J L Blackhurst on Locked Room Mysteries

There’s been a murder. But before you can figure out whodunnit, the more pressing question is… how?

The door to the murder scene is locked from the inside. The victim is in the middle of a snowy field with only one set of footprints. A body is discovered burning inside a bonfire effigy that everyone watched being assembled. Congratulations, you’ve stumbled upon an impossible crime. 

Much to the chagrin of true fans, the definition of ‘locked room mystery’ has been used recently to describe a murder with a finite set of suspects. Any murder on an island or in a country manor cut off by a storm, a hotel on the top of a hill and even one set in space, have all been tossed under the locked room umbrella. While these settings offer us a perfect opportunity for a fun and intriguing ‘closed circle mystery’, if you are going to call yourself a true locked room writer, you need just one thing. And no, it’s not necessarily a locked room. You need an impossible crime. Okay, actually, you need two things - an impossible crime and a satisfying solution. We don’t want secret passageways unless they were guarded at both ends, thank you. 

The locked room mystery goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century, a fact that weighs heavy when you sit down to write your first one. When you set out to write a locked room mystery, if you are like me you will probably sit at your desk and imagine the critical eyes of the forerunners of the genre watching your every attempt to perfect the impossibility of the murder. You picture writers like John Dickson Carr, Clayton Rawson and Ed Hoch shaking their heads and tutting at solutions that have been used before, or scoffing that you’ve made it far too obvious. And did you know you left a window ajar on page four? Let me tell you, as a voracious reader of the genre, they have all been done before. The good, the bad, and the downright silly (I’m looking at you, Mr Poe). The key to this particular mystery is to use what these masters of the art form gave you, and to spin the tale in a way it’s never been told before. And as for the window being left open – that’s what editors are for.

The first locked room murder in my book (because I chose to have not one, but three) sees a man with his throat slashed pushed from the balcony of an empty room, boarded from the inside. While the solution maybe somewhat Carr-esque, the detective sent to solve the case is the daughter of Brighton’s most elusive con artist, and the dead man is someone from her less than innocent past. She needs the skills of her estranged half-sister to figure out how this murder was committed before she becomes the main suspect. And there’s not a snake or orangutang in sight. Yes, even impossible crime fans have in-jokes. I found this out when I was the only one in my family who understood half of the references in our Sunday night Jonathan Creek episodes. 

Whether you want to write impossible crime, or just settle down and read them, there are some modern day writers who are on a mission to revive what was once an immensely popular genre. Some are reviving the golden age, such as Tom Mead with his recent book Death and the Conjurer, and some such as myself with Three Card Murder, Gigi Pandian with her Jaya Jones treasure hunter series and James Scott Byrnside with The Opening Night Murders are bringing locked rooms and disappearing killers into the modern age as we try to get away with murder. 

Three Card Murder by J L Blackhurst (HQ) Out Now.

One sister is a cop. The other a con artist. Both are suspects. DI Tess Fox's first murder scene has two big problems. One, the victim was thrown from the balcony of a flat locked from the inside. Two, Tess knows him. But the biggest problem of all is Tess's half-sister, Sarah. She has links to the deceased and has the skills and criminal background to mastermind a locked-room murder. But she's a con-artist, not a killer. When two more bodies turn up, Tess now has three locked room mysteries to solve and even more reason to be suspicious of Sarah. Can she trust someone who breaks the law for a living, even if she is family?

You can find her on X @JennyBlackhurst and on Instagram @jennyblackhurstauthor.

Books to Look Forward to From Headline Publishing

November 2019

Someone is Lying is by Jenny Blackhurst.  One year after Erica Spencer trips and falls down a flight of stairs at a lavish Halloween party, the residents of the exclusive gated community where she lived have comes to terms with her death and moved on with their lives.  Until one day, a post on the school's website announces there will be a podcast to expose what really happened on the night of the accident. Six suspects are named, with the podcaster promising to reveal the murderer by the end of the series.  Everyone in this community has secrets to keep, and one of them is already a killer...

When Michael Rowland saves his younger brother Joshua from the clutches of his stepfather, he runs for his life with his brother in his arms. From his hiding place he sees the man who has made their lives a misery taken away in the trunk of a stranger's car, never to be seen again.  Doctor Dani Novak has been keeping soccer coach Diesel Kennedy at arm's length to protect him from her dark secrets. When they are brought together by the two young brothers who desperately need their help, it seems they might finally be able to leave their damaged pasts behind them.  But as the only witness to the man who kidnapped and murdered his stepfather, Michael is in danger. As Diesel and Dani do all that they can to protect him, their own investigation into the murder uncovers a much darker web of secrets than they could have imagined.  As more bodies start to appear it's clear that this killer wants vengeance. And will wipe out anything that gets in his way...  Into the Dark is by Karen Rose.

Twisted Twenty-Six is by Janet Evanovich.  Grandma Mazur has decided to get married again - this time to a local gangster named Jimmy Rosolli. If Stephanie has her doubts about this marriage, she doesn't have to worry for long, because the groom drops dead of a heart attack 45 minutes after saying, "I do."  A sad day for Grandma Mazur turns into something far more dangerous when Jimmy's former "business partners" are convinced that his new widow is keeping the keys to a financial windfall all to herself. But the one thing these wise guys didn't count on was the widow's bounty hunter granddaughter, who'll do anything to save her.

