Boucher, Anthony as HH Holmes - Rocket to the Morgue

A floater named Jonathan Tarbell is murdered. A rosary in his pocket connects him to the wealthy Foulkes family - and, incidentally, to Sister Ursula, who repeats her investigative work here from Nine Times Nine, while the legwork is done once again by Lieutenant Marshall. Hilary Foulkes welcomes the investigation, since he claims his own life is in danger: there have been three failed attempts to kill him already. Two men die before Marshall and Sister Ursula unravel the case and solve the mystery of an assault in a locked room.

This is Boucher's attempt to introduce science fiction to the detective-story reading public. Hilary's wealth comes from his father's stories about the SF character Dr Derringer, the profits from which he vigorously protects. His enemies come from the San Francisco SF community, who want to exploit the Derringer character in various ways. There are lots of in-jokes and references to real characters. The 'rocket' of the title is an experimental version created by a scientist who is also an SF fan; among the witnesses to its trial are 'the Bouchers'.

As with Nine Times Nine the ultimate explanation left me unconvinced - particularly after the Epilogue, which actually knocks out one of the supporting pieces of evidence given for the conclusion. To say that 'two members of X's family could do this, therefore X could probably do it' is pretty weak reasoning, and to then go back and indicate that one of them wasn't a family member at all... I also found it hard to keep track of the welter of SF writers and editors, and the presence of Matt and Concha Duncan, also from Nine Times Nine, seemed unnecessary.

Still, it was entertaining reading and more or less fairly clued.

Jon.