Fri 1 May 2020
Locked Room Mysteries I’m Reading: EDWARD D. HOCH “The Problem of the Tin Goose.â€
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading[2] Comments
EDWARD D. HOCH “The Problem of the Tin Goose.†Dr. Sam Hawthorne #24. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1982. Collected in More Things Impossible: The Second Casebook of Dr Sam Hawthorne (Crippen & Landru, 2006). Previously reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunits, edited by Mike Ashley (Running Press, US, 2004).
In the 1920s troupes of barnstorming pilots were all the rage, doing al sorts of fancy flying maneuvers and such daredevil stunts such as wing-walking, including stepping from the wing of one plane onto that of another. And even though Dr. Sam Hawthorne was but a young man then and new to his practice, he was around to watch – and to solve a murder that on the face of it had no possible explanation.
To wit: When one of the planes involved in such activities comes back down to the ground, the pilot is found stabbed to death in the cockpit, which was locked from the inside, nor was there any feasible way for the knife to be thrown through the open window from the other plane.
Hoch’s stories were almost always perfect models of pure puzzle stories, with only occasional attempts at in depth characterizations. If that is what you’re looking for in the crime stories you read, Hoch is probably not the author for you. And even so, I thought the crucial part of the clue to howdunit could have been amped up a little without letting any of the cat out of the bag.
A mere quibble. “Tin Goose†is not only a really neat puzzle yarn, but it’s fun to read simply for the brief incursion into the past it provides, showing us what kinds of local events got small town America excited between the wars.
May 1st, 2020 at 10:34 pm
The whole collection is really first rate: “More Things Impossible: The Second Casebook of Dr Sam Hawthorne”. Hoch is hitting on all cylinders.
May 1st, 2020 at 11:20 pm
I am still in awe all these years later that Hoch did this kind of thing month in month out for years with only the slightest of halt and virtually no clunkers. I might prefer certain characters, but whether it was Simon Ark, Rand, Nick Velvet, Dr. Hawthorne, Sebastian Blue, or Ben Snow Hoch seldom failed to entertain — and meanwhile turned out a couple of his own novels, ghost wrote series for Ellery Queen, and penned non series shorts as Stephen Dentinger and under his own name.