Guten tag! It’s been almost a month since my last Substack post, for various reasons. One of those reasons is a recent holiday to Berlin, where we enjoyed visiting the German Spy Museum, meeting some pandas at Berlin Zoo, and celebrating the wedding of my brother-in-law. The holiday (and its four KLM flights) also provided some good opportunities for fiction reading. In this post, I mainly plan to write about the reading aspect of the holiday, although I highly recommend both the Spy Museum and the Zoo.1
Earlier this year, I read the multi-author essay collection Writing the Murder, which included an excellent contribution from Tom Mead, exploring the art of locked room mysteries. One of the titles he mentioned was the 1940 Anthony Boucher (rhymes with voucher) novel Nine Times Nine, “a classic of the locked-room subgenre in which a nun named Sister Ursula plays amateur detective to bring down a sinister cult.” Intrigued by the character of a detective nun, I procured a cheap copy online and added it to my TBR pile. I’m very glad I did.
Nine Times Nine is the first of two novels featuring Sister Ursula, from the Sisters of Martha of Bethany.2 These were first published under Boucher’s pseudonym H. H. Holmes.3 Sr Ursula is drawn into this first case through a personal connection with the victim’s family. The victim is renowned cult-debunker Wolfe Harrigan, who has set his sights on exposing Ahasver, the yellow-robed leader of the Children of Light. Unhappy with Harrigan’s activities, Ahasver decides to publicly place a curse on him (the titular Nine Times Nine). Shortly afterwards, Harrigan is found dead in his study, with eyewitness testimony placing Ahasver and his yellow robe at the scene. Harrigan has also left a dying clue apparently identifying the cult leader as his murderer. There are, however, two problems with the obvious solution: the room is sealed when the victim is discovered, and the suspect was making a public appearance miles away at the time.
Boucher does a great job of depicting the world of religious cults and spiritual fraudsters, contrasting Ahasver and his ilk with the traditional Catholicism of Sr Ursula. In fact, the whole cast of characters is enjoyable. Plot-wise, it’s a compelling locked-room puzzle, with the added intrigue of a dying clue and the visual aspect of the yellow robe. I also enjoyed the revelation of some of the more subtle clues (or “clews”) that Sr Ursula comprehended because of her Catholic faith.4 In good Golden Age style, Boucher includes some fun nods to other detectives, especially Dr Fell. The police lieutenant’s wife, Leona, has been reading The Hollow Man and draws her husband’s attention to Fell’s locked-room lecture. The lieutenant later interrogates the crime scene by systematically working through Fell’s categories of impossible mysteries.
I think the main weakness of this novel is its uncertainty about who the main protagonist is supposed to be. Despite its self-description as “a Sister Ursula mystery”, the detective nun has a disappointingly minor role. This makes the final denouement less satisfying, because we haven’t been able to follow her deductions throughout. There are two other key individuals involved in the investigation—officially and unofficially—and, although I enjoyed them as characters, I wish Boucher had given Ursula more prominence instead. Suggestions of other detective nuns are welcome.
Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
April 10th was a sad day in the world of British crime fiction, marking the death of prolific writer Peter Lovesey at the age of 88. Across his career, Lovesey published more than forty novels, including a long-running series featuring Bath detective Peter Diamond. He was honoured with several awards, perhaps most notably the CWA’s highest accolade, the (appropriately named) Diamond Dagger. I hadn’t previously read anything by Lovesey, but after his death, I read a number of touching tributes from Golden Age aficionados.5 These persuaded me that I needed to rectify my Lovesey-less reading history. A visit to Bridgend library ended with me borrowing one of his final books, Showstopper.
This Peter Diamond investigation focusses on the production of the television series Swift, which seems to have had an unusual number of unfortunate incidents in its history, including disappearances and sudden deaths. As the investigation progresses, Diamond faces pressure from his superior, the Assistant Chief Constable, who is unconvinced by the merits of the case and tells Diamond: “It’s time you thought about retirement.” It soon becomes clear, though, that this case is definitely investigation-worthy and Diamond is definitely the right man to tackle it.
I really enjoyed this first introduction to both Lovesey and Diamond. Lovesey is indisputably an accomplished writer, and Diamond is a pleasing protagonist. Where vintage police procedurals rarely mention more than one or two of the main detective’s colleagues, Diamond is part of a team and working within an explicit hierarchy. This gives added depth to his character as we see him interacting with colleagues as well as suspects, especially through the subplot about his retirement. This subplot provides some lighter moments, which are also sprinkled through the rest of the narrative. I especially enjoyed an early interview with a hard-of-hearing witness.
