Picture Perfect

John Baird caught sight of a book and it captured his attention. On the cover was an old photograph of a street from a bygone era, but for some reason, the photograph haunted him. Desperate for answers, John even allowed himself to be hypnotized by a local shop owner to try and get to the bottom of the mystery. His obsession with the photograph begins to distress his new wife Andrea, who is equally puzzled by her husband’s reticence to discuss his London job – he disappears for the day and says nothing about where he was or what he did...

Meanwhile, Dr. Alan Twist and Inspector Archibald Hurst are hunting a serial killer known as the Acid Bath Murderer, and before long the two plot threads collide, along with a third thread taking place in Victorian London. There are even two impossibilities at work: first, a clairvoyant sends his own death prediction to himself, only to be found murdered in a locked room. Second, a man disappears without trace from a room that is under observation from all sides.

Visions

William Rigg has a problem and he doesn’t know exactly what to do about it. It has been nine years since his young cousins, Sylvain and Lisette, disappeared. Then he is advised to go to the Red Dragon, a bar in Soho, where he can consult Miss Ylang Li. Apparently, the young lady is a clairvoyant, and when William sits down, she goes through the usual motions of establishing contact… But her vision becomes very dark all of a sudden, and she describes the scene of a gruesome murder, with the corpses of the two young children being bricked up in a cellar!!!

William is shocked, naturally, and enlists the aid of his girlfriend Shirley to find the house described by the clairvoyant, and to find out whether there really are two corpses hidden there. They even manage to gain the approval of Inspector Briggs, a man who’s seen his fair share of the impossible. After all, he used to work with Inspector Archibald Hurst, a man who attracted locked-room murders and impossible crimes of all shapes and sizes. But will he be able to solve the mystery, or will Dr. Alan Twist have to step in to save the day?

Sleuth

On a night in August of 1938, police constable Edward Watkins is walking his beat when he comes across some strange sights. It seems that somebody is walking around the streets of London in the garb of a seventeenth-century plague doctor. Soon afterwards, Watkins has a conversation with an odd character calling himself Doctor Marcus, a doctor of crime. Suspicious, the officer is convinced that the doctor has hidden a body inside a nearby trash can—a suspicion that Doctor Marcus confirms! Watkins looks into them and finds they are all empty, much to Marcus’ apparent surprise. So the mad doctor skips off, but as a parting shot he tells the officer to look into the trash cans once again just in case. When Watkins does this, he discovers to his horror that there’s a dead body inside after all.

But how did it get there? And where did Doctor Marcus disappear to? All this seems like it is nonsense, but a few months later, Dr. Alan Twist and Inspector Archibald Hurst are visited by a man named Peter Moore, secretary to Sir Gordon Miller, a prolific author of mystery plays. According to Moore, Sir Gordon received a visitor in his study and the two men had a verbal duel of sorts, which ended in a murder challenge. The two men toss a coin, and the result will determine which man will commit a murder. That man must try and pin the blame on the other, and under no circumstances are the two players allowed to refer to the “game”. Unfortunately, Moore could not see what the coin landed on...

A Twist in Time

One theme that particularly fascinates me is, without a doubt, the time paradox. It is unfortunately difficult to deal with. (…) Time paradoxes suggest a wide variety of situations, the most classic being the case of the man who travels back in time to kill his grandfather. The rational solutions to explain these phenomena, on the other hand, are not legion…

— Author Paul Halter in an interview

The date: November 21^st, 1955. Spectators leaving the Adelphi Theatre are surprised to see a young man, in his 30s, wearing clothes long out of fashion from the turn of the century. He’s walking around as if he’s shocked, seeing everything around him for the first time. He almost gets killed by a car, but Providence spares his life. Unfortunately, Providence doesn’t help the man in question when he goes to a subway station. When the sound of the oncoming car is heard, the man appears curious and enters the tunnel to get a good look. And that is when he gets crushed by the subway, his body thoroughly mangled. Happily, the extensive damage leaves the face relatively intact and fingerprints can be salvaged from the corpse.

