Category: Mystery

Murder on the Haunted Express by Emma Mason

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This is the second book in Emma Mason’s mystery series featuring retired police officer Midge McGowan. I enjoyed the first, Murder Most Haunted, with a few reservations, so was happy to give this one a try. You could definitely start with this one if you wanted to as it works as a standalone mystery, but reading in order will help you understand the backgrounds of the main characters and the relationships between them.

The novel begins with Midge’s friend, struggling pop star Rona, inviting her on a trip to the Scottish Highlands by steam train. Midge doesn’t really want to go, but accepts, thinking that at least it should be a relaxing break and a chance to do her embroidery. On arriving at the station, however, she finds that Rona, as usual, hasn’t been completely honest. The trip is actually part of a funeral procession, carrying the body of a recently deceased artist to his final resting place. Worse, the train itself has a tragic history and one of the carriages is said to be haunted – much to the delight of paranormal podcaster Noah, another friend who has joined them on the journey.

Before the train reaches its destination, a passenger is found dead in a locked carriage with no obvious cause of death. As the only detective on board, it naturally falls to Midge to investigate, but she’ll need to solve the mystery quickly before the killer strikes again. The suspects include a prisoner on temporary release to attend the funeral, accompanied by his prison guard, an undertaker responsible for the safe transport of the coffin, and a writer working on a biography of the dead artist. Is one of these people the murderer or could there be a more ghostly explanation?

First of all, I love the character of Midge McGowan; she feels so real and human. As a neurodivergent woman in her fifties with a bad knee she’s used to being ignored and underestimated and having spent most of her police career pushed into a backstage position in the property office, she’s an unlikely detective. But over the years Midge has learned to listen, observe and draw her own conclusions, skills that are invaluable when it comes to solving mysteries. She can be prickly at times – she likes her own space and to be allowed to do things in her own way – but her grief for the recent loss of her wife Bridie, who died of cancer, shows a more tender side of her personality. It’s good to see that the friendships with Rona and Noah formed in the previous book have continued although, as someone who hasn’t had many friends before, Midge isn’t always sure how to navigate those friendships.

My problem with the book was the same as with the first one: that apart from Midge, none of the other characters feel like real people and are a collection of stereotypes. Rona, for example, is the classic ‘pop star’ character – temperamental, entitled, in and out of rehab, obsessed with her appearance – and both she and Noah seem to be mainly in the book to provide some comedy. The same goes for the other characters who seem to have no personality beyond being an undertaker, a prisoner, an art curator etc. This isn’t a huge problem as these books are clearly intended to be funny and not taken too seriously (as you can tell from the titles) but I think they would definitely be improved by stronger characterisation.

The mystery is interesting, with some twists and turns, and I would never have guessed the solution! Trains are the perfect setting for locked room mysteries with all of the suspects and potential victims together in close confines, separated from the outside world until they arrive at a station. Despite Noah’s fascination with the ghost supposedly haunting the train, this is never really considered as a plausible theory by Midge, but it does provide some atmosphere.

Like the first book, this one was enjoyable enough to leave me looking forward to the next one. I’m assuming there will be more as this one ends with a new development in Midge’s life which should be interesting to explore.

Thanks to Bantam for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Reviewed for RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

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This month’s theme for Read Christie 2026 is ‘Best According to Agatha’, with the option of choosing any of the books on Christie’s own list of her top 10 favourites which she compiled in 1972. My choice was easy as the only one I hadn’t already read was The Moving Finger.

First published in 1942, this is a Miss Marple mystery, although Miss Marple herself doesn’t appear until near the end. The book is narrated by Jerry Burton, a pilot who has been injured in a plane crash. He and his sister Joanna have decided to rent a house in the small market town of Lymstock so he can get away from London for a while and finish recuperating in peace and quiet. However, life in Lymstock proves to be much less quiet and peaceful than he’d expected! Almost as soon as they arrive, Jerry receives an anonymous letter containing the accusation that he and Joanna are not brother and sister. Knowing this is untrue, they aren’t too concerned and destroy the letter, but later learn that several other people in the town have also been receiving them.

