You Want It Darker

In the opening pages of John Blackburn’s Bury Him Darkly, we are introduced to the legend of Sir Martin Railstone. He lived most of his life in relative obscurity in the 18^th century. However, late in his life, he entered an unexpected period of genius, both artistic and scientific. Rumours swirled that this was due to demonic possession, and many dark stories have circulated about him ever since. Sir Martin spent the last several years of his life furiously at work in almost total isolation. Upon his death, he decreed that all his work from this period be buried with him until the day that a (very specifically described) ancestor could lay claim to the inheritance.

Until then, the Church of England has been entrusted with the tomb and its contents. Yet due to the scandalous rumours about Sir Martin, the Church has refused to open the tomb. And now, time is running out. A new dam will leave Sir Martin’s tomb under hundreds of feet of water. Thus, a group of his devotees – including a historian, a former Nazi scientist, and a wealthy industrialist – take it upon themselves to open up the tomb before it is too late.

Let it Shine

Somewhere in the Colorado Rockies, there is an old and isolated hotel known as the Overlook Hotel. The season for tourists is now over and the hotel is ready to close up for the winter. Everyone will be back in May for the summer season, but until then, the hotel needs a caretaker to make sure that the hotel is in shipshape condition throughout the winter. And so a caretaker named Jack Torrance is hired.

Jack, his wife Wendy, and his young son Danny all come to the Overlook, preparing to spend the winter together. Jack is a struggling writer, and he intends to work on his play and finally get it finished. But the Overlook is not a good place – years ago, another caretaker named Delbert Grady was hired for the winter… and ended up murdering his wife and two daughters before committing suicide. It’d be silly to talk about ghosts, of course… but what about those apparitions that young Danny has seen? What about those sinister hedge animals which sometimes seem to come to life? What about those odd noises, as though a party from 1945 has never quite wrapped up? And why do these phenomena keep getting stronger, and increasing in intensity?

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Dracula is one of those immortal stories that pretty much any intelligent person knows, even if they haven’t read the story themselves. It’s right up there with Hamlet, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Christmas Carol. I had read Dracula before, but for reasons I will clarify in a moment, I wanted to revisit the classic novel.

So, here’s a really brief overview of the story for anyone who doesn’t know it: Dracula is an evil vampire who leaves his native land of Transylvania to come to England. He wreaks havoc there, draining the blood of a young woman without being suspected… that is, until someone calls in Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, who realises that Dracula is behind it all.

An Air That Kills

Hello, readers, and welcome back to another special crossover-edition of At the Scene of the Crime! It was not long ago that I participated in a podcast hosted by Bill of Traditional Mysteries, where the topic of discussion was Sherlock Holmes. At one point, fellow blogger John Norris brought up the book The Breath of God, a novel by Guy Adams starring none other than Sherlock Holmes. I wasn’t in the room when the book was initially mentioned (there was a doorbell), but I later mentioned it and commented that it seemed far more like a supernatural novel. Any sane person would stay away, right?

Well, that ought to give you some insight into my character, because a great idea struck me: John had mentioned owning the book and I remembered picking it up at my local independent bookstore. The book sounded a lot like a supernatural novel, but was it really an ingenious impossible crime mystery in disguise? There was only one way to find out, and I managed to convince John (with a minimum of Chinese Water Torture) to join me for the ride. My one-year anniversary was coming up and besides, I like to support the local store when I can. So back to the store I marched at the first opportunity (that Tuesday, as it happens) and I walked out with The Breath of God in my bag.

So what was this book? A supernatural story that pilfers Holmes to sell more copies? An impossible crime with supernatural overtones? A mystery into which supernatural elements are integrated? There was a positive-sounding quote from Christopher Fowler on the cover, and yet that didn’t set me quite at ease… There was only one way to find out what I had gotten myself into…

John, thanks a lot for joining me today!