Thanks to the evidence of the deceased’s face, Inspector Archibald Hurst manages to find out his identity. But the maddening part of the whole puzzle is that the man cannot possibly be who he is identified as! The body is identified as belonging to one Victor Stephenson. Here is the catch: on December 2^nd 1905, Victor Stephenson went for a walk and never returned home. Almost 50 years later, he’s been spotted again—but he hasn’t aged by a single day! And the corpse bears this out: the dead man’s pockets are full of old things from 1905 but they seem like they’re in brand-new condition!

Meeting a Master of Mystery: An Interview with Paul Halter

There are many people I would like to thank for making this post possible. First and foremost, it is thanks to John Pugmire that I was able to get in touch with M. Paul Halter, and without him, this interview would have been impossible. Words cannot express my gratitude. I would also like to thank M. Paul Halter, who bravely tolerated a barrage of questions from my direction and graciously answered them all. I conducted this interview via e-mail in French— French-speaking readers may want to read the original version of this interview, which I posted here — and Xavier Lechard kindly helped me to translate some of the more tricky passages, also taking the time to read the entire thing after I finished. Thank you very much for your continued support, Xavier. Finally, my thanks go out to Barry Ergang, who took a look at my translation and gave detailed suggestions for improvements.

The Art of Murder

Back in June of last year, I enthusiastically reviewed Paul Halter’s novel Le Diable de Dartmoor (The Demon of Dartmoor), which I unequivocally called a masterpiece. And I stand by those words— Halter’s novel has excellent atmosphere, convincing enough characters, and one of the most fiendishly ingenious impossible crimes of all time.

At the end of that review, I noted that a comic book adaptation of the novel exists and that “I don’t own a copy, but I hope I will someday”. That day arrived a few weeks ago, and I sat down and read the bande dessinée adaptation. It did not disappoint in the least.

Having a Ball

A few weeks ago, the French-language Paul Halter forum exploded in excitement, as the modern-day Master of the Impossible Crime updated his French website with two new books: Spiral, a young adult novel, and La Balle de Nausicaa (Nausicaa’s Ball), a short story collection. I had recently reviewed La Nuit du loup (The Night of the Wolf) and was convinced Santa Claus had listened to my plea for another short story collection from Halter. When I went on vacation to end 2011, nothing more had been posted on the subject. Little did I know what was brewing…

I love this cover!!!

On December 27^th, Paul Halter made the announcement that the book was available to order… from Amazon.com! This was an odd move— Halter, a flagship author of legendary publisher Le Masque, had chosen to go with Createspace, an American self-publishing service, to publish a French book! Fans in France were understandably upset, and when the book finally appeared on Amazon.fr, the item quickly became “temporarily out of stock”. When I got back on January 1^st, I immediately ordered a copy for myself. After all, how couldn’t I? As a sincere, though not uncritical, admirer of Halter, I relished the opportunity to support his newest book by ordering a copy, and ironically, making it first available on Amazon.com made it far easier for me to do so!

So maybe I’m the first person in the world who has gotten to read his copy of Nausicaa’s Ball. Possibly not, but as I don’t see any reviews of it online, I’ll go ahead and give myself an award. Nausicaa’s Ball contains seven short stories by Halter, whose writing style is remarkably suited to the short-story form. Some of these stories are short, and others could be published as novellas. The title story had been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, but this is the first time it’s appeared in French as far as I know. Meanwhile, two of the stories included here were actually translated and included in the English edition of The Night of the Wolf, but they weren’t collected in the original French book. I’ve adapted my original reviews of these tales and included them in this post.

Now that we’ve gotten the background information out of the way, it’s time to dig into Nausicaa’s Ball and discover what gems are to be found in this collection.

An Improbable Fiction

“Truth, I may remind you, is stranger than fiction.”