As the letters become the main topic of conversation in the town, some people begin to speculate that there’s no smoke without fire and maybe some of the accusations are true. When Mrs Symmington is found dead after receiving a particularly nasty letter, it’s assumed that she has committed suicide. Now that the writer has had some success, will they stop sending the letters? No, they don’t – and when another death occurs, the vicar’s wife decides to call in an expert, “someone who knows a great deal about wickedness”. The expert, of course, is Miss Marple!

The Moving Finger is a very enjoyable novel. I loved the portrayal of a small community where everyone knows everyone else’s business – the ideal setting for a poison pen letter mystery. I was reminded of Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White but I think this one is a stronger novel. Despite the book being published in 1942, there are no mentions of the war and the residents of Lymstock seem to be completely untouched by it, something I’ve noticed in other books of hers from that period (N or M? is the main exception). The assumption is that Jerry is an RAF pilot whose plane was shot down, but that’s never actually made clear and there are only the vaguest references to his accident, which happens before the novel begins.

I didn’t manage to solve the mystery – I had narrowed the suspects down to two but neither was correct. Of course, Miss Marple has no difficulty identifying the culprit, using her powers of observation, perception of human nature and knowledge of village life. I’m not sure that there was really any need for her to appear in this book at all, though. She doesn’t arrive on the scene until chapter ten (of fifteen) so it could probably have worked just as well as a standalone novel with a different character, maybe Jerry himself, solving the mystery. Still, it’s always nice to see Miss Marple, even if only briefly!

I’ve now read all of the Miss Marple novels, although I still have one of the short story collections to read. I’ll be returning to the Tommy and Tuppence series for Read Christie in October.

Reviewed for RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

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The August theme for the Read Christie challenge is ‘Beloved Duo’, so one of her Tommy and Tuppence books was the obvious choice for this month! I’ve read the first three in the series, which made this an ideal opportunity to pick up the next one, By the Pricking of My Thumbs.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, unlike Christie’s other detectives, age in real time throughout the series. When we first meet them in The Secret Adversary, published in 1922, they are young people in their early twenties; in By the Pricking of My Thumbs, published in 1968, they’re now in their sixties. Christie herself, of course, was also growing older and the topic of ageing forms a prominent part of this novel. It begins with a visit to Tommy’s elderly Aunt Ada at Sunny Ridge Nursing Home, where Tuppence falls into conversation with another resident, a Mrs Lancaster. She’s a sweet, friendly old lady and the two are getting along well – until Mrs Lancaster suddenly refers to something hidden behind the fireplace and asks Tuppence, “Was it your poor child?”

Tuppence is still thinking about those words several weeks later when Aunt Ada dies and she and Tommy return to Sunny Ridge to collect her belongings. Tuppence hopes to speak to Mrs Lancaster again, but is told that she has gone, having been taken away by a relative. Instinctively feeling that something is wrong, Tuppence tries to track down Mrs Lancaster but no one seems to know exactly where she could be. The only clue is a painting Mrs Lancaster gave to Aunt Ada before her death, showing a house by a canal. Tuppence is sure she’s seen that house before, possibly from the window of a train, so while Tommy is away from home attending a conference, Tuppence decides to find the house again in the hope that it will lead her to Mrs Lancaster.

This is a particularly dark Christie novel, which is to be expected considering the title comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (“by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”). I found it creepy and unsettling, with all the talk of dead or missing children, Mrs Lancaster’s complete disappearance, and the descriptions of the house, partially abandoned and, as one character says, ‘put to the wrong use’. The scenes at Sunny Ridge also show, quite disturbingly, how the concerns of elderly people can easily be dismissed as confusion or dementia. Tommy and Tuppence themselves, though, are a delight to spend time with, as always, especially Tuppence who has to learn to accept that although she may still be a lively, adventurous young woman at heart, her physical limitations are catching up with her and she can’t do all the things she used to do.