Traitors of the Rome by Simon Scarrow.  AD 56. Battle-hardened veterans of the Roman army Tribune Cato and Centurion Macro are garrisoned at the eastern border, aware that their movements are constantly monitored by spies from dangerous, mysterious Parthia. But the enemy within could be the deadliest threat to the Legion ... and the Empire.  There's a traitor in the ranks. Rome shows no mercy to those who betray their comrades, and the Empire. But first the guilty man must be discovered. Cato and Macro are in a race against time to expose the truth, while the powerful enemy over the border waits to exploit any weaknesses in the Legion. The traitor must die ... 

Woman on the Edge is by Samantha Bailey.  A moment on the platform changes two lives forever. But nothing is as it seems.  'Take my baby.'  The train is approaching at speed. Why is the stranger handing Morgan her baby? And how does she know Morgan's name?   When the mother then jumps in the train, Morgan is stunned. Now the police want to know why she is holding someone else's child. No one else saw what happened.   Desperate to clear her name, Morgan must discover who this woman was. What drove her to end her life? And why did she choose Morgan?  A trail of dark secrets leads to the truth about that moment on the platform. And to someone who is willing to kill to conceal it.

In the decades they spent at the DEA, Javier Pena and Steve Murphy risked their lives hunting large and small drug traffickers. But their biggest challenge was the hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia. The partners, who began their careers as small-town cops, have been immortalised in Netflix's Narcos, a fictional account of their hunt for Escobar. Now, for the first time ever, they tell the real story of how they brought down the world's first narco-terrorist, the challenges they faced, and the innovative strategies they employed to successfully end the reign of terror of the world's most wanted criminal.  Readers will go deep inside the inner workings of the Search Bloc, the joint Colombian-US task force that resulted in an intensive 18-month operation that tracked Escobar. Between July 1992 and December 1993, Steve and Javier lived on the edge, setting up camp in Medellin at the Carlos Holguin Military Academy. There, they lived and worked with the Colombian authorities, hunting down a man who was thought by many to be untouchable. Their first hand experience coupled with stories from the DEA's recently de-classified files on the search for Escobar forms the beating heart of Manhunters, an epic account of how agents risked everything to capture the world's most wanted man.  Manhunters: How we Took Down Pablo Escobar is by Javier F Peña and Stephen E Murphy.

January 2020

A homecoming marred by blood.  Journalist Martin Scarsden returns to Port Silver to make a fresh start with his partner Mandy. But he arrives to find his childhood friend murdered - and Mandy is the prime suspect. Desperate to clear her name, Martin goes searching for the truth.  A terrible crime.  The media descends on Port Silver, compelled by a story that has it all: sex, drugs, celebrity, and religion. Martin is chasing the biggest scoop of his career, and the most personal.   A past he can’t escape.  As Martin draws closer to a killer, the secrets of his traumatic childhood come to the surface, and he must decide what is more important - the story or his family...  Silver is by Chris Hammer.

February 2020

Bury Them Deep is by James Oswald.  When a member of the Police Scotland team fails to

clock-in for work, concern for her whereabouts is immediate... and the discovery of her burnt-out car in remote woodland to the south of Edinburgh sets off a desperate search for the missing woman.  Meanwhile, DCI Tony McLean and the team are preparing for a major anti-corruption operation - one which may raise the ire of more than a few powerful people in the city. Is Anya Renfrew's disappearance a co-incidence or related to the case? McLean's investigations suggest that perhaps that Anya isn't the first woman to have mysteriously vanished in these ancient hills. Once again, McLean can't shake the feeling that there is a far greater evil at work here...

March 2020

Stop at Nothing is by Michael Ledwidge.  When a private jet crashes into the Caribbean sea, diving instructor Michael Gannon is the only person on the scene. Finding six dead men and a suitcase full of cash and diamonds, Gannon assumes he's the beneficiary of a drug deal gone wrong.  However, it seems one of the passengers was the Director of the FBI - despite the official story that he died of natural causes in Italy. Suddenly pursued by a shadowy cabal of the world's most powerful and dangerous men, Gannon will only survive if he unravels a terrifying conspiracy.  But those determined to kill him will learn that Gannon's past holds its own deadly secrets...and the hunters soon become the prey.

After Dark is by Dominic Nolan.  A girl held captive her entire life.  After a shocking discovery, the police must unravel a mystery that horrifies the nation.  A detective condemned as a criminal.  Violently abducted while searching for a missing woman, D.S. Abigail Boone suffered retrograde amnesia - remembering nothing of her previous life. Defying the law to hunt those responsible, she now languishes behind bars.  A monster hiding in the shadows.  In desperation, police turn to Boone - who fears a connection to the disappearance of a child three decades earlier...and a mysterious underworld figure whose name is spoken only in whispers.  Freed from prison, what will Boone sacrifice - and who must she become - to uncover the terrifying truth?

April 2020

Framed is by S L McInnis.  It was all fine until she turned up...  Music teacher Beth and film producer Jay seem to have the perfect life together in LA.  When Cassie - Beth's old best friend and college wild child - turns up unexpectedly, everything changes. But what neither of them know is what Cassie is running from. And that it's going to have consequences for them all.  Something is about to go very wrong. And someone is going to lie about it.

A year ago today, we all gathered for Lucas's wedding at his glorious Cornish home overlooking the sea. But no one was married that day.  Now Lucas has invited us back to celebrate the anniversary. But the anniversary of what? The wedding that never happened, or the tragedy that occurred just hours before the ceremony was due to begin?  He's told us that tonight he has planned a game. We have our costumes, we have our parts, and everyone must play. The game, he tells us, is about to begin.  What does Lucas want from us? What are we not being told? And what's going to happen when this terrible game is over?  The Murder Game is by Rachel Abbott.