The main plot is enjoyable too, with a good number of distinct suspects. Lovesey skilfully exploits the uncertainty about which of the production-related incidents are actually connected with the investigation, and which details are red herrings. I changed my mind about the perpetrator’s identity multiple times, and didn’t settle on the correct solution before the end. I was a bit disappointed by how much happened “off-screen”: Lovesey writes in the classic whodunnit tradition, but this isn’t exactly a fair-play mystery. It is, though, still a satisfying mystery, which has whetted my appetite, thus adding another long list of novels to my mental TBR list.6
Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
Last year, I belatedly discovered the joy of Anthony Horowitz’s wonderful Hawthorne and Horowitz series. I read the second instalment by a river in Poland earlier this year, and the third book made it into my KLM hand luggage for Berlin. The debut The Word is Murder remains my favourite so far, but all three have been thoroughly enjoyable.
If you’re not familiar with the series, one of the distinctive features is its pseudo-autobiographical style, where Anthony Horowitz himself appears as one of the detectives, alongside the completely fictitious cop-turned-consultant Daniel Hawthorne. It’s an uneasy pairing, as the two personalities clash and Hawthorne can be frustratingly recalcitrant and secretive. Horowitz makes brilliant use of both the unique narratorial perspective and the tension between the detectives, leading to some very clever and witty mysteries.
For A Line to Kill, Horowitz introduces some freshness into the series by taking the detectives out of their usual environment and making them part of the theoretical circle of suspects. The author and his associate travel to Alderney for the island’s first ever literary festival. Sadly, the festival is not entirely successful, as its sponsor is brutally murdered. Compared with the previous books, there is quite a long build-up before the murder itself, during which we are introduced to the various potential suspects. The suspect list encompasses both islanders and the entourage of visiting authors, which includes a celebrity chef, a blind medium and a French poet. We also learn some more of Hawthorne’s back story, which serves to explain his mysterious eagerness to visit Alderney.
The writing is consistently engaging, even with this book’s slower start, and there is plenty of wry dialogue and observations (“It was hardly a testament to her investigative skills that so far she had been unable to find a tea bag.”) The mystery itself is well-clued, with some expert misdirection and sleight-of-word.7 It didn’t quite match the verve and inventiveness of The Word is Murder, but it still made me very eager to keep reading the series. Horowitz is aiming for twelve books in total, and I look forward to seeing how the concept develops!8
Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
The wedding was also excellent, but I can’t really recommend it because it’s already happened, so if you weren’t there, I’m afraid you’ve missed it.
Boucher clarifies in a “disavowal” at the beginning that there is no such religious order in reality. Rather wonderfully, he adds that “the description of wet weather in Los Angeles on Friday, March 29, 1940, is a base canard; the rain held off that week-end until Saturday.”
Also the pseudonym used by 19th-century serial killer Herman Mudgett. As far as I’m aware, Mudgett did not write any detective novels.
In the final reveal, Sr Ursula comments on one flawed solution, with the delicious comment: “The reasoning that leads him to this suspicion is perfectly sound—for a Protestant.”
There is an especially lovely tribute from Martin Edwards, which you can read on his blog: https://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/2025/04/peter-lovesey-rip.html.
I’d love to know what your favourite Peter Lovesey novels are, so I can plan my next read!
Yes, I realise this isn’t really a phrase, but it should be.
Anthony Horowitz has mentioned in interviews that he’s working on book number six and planning twelve in total. See, for example, his interview with Alex Dueben at CrimeReads last month.
I’ve read quite a few Peter Diamond books and my favourite is ‘Bloodhounds’, Lovesey’s (very good ) attempt at a locked room mystery tribute to John Dickson Carr.
‘The Crumpled Knave’ is a Boucher worth reading.
I like Anthony Horowitz but find the conceit in these pseudo-autobiographical books a bit self-indulgent.
One more note on Dew: the connections to real-life events and people are very rich, and parts of them are something of a precursor to Anthony Horowitz's toying with identity and the mental identification process behind the suspiction of disbelief when attending to fiction. Lovesey handles this with a light touch, having fun with the conventions and renewing and enriching them instead of trying to undermine or destroy them.