Although this book is maybe not as tightly plotted as some of Christie’s others and not one of her absolute best, it’s still very enjoyable. I found the ending quite chilling – I hadn’t guessed the solution and the culprit was someone I had never suspected. Now I only have one Tommy and Tuppence book left to read: Postern of Fate, which I’m hoping to read for the Read Christie challenge later this year.

Book 17/20 of 20 Books of Summer

She Walks at Night by Seishi Yokomizo

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Translated by Jesse Kirkwood

I love Seishi Yokomizo’s Kosuke Kindaichi mystery series and have read all the books currently available in English from Pushkin Press, of which this is the eighth. Originally published in 1948, She Walks at Night has a slightly different feel from most of the others in the series and it’s one of my favourites so far.

The novel is narrated by Torata Yashiro, a struggling mystery writer, who is approached by a friend, Naoki Sengoku, to ask for his opinion on a series of strange incidents involving members of Naoki’s family. Like many people, Naoki thinks that because Torata writes mysteries he must also know how to solve them – but of course that’s not necessarily the case, and when Torata hears the story he’s just as confused as his friend.

It seems that Naoki’s father, once a servant of the wealthy Furugami family, has grown close to the widowed Lady Oryu since her husband’s death. In fact, Naoki believes that the relationship started earlier than that and Lady Oryu’s daughter, Yachiyo, is actually his father’s child and therefore his own half-sister. A family prophecy has stated that Yachiyo will marry a hunchback – and, surprisingly, there are two of these in the Furugami household. One is Morie, another half-brother of Yachiyo’s who developed rickets as a child; the other is Koichi Hachiya, an artist who has just become engaged to Yachiyo.

The reason for Naoki’s concern is that Yachiyo shot Hachiya in the leg at a nightclub the previous year and hasn’t given a satisfactory explanation for what she did. She has also been receiving anonymous letters warning her not to ‘walk at night’ – a reference to her habit of sleepwalking. Torata agrees to accompany Naoki to his family home to meet Yachiyo and see if he can provide any answers, but almost as soon as he arrives the mystery deepens when a dead body is found with the head removed. How can they track down the murderer when they can’t even be sure who the victim is?

You may be wondering where Kosuke Kindaichi comes into all of this. In some of the books, he’s there from the beginning, but in others we don’t see him until later on – this is one of the latter and our dishevelled, stammering private detective makes his appearance almost exactly halfway through the book. People often underestimate Kindaichi, as Torata and Naoki initially do here, but his talents are hidden beneath his unimpressive exterior and as soon as he begins to investigate, the mystery starts to unravel. However, I felt that things unfold too quickly and easily once Kindaichi arrives on the scene and with the whole story told from Torata’s perspective, we don’t really get to see how the detective reaches any of his conclusions. The final solution, when it’s revealed, is clever and surprising, though, and I certainly hadn’t guessed it (it had crossed my mind once or twice, but I’d quickly dismissed it).

Japanese crime novels tend to focus more on the plot than on the characters, but I’m finding that Yokomizo’s books have a better balance and there are several interesting characters here, as well as Kindaichi himself, including Naoki’s father, the drunken, sword-wielding Tetsunoshin, and the bitter, vengeful old family nurse, Okita. This book overall has many of the same elements as a typical country house mystery by authors like Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr, with some Gothic touches such as sleepwalking, family curses and the murders being carried out with a legendary Muramasa sword.

Jesse Kirkwood is the latest of several translators who have worked on this series and although I’ve been happy with all of the translations, this one feels particularly smooth and easy to read. The use of a first person narrator also gives it a more intimate, personal feel than some of the other books (I think The Village of Eight Graves and The Honjin Murders are the only other ones written in the first person). If you’re new to the series, this could be a good place to start, but as they’re all separate mysteries you could really start anywhere. I’m already looking forward to the next one to be translated, The Queen Bee Mystery, coming next year!

Thanks to Pushkin Vertigo for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 2/20 of 20 Books of Summer

Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd

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This is the second book in Jess Kidd’s new 1950s mystery series, Nora Breen Investigates. I enjoyed the first one, Murder at Gulls Nest, but I thought this one was even better. It’s not essential to read them in order as they are completely separate mysteries, but you’ll have a better understanding of some of the characters and their relationships if you do.