***

Sherlock: The Hounds of Baskerville

As The Hounds of Baskerville opens, Sherlock Holmes is bored. He is pining for a proper case, when a man named Henry Knight drops in for a visit. As a young boy, he claims, he witnessed his father getting ripped apart by a monstrous hound on Dartmoor. He ran away in terror, although no corpse was ever found. After years of therapy, he has returned to the crime scene… but this does nothing to quell his terrors. Although Sherlock is initially sceptical, he becomes very interested after his visitor tells him, “Mr. Holmes, they were the footsteps of a gigantic hound!”

Thus, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are on the case, going to Dartmoor. There, they get onto the scent of top-secret military experiments at a place called Baskerville. And I won’t say any more about the plot. The writer is Mark Gatiss, who previously penned the somewhat-disastrous The Great Game. (One of these days I’ll watch it again and give it a proper review to voice all my issues with that episode.) However, this time Mark Gatiss outdoes himself. The Hounds of Baskerville, inspired by the infamous The Hound of the Baskervilles, is a pure delight from start to finish.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei ora pro nobis peccatoribus...

Paul Doherty’s An Ancient Evil was an excellent book, but it also set the bar for his “Canterbury Tales” series very high. This begs the question: would other books in the series rise up to the occasion, or would they fall short of the first book? However, being a foolish mortal, I skipped A Tapestry of Murders (Being the Man of Law’s Tale) and A Tournament of Murders (Being the Franklin’s Tale) and I went right to 1997’s Ghostly Murders, Being the Priest’s Tale.

Ghostly Murders is told by the Poor Priest, and the introduction is bone-chilling, as we see the Spectantes (“Watchers”) and hear them chant their ominous words to the priest: “Spectamus Te! We are watching you!” As in An Ancient Evil, the priest is prompted to tell his story, and as he goes on, we get more and more hints that this story really took place.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"

Welcome once again to a special edition of At the Scene of the Crime! As you probably know by now, I am celebrating my 100^th blog post with an extravaganza of crossover reviews, joined by various other mystery bloggers. Today, The Puzzle Doctor has kindly joined me from his blog over at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel. In fact, it was this same mathematician who, back in July, posted an enticing review of Nightshade by Paul Doherty. That post started an avalanche of Paul Doherty reviews in the mystery blogging community, and I was intrigued from the get-go. At the time, I commented:

“Ok, not fair. After plenty of talks with Curt Evans, here I am with a huge list of books by guys like R. Austin Freeman and JJ Connington, and here you go intriguing me with a completely different book!”

But if you scroll down just a wee bit, you’ll find another comment by John from Pretty Sinister Books, who wrote the following: “I also like the Canterbury Tales series especially since they show Doherty’s proclivity for the inclusion of supernatural elements in a detective novel. AN ANCIENT EVIL is one of the most frightening books about the vampire cult in old Romania I have ever read.”

This intrigued me: a series of mysteries centered on The Canterbury Tales, with supernatural elements? And that comment on An Ancient Evil from such a prolific blogger was too fascinating to resist... So it seemed like an ideal book to read and review with The Puzzle Doctor (a.k.a. Steve), who is responsible for this Doherty craze in the first place.

Steve, the crime scene is all yours! Thank you for joining me!

What's your favourite scary movie?

Though horror movies are far from my favourite genre, I love the Scream series of movies. These films take a look at the horror film in a delightfully satirical, tongue-in-cheek way: the characters expound on the rules of the horror movie, proudly avoid the same stupid mistakes, and then turn around and make new stupid mistakes. This layer of satire is what makes the first two films, Scream and Scream 2, stand up above your average violent slasher flick. While still violent (and rather scary) movies, they have a fun habit of mocking themselves in the process and it makes for great watching.

Something happened by the time Scream 3 rolled along, however. The series became lazy and started to come up with outlandish situations… but it took itself seriously. The charm of the first two movies was the characters’ self-awareness, but in Scream 3, these scenes were very few, far between, and not nearly as successful. There are some moments in the movie—like a very good chase through a movie set, or a cameo by Carrie Fischer in which she takes a fun crack at herself and the character she played in Star Wars—but overall, Scream 3 fell flat, feeling like little more than an attempt to cash in.