forensic science hasn’t developed to the stage where technology can solve many cases. (Modern-day DNA analysis in particular would make the discovery of hitherto unknown relatives very easy.) The era between the World Wars is often referred to as the “Golden Era” of crime fiction, when authors like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers delighted and confounded readers.

Golden Age mysteries were often called “fair play” stories, since the authors scrupulously provided all the clues readers needed to solve the puzzles (though those clues were usually ingeniously obscured by misdirection). The House at Devil’s Neck, like all of Tom Mead’s work, is a brilliant modern example of the fair play mystery. He even includes several floor plans of the house and rooms where various crimes occur. At the book’s conclusion, when Spector explains how the crimes were committed, the author even inserts footnotes in the text that direct readers to the pages where important clues are revealed.

The narrative structure of The House at Devil’s Neck is somewhat unusual, as the author tells the story in chapters that alternate between the titular house on the English coast and another house in downtown London. On August 31, 1939, Spector’s police associates investigate a seeming suicide in the home of Rodney Edgecombe. Inspector Flint (a series regular) has been called by the household staff to investigate a disturbance in which Edgecombe had barricaded himself in a locked room. Flint hears a gunshot, breaks down the door, and discovers Edgecombe dead in an apparent suicide. However, Flint has worked with Spector on other “locked room” cases and knows these things are rarely what they first seem. He investigates and uncovers clues that reveal what actually happened in the room.

Meanwhile, Spector and several others are traveling by bus to the titular house. It’s on a spit of land just off the English coast, connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway. The house dates from 1630, but was later used as a hospital during World War I for wounded British soldiers. It had been abandoned for over a decade before being bought by Edgecombe, who recuperated there from wounds received during the Great War (the link between the two cases). Now, a noted psychic has gone to the house to conduct a seance to contact the spirit of another soldier who died in the hospital. Much like Harry Houdini, who debunked several real-life “psychics” as frauds, Spector is on hand to expose any con artistry by the medium. Soon after the party arrives, a heavy storm raises the sea level, making a return to the mainland temporarily impossible. And soon after that, the first of two mysterious deaths occurs in the house for Spector to solve.

The plot structure and backstory of The House at Devil’s Neck are highly complex, but the author makes the storyline easy to follow. In London, Flint and the police uncover information that makes it easier for readers (but not Spector, who isn’t privy to that information) to understand what’s happening at Devil’s Neck. The flooded causeway that strands Spector and the others on the island turns the novel into a variant of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, which had a similar isolated location. The author also recounts key events that occurred in the 17th century (including an English variant on the Salem Witch Trials), shortly before and during World War I, and in the “present” day of 1939. (Students of history will recognize the significance of the date on which the various deaths occur.)

What impressed me most about The House at Devil’s Neck was the clarity of the author’s writing. The novel’s backstory was complex but easy to follow. The author relied on readers’ intelligence to grasp what he described in a few sentences. Other mystery authors might take several chapters to explain these various events. As in many locked room or impossible crime stories, the solution here relies to an extent on rudimentary yet improbable gadgetry, gimmickry, and physical contortions. However, I could understand (I think) what happened without excessive pondering over the details. Mysteries like The House at Devil’s Neck are very much a matter of personal taste, even for genre fans, so this book will not appeal to some readers. However, for those who enjoy this type of puzzle solving, even if they are baffled by the mystery, The House at Devil’s Neck is an entertaining example.

The author’s writing in this book is lean and succinct, mostly. He includes introductory quotes from various sources in most chapters and some obligatory excess verbiage to establish red herrings and camouflage important clues. He also includes an “Interlude Wherein the Reader’s Attention Is Respectfully Requested.” This interlude is a challenge to the reader (taken from similar challenges in early Ellery Queen novels) to solve the mystery, now that they possess all the information necessary to do so. It’s a gimmick, but one I think most genre fans will enjoy.

What I didn’t enjoy was Spector’s excessive pontificating on specific points as he explained the mystery. That character quirk is also borrowed from classical mysteries, whose detectives engaged in similar pontificating, but the gimmick’s authenticity doesn’t make it any more enjoyable. During his explanation, Spector made several obscure references to obscure objects like the “magic lantern,” which is a necessary part of the mystery’s solution. The lantern is necessary; the aside Spector makes about the lantern being “devised by Christiaan Huygens in the seventeenth century—that ingenious Dutchman who also gave us the pendulum clock” is not. Throwing several of these relatively uninteresting side references in the middle of Spector’s explanation of the mystery’s solution was a needless, irritating distraction.

Tom Mead has clearly done a great deal of research into stage magic, trickery of all sorts, Golden Age mysteries, and the various historical events referenced in The House at Devil’s Neck. At times, he includes too many extraneous, distracting, and somewhat uninteresting details in the text. Still, the book is a quick read (avid readers will devour it in one night) and a great example of the subgenre. The House at Devil’s Neck proves to be a devilishly good mystery that Golden Age fans and many mystery fans in general will thoroughly enjoy.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.