In the previous book, former nun Nora Breen arrives in the English seaside town of Gore-on-Sea to investigate a friend’s disappearance. With that mystery now solved, she has decided to stay on at the Gulls Nest guest house for the winter so she can look for a job and build a new life for herself in the town. Soon, though, Nora finds herself caught up in another mystery – the murder of medium Doreen Chimes during a séance at her Gore-on-Sea ‘spirit lounge’. The séance had been attended by a small group of guests including Nora’s new friend, Detective Inspector Rideout, and there’s reason to believe that all of their lives could now be in danger.

With Rideout himself a possible target, along with the other séance attendees, he and Nora need to track down the murderer as quickly as possible. The only clue they have are the letters E.V.E. – part of a message Mrs Chimes was supposedly receiving from the spirit world at the moment of her death. Who is Eve and who was the message intended for? To find out, Nora will need to ask a lot of questions – and, fortunately, she’s just been offered a job as reporter for the Gore-on-Sea Herald, which gives her the perfect excuse to speak to people and hunt for information.

One of my favourite things about the first book was Nora’s relationship with Rideout and I was pleased to see it develop further in this book (although if you’re hoping for a great romance, I think there’s still a long way to go). Nora also has another suitor, the photographer Hosmer, so I suspect someone is going to be disappointed! There are plenty of other colourful characters as well, such as Irene, the Gulls Nest housekeeper, whose cooking leaves a lot to be desired, eight-year-old Dinah, who doesn’t speak but watches and listens, and even Father Conway, the seagull who taps at Nora’s bedroom window every morning.

The mystery is an interesting one and with this being the second book in the series, I felt that we got straight into the action more quickly than in the first book as less time needed to be spent introducing the main characters and setting the scene. I had my suspicions about the identity of the culprit early on and I was right, but there were still other things that I didn’t guess and I enjoyed watching Nora and Rideout carrying out their investigations. With Rideout’s life at risk, a lot of the detective work falls to Nora, much to his frustration! This also gives his assistant, Constable Griggs, a chance to get more involved and his help proves invaluable to Nora towards the end. Another important clue is provided by one of Doreen Chimes’ cats, whom Nora rescues from the medium’s house and brings home to Gulls Nest.

Overall, I found this an entertaining novel, slightly stronger than the first one. I love the 1950s seaside setting and will be looking out for more books in the series. First, though, I’m looking forward to reading Jess Kidd’s new standalone novel, Little Spark, which is being published in July.

Thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie

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This month’s theme for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is ‘Best Short Story Collection’. I’ve already read the suggested title, The Labours of Hercules, so I decided to choose a different one – and although I’m not sure whether Poirot Investigates would be considered one of her best short story collections, it was her first and it’s one I hadn’t read before. Originally published in the UK in 1924, it contains eleven stories all featuring Hercule Poirot and narrated by Captain Hastings. The US version published a year later includes three extra stories, which later appeared in the UK in Poirot’s Early Cases.

The stories in this book are quick and fun to read, although some of them feel a bit insubstantial and there’s a sense that Christie is experimenting with different types of plot and still finding her feet as a writer. Poirot himself also doesn’t feel entirely like the character we get to know later on, but Christie is beginning to develop his famous characteristics and mannerisms in these stories. I’ve always loved Hastings and his relationship with Poirot, so I was happy that he narrates this whole collection. It’s very endearing every time he gets excited thinking he has solved the mystery and tries to console Poirot for getting things wrong – only to find out, every time, that Poirot has been a step ahead all along!

I won’t discuss all of the stories here, but will mention a few of the highlights. I think my favourite story was The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim, in which Inspector Japp tells Poirot about the disappearance of a banker who went out to post some letters and hasn’t returned. Poirot makes a bet with Japp that he can solve the crime without even leaving his armchair. The solution to this one is clever and the way Poirot carries out his investigation from his own home makes it feel slightly different. I also really enjoyed The Adventure of the Cheap Flat. One of Hastings’ friends, Mrs Robinson, tells him how she and her husband have been searching for a flat to rent and have been offered a beautifully furnished one at a desirable address for a suspiciously low price. This entertaining little story brings in some elements of espionage and adventure and, of course, Poirot quickly discovers why the flat is so cheap!

