialogue between our inner and outer worlds at the heart of the narrative.
The same is true of classic ghost stories, which dredge up images from the depths of our collective unconscious and present them as physical manifestations. In a way, ghosts are memories; projections of our own fear and trauma. Which brings me to the unpleasant business at Devil’s Neck.
The House at Devil’s Neck is the fourth in my series of spooky, Golden Age-inspired puzzle mysteries featuring magician-turned-sleuth Joseph Spector. Like the other titles in the series, it’s intended primarily as an entertainment; a piece of escapism. But it’s also an excuse to explore deeper and darker territory—in an oblique way, of course.
This time around, it is August 1939 and Spector travels out to a derelict mansion to participate in a séance. The date is highly significant, since the ghost who walks the halls of the house at Devil’s Neck is a soldier of the First World War. After the séance, circumstances begin to get out of control: one of the party is found dead; murdered in a locked room. Then another. And as the bodies pile up, the clock continues ticking, inching our characters closer and closer to the precipice of a fresh horror: the dawn of a Second World War.
So you see, The House at Devil’s Neck is a mystery in more than one sense. It’s about solving impossible murders and catching a Machiavellian criminal. But more broadly speaking it’s also about the bleak inevitability of approaching conflict, while the shadows of a previous conflict still loom large: ghosts, memories, or whatever you want to call them.
By the end of the book, the primary puzzles are solved. The “who” and the “how” have been deciphered, and the supernatural impossibilities unravelled. But the solution to the other, deeper mystery—an endless cycle of conflict, returning again and again like a vengeful spirit—remains elusive. It would take a greater detective than Joseph Spector to explain that.
The House at Devil’s Neck by Tom Mead is published by Head of Zeus on 14th August at £20.
This gripping locked-room mystery sees Joseph Spector investigate his most sinister case yet: murderous machinations at a haunted manor house. A former First World War field hospital, the spooky old mansion at Devil's Neck attracts spirit-seekers from far and wide. Illusionist-turned-sleuth Joseph Spector knows the house of old. With stories spreading of a phantom soldier making mischief, he joins a party of visitors in search of the truth. But the house, located on a lonely causeway, is quickly cut off by floods. The stranded visitors are soon being killed off one by one. With old ally Inspector Flint working on a complex case that has links to Spector's investigation, the two men must connect the dots before Devil's Neck claims Spector himself as its next victim.
More information about Tom Mead can be found on his website. You can also find him on X @TomMeadAuthor and on Instagram @tommeadauthor. You can also find him on Facebook.
Tom will be speaking at Manor Farm Library, Ruislip HA4 7SU with Barbara Nadel on 15th August at 3pm. Tickets £2. For tickets see: https://tinyurl.com/fjf7esed.
He will also be speaking at Death in the Dales Festival with Martin Edwards & Dolores Gordon Smith on Saturday 18th October at 3.15pm. For tickets for the day see: https://www.sedbergh.org.uk/view-event/death-in-the-dales-festival-of-crime-2/
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