“Spare me that tedious lie. You are quoting the only paradox which unimaginative people ever succeeded in inventing. And it is not true. It is insidious propaganda on the part of cheerless souls who want to make fiction as dull as truth. … What we need is some fearless iconoclast who will come out boldly against this damnable tyranny, saying, ‘Fiction is stranger than truth.’”

— Henri Bencolin, The Lost Gallows

La Nuit du loup (The Night of the Wolf) is thus far the only short story collection written by Paul Halter, and it was also his first book to be translated and published into English (back in 2007). It’s a wonderful collection that brings together all sorts of stories: some set in modern day, some starring Dr. Alan Twist, and others featuring Owen Burns. Halter has written several other short stories that have been uncollected thus far, and there’s enough to warrant a second collection, which would be most welcome.

However, it’s important to emphasize that I have read and will be reviewing the original French edition of La Nuit du Loup. There are several differences between the English translation and the original book. For one thing, the French edition contains only nine short stories (although the back cover claims it’s eight), while the English translation features ten. One of the original short stories was dropped because it was impossible to translate into English, and two others were added to bring the total up to ten: L’Abominable bonhomme de neige (The Abominable Snowman) and Le Spectre doré (The Golden Ghost). Finally, the order of the short stories is fairly different, although both English and French editions end with the titular short story.

You are cordially invited to dine with death

Killed in a locked room—what a way to go! And that’s precisely what happens to Harold Vickers, master of the impossible crime mystery, in Paul Halter’s La Mort Vous Invite (Death Invites You). What a bizarre crime! First, someone purporting to be Vickers sends two invitations. One is to a police officer, Simon Cunningham. The other is to a newspaper reporter, Fred Springer. They arrive, but Mrs. Dane Vickers insists there must be some sort of mistake: her eccentric husband locked himself in his study yesterday and hasn’t left since! However, when Vickers doesn’t answer to knocks at the door and something smelling like chicken is detected in the air, the door is forced open…

Vickers is sitting at a table prepared for three, face down in his food, his face and hands severely burned in bubbling-hot oil. The food is an exquisitely prepared meal… but where did it come from? It was still steaming when the door was opened, but nobody could’ve prepared anything in the kitchen without being noticed! Still more bizarre: the door to Vickers’ study was locked and his windows were shut and locked, with the shutters closed! To add to the crime’s strangeness, a pair of gloves is discovered at the crime scene as well as a goblet half-filled with water underneath the window. Don’t forget to point out that this case strongly resembles an unsolved murder from 1907, and that the dead man was planning to use the exact same scenario for his new book… And, heck, just for good measure, throw in a long-lost, similar-looking brother from Australia.

Dead Man's Chest

Bien qu’admirateur inconditionnel de Carr et amoureux sans frein de son art de conteur, je me dois de constater qu’aucun de ses ouvrages les plus réussis – je dis bien : aucun ! – ne contient la grandeur tragique des dernières pages de La Malédiction de Barberousse.

As an unconditional admirer of [John Dickson] Carr and unreservedly loving the art of his storytelling, I wish to ascertain that none of his most successful works – I mean it: none! – contain the tragic grandeur of the final pages of La Malédiction de Barberousse.

—Roland Lacourbe, preface to La Malédiction de Barberousse (Barbarossa’s Curse)

(My apologies to Roland Lacourbe if I have butchered his words beyond belief in an attempt to translate them into English.)

The story behind the publication of La Malédiction de Barberousse (Barbarossa’s Curse) is interesting. It was originally self-published by Paul Halter in 1986, and it won the Prix de la Société des écrivains d’Alsace-Lorraine. It introduced Dr. Alan Twist, who would star in the award-winning tour-de-force La Quatrième Porte (The Fourth Door) the following year. It would be published by Le Masque in 1995. It’s even shorter than La Quatrième Porte, and it’s an interesting look at Paul Halter’s imagination. That being said, there are a lot of flaws in this book as well, which seems to be taking a nosedive until it redeems itself with a stunning ending.

Abracadaver!