The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb is another I particularly liked, mainly for the setting and the atmosphere. It involves the deaths, one by one, of the people involved with the opening of the tomb of King Men-He-Rah. Poirot and Hastings travel to Egypt to try to unravel the mystery, which is clearly inspired by the real life opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun which took place just before the story was written.

This is an enjoyable collection, then – maybe not as strong overall as some of her others, but it was interesting to read some stories written so early in Christie’s career. I’m not planning to take part in Read Christie next month but have The Rose and the Yew Tree, one of her books published as Mary Westmacott, lined up for July.

Dead Men Don’t Ski by Patricia Moyes

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This is the first in a series of mysteries published between 1959 and 1993 and featuring Inspector Henry Tibbett. I had never come across them, or their author Patricia Moyes, until now, but I really enjoyed this one and will definitely be looking for more.

Dead Men Don’t Ski begins with Henry Tibbett and his wife, Emmy, setting off on a skiing trip to Italy. It’s a much-needed holiday for the two of them, but Henry is also planning to mix business with pleasure. The hotel they’ll be staying at in Santa Chiara is suspected of being the centre of operations of a ring of drug smugglers and Henry has been asked by Scotland Yard to work with the local Italian police to find out who the culprits are. Of course, he doesn’t admit this to his fellow guests as he wants them to speak and act freely around him. These guests include a party of young English tourists – Jimmy, Roger and Caro; a retired military man, Colonel Buckfast and his wife; a beautiful Italian baroness and her possessive Austrian husband; and a German couple with their daughter and her prospective husband, as well as an assortment of hotel staff, skiing instructors and local residents.

At first, Henry and Emmy manage to blend in with everyone else, enjoying the scenery, attending skiing lessons and relaxing around the hotel. But when one of the guests boards the ski lift at the top of the mountain and is found dead by the time he reaches the bottom, Henry’s detective skills are needed to solve the crime and he will no longer be able to stay undercover.

This is an entertaining novel with a beautiful setting. Santa Chiara is described as a small village close to Chiusa near the border of Italy and Austria and drawing from the cultures of both countries. There are lovely descriptions of snow-covered peaks and valleys, pine trees and pink rock, Alpine houses with wooden balconies – and the Bella Vista Hotel perched high in the mountains. I was reminded of another ski resort mystery, Death in Kashmir by M.M. Kaye, although I thought that book was darker than this one.

I liked Henry Tibbett and it was also good to see so much of Emmy. Often the detective’s wife is kept very much in the background, maybe popping up now and then to make a cup of tea or answer the phone, but in this book Emmy is present from beginning to end. It would have been nice to see her play a bigger role in helping to actually solve the mystery, but maybe she will in one of the later books in the series. The other characters are also interesting; with such a mix of different nationalities you do need to be prepared for some slightly dated attitudes, but no worse than in most other books of this period. I was particularly drawn to Maria-Pia, the Baroness, and her cold, controlling husband Hermann, who turns out to have hidden depths.

As for the mystery itself, it’s a good one with plenty of suspects, although my heart sank when Spezzi, the Italian policeman working with Henry, draws up a detailed timetable of events, which is reproduced in the book. I find mysteries that focus on timings and alibis to be tedious and difficult to follow, so I was pleased that this book didn’t dwell too much on that after all – it was just part of Spezzi’s approach to crime solving and although his timetable did prove very useful, the interviews he and Henry conduct with the witnesses and suspects were just as important.

The first two books in this series are available now in attractive new editions from Farrago Books and with the next two advertised for publication later this year I hope that means they’ll be reissuing the whole series. I suspect it’s probably not essential to read them in order but I’m planning to try the second one, The Sunken Sailor, soon.

Thanks to Farrago Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.