Thomas, Alan - The Death of Laurence Vining (1928)
C
[WARNING: NICK'S OPINION OF THE BOOK REVEALS THE IDENTITY OF THE MURDERER AND THE SOLUTION TO THE IMPOSSIBLE CRIME!! - J F Norris]
Rated very highly in lists of impossible crime stories, but not memorable a week later. The plot involves an impossible murder in a lift (the only other example I know of is Carr / Rhode’s Fatal Descent) and the murder of a Sherlock Holmes-type amateur detective (pure intellect without compassion or sympathy, but plenty of arrogance)—***by his Dr. Watson, as I thought all along***. There’s some good exoticism in the form of Malay legends, and some different ways in which the crime could have been committed. The solution is ingenious (***the man who got into the lift wasn’t the victim, and the real victim was killed after his body was “discovered”***), but the explanation is drawn out and ponderous.
Thomas doesn’t write terribly well, although he clearly wants to (e.g., Greek quotation in prologue). The love scene is particularly bathetic.
Nick Fuller.
See also http://prettysinister.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/death-of-laurence-vining-alan-thomas.html and http://at-scene-of-crime.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/inconceivable.html
See also:http://deathcanread.blogspot.it/2015/12/alan-thomas-death-of-laurence-vining.html
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