— Non. À l’heure actuelle, vous êtes sans conteste le meilleur. Le seul qui, au mépris de notre époque où hélas le mystère et le merveilleux cèdent le pas à la violence et au sexe, le seul qui persiste à écrire des énigmes digne de ce nom. Je dirai même que vous êtes le dernier défenseur de l’authentique roman policier.

***

“No. At the present time, you are undoubtedly the best, indeed the only one who continues to write crime mysteries worthy of the name. Your contemporaries have allowed sex and violence to take the place of mystery and suspense. I would even go so far as to call you the last defender of the authentic crime novel."

— Dr. Alan Twist, La Quatrième Porte (The Fourth Door)

Just over two weeks ago, I rejoiced when John Pugmire announced that Paul Halter’s award-winning first novel, La Quatrième Porte (The Fourth Door) was now available in English on Amazon.com, in e-book form as well as in print. I’ve gotten extremely fond of Halter’s work since discovering it earlier this year, and this recent bit of news gave me an excuse to return to the world of his fascinating imagination. So I ordered La Quatrième Porte and eagerly picked it up as soon as it arrived.

Something wicked this way comes...

Dartmoor, at the beginning of our tale

If I spoke about Dartmoor, England, I’m willing to bet that most mystery aficionados would immediately envision the moors, with fog everywhere and a solitary figure walking, as the howl of the Hound of the Baskervilles pierces through the evening… Well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was onto something when he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles— Dartmoor, with its landscape and various legends, is a perfect setting for an eerie mystery…

And that’s precisely what Paul Halter gave his readers in 1993, when he wrote his book Le Diable de Dartmoor (The Demon of Dartmoor). This is a fabulous book— without a doubt, it’s one of the best I’ve read in 2011, and it’s surpassed Le Tigre borgne (The One-Eyed Tiger) as my favourite book by Paul Halter.

Sur les lieux du crime

Those who regularly check in to At the Scene of the Crime probably know by now of the fondness I’ve developed for Paul Halter. His book Le Roi du désordre (The Lord of Misrule) was a very flawed book, but one I loved reading, which reminded me just why I love mysteries. The freshness of Halter’s impossible crimes is invigorating— not since John Dickson Carr have we been graced with an author who makes impossible crimes so central to his work. I eagerly devoured La Tête du tigre (The Tiger’s Head) and Le Tigre borgne (The One-Eyed Tiger): while I found Tête flawed, I found Le Tigre borgne a masterpiece, which left me eagerly hungering after more by Halter.

I decided to satisfy this craving with Halter’s 1994 novel À 139 pas de la mort (139 Steps from Death), the second of five books found in my Paul Halter omnibus (Volume 3). This novel, like La Tête du tigre, stars the detective duo of Dr. Alan Twist and Inspector Archibald Hurst. Again, although they are rather colourless, I find this refreshing— Halter doesn’t waste time giving us Hurst’s marital problems or Twist’s struggles against agoraphobia. They are just the detective duo, with Twist taking on the role of the Great Detective, and Hurst being his Watson figure.

Ce sont des traces de sang...

Paul Halter impressed me considerably with his highly imaginative and interesting book, Le Roi du Désordre, which was flawed, but at the same time offered two really good impossible scenarios with a plot that kept my interest all the way into the wee hours of the morning. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that I was anxious to read another Halter, and I finally settled on La Tête du Tigre (The Tiger’s Head).

I chose this book on the strength of an introduction penned by Roland Lacourbe to my Paul Halter omnibus, which contains Le Roi du Désordre and four other books. In the excellent aforementioned introduction, Lacourbe talks about Halter’s two main characters in his longest series: Inspector Archibald Hurst and Dr. Alan Twist. According to his introduction, when Paul Halter wrote La Malédiction de Barberousse, he was hoping to resurrect the career of the great Dr. Gideon Fell, but John Dickson Carr’s estate categorically refused to permit him to use the characters. So, with a bit of tweaking, removing the more obvious references, Dr. Fell became Dr. Twist, and Inspector Hadley became Inspector Hurst.