Bloodhounds

"This is very much a locked-room mystery. It’s by Peter Lovesey, who is one of the greatest mystery novelists of the last few decades. He’s post-Golden-Age Golden Age. He embodies the brilliance of the Golden Age in terms of plots, but he also brings something contemporary to it. The books in his Peter Diamond series are police procedurals — Diamond is a police officer — and the mysteries hinge on the official processes in a way that Golden Age mysteries don’t. Bloodhounds is a wonderful book because it’s a conscious tribute to and pastiche of the Golden Age. The Bloodhounds in question are a book group who read and discuss Golden Age mystery fiction. They find themselves confronted with a real-life locked-room mystery when one of their members is found dead on the canal barge on which he lives. The locked-room scenario comes in because the barge was seemingly inaccessible, locked and sealed from the inside. There seems to be no way that the crime could have physically been committed. The book contains lots of discussions and references to Golden Age authors, particularly John Dickson Carr. That’s why I’m especially drawn to Bloodhounds . But the solution is also very original, and the plot is brilliantly crafted. Peter Lovesey writes in a wonderful, tongue-in-cheek style with hints of black humour throughout, which I think works perfectly and feels very fitting with the neo-Golden Age style. It’s something that I try to capture in my own writing when I’m writing tributes to Golden Age mystery fiction. Peter Lovesey is a great role model in that regard. It’s the sequel to my first book, Death and the Conjuror . Like Peter Lovesey, it’s a love letter to the Golden Age, but mine is set in 1938, at the height of the Golden Age. It’s a locked-room mystery that features not one but two seemingly impossible crimes. It begins with a young lawyer, Edmund Ibbs, who is working for the defence in a very controversial murder investigation, where a woman is accused of shooting her husband dead in bizarre circumstances. That is the jumping-off point for the plot but that murder, which takes place on a Ferris wheel, is not the focal point of the plot. Ibbs finds himself roped into a bizarre conspiracy with a complex tapestry of conflicting plots and motives. It all unfolds in the backstage corridors of a fictional West End theatre, so it is effectively a theatrical mystery as well. It sees the return of my fictional detective Joseph Spector, who appeared for the first time in Death and the Conjuror . Spector is a retired musical magician and, in classic Golden Age style, he is a consultant to Scotland Yard because of his unique insight into the unravelling of complex and seemingly supernatural, inexplicable phenomena. Spector and Ibbs are both present at a magic show at the fictional Pomegranate Theatre when a murdered corpse seemingly appears from thin air during the magician’s performance. That is the point at which things kick up a gear. We find ourselves really drawn into the mystery because nobody is able to explain how the murder victim was infiltrated into the magician’s act – least of all the magician himself. When the connection between the murdered man and the Ferris wheel murder case, which Ibbs is working on, is established, it becomes clear that a larger, overarching conspiracy is unfolding here. Unfortunately not. I don’t have the legerdemain or sleight of hand for it. If I was feeling generous, I would say that I consider my books to be psychological magic tricks. I often think of mystery writers as being akin to illusionists because, as I said, in both instances they are misdirecting an audience. You are controlling an audience’s attention and perceptions. There are different types of magic. While I’m not a performer myself, as in I don’t stand up in front of an audience, I consider the books to be a kind of performance. They are the outlet for my magical leanings, if you like."