Review: Old School Mystery Doesn't Play Fair with Reader
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 17, 2014
"Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish" is a highly unusual short story from a highly unlikely author. Stephen Leather is best known as a writer of hard nosed action thrillers, but he goes completely old school here... old school as in the classic mystery novels of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, what was intended as a tribute to these masters falls a bit short  because he violates the fundamental rule of this style of mystery writing... he doesn't play fair with the readers.The story is a classic locked room mystery. A guest in a luxury Singapore hotel is found murdered in his room. However, surveillance camera footage reveals that no one entered the room between the time he ordered room service until the waiter arrived with his meal minutes later and discovered the body. Police Investigator Zhang, who is called in to investigate, is a fan of the old mystery masters, especially John Dickson Carr, whose specialty was the locked room mystery. Naturally, Zhang is thrilled to have the chance to try to solve a mystery that Carr himself might have dreamed up.For the most part, the story is a good bit of fun. The characters are one dimensional stereotypes, but this story isn't about the human element... it's about solving a puzzle. And Zhang has a lot of fun explaining Carr's theories about locked room mysteries at great length... discussing the various types of solutions Carr employed in his works and dismissing each one in turn until he finally explains just how the crime must have occurred. In addition to having fun with the genre, author Leather also derives a good but of humor from Zhang playing off the stiff, humorless hotel staff and his earnest assistant Sergeant Lee (when Zhang explains how he wishes he has a hat and a pipe like Sherlock Holmes, Lee cautions him that smoking isn't permitted in a public building). Some readers may find this sort of light whimsy too trifling, but I'm a big fan of John Dickson Carr myself and I loved hearing Zhang explain Carr's methodology.Unfortunately for me, there is one big difference between Leather and old masters like Carr. The old time writers believed in playing fair with the reader, with every bit of evidence needed to solve the mystery being present in the story. Leather cheats and cheats rather badly. Zhang solves the mystery by understanding the significance of one key piece of evidence, but the reader can't do that because Leather's description of that evidence fails to mention a crucial detail. Not only that, but earlier in the story, a character makes a statement about the crucial detail that is out-and-out wrong. but the reader has no way to deduce the statement is wrong. As a result, readers might well guess the culprit (this is a short story with a handful of characters), but it would be a mere guess.I still enjoyed the story, because of its playful manner and the way it pays tribute to a classic genre (although I feel many readers used to Leather's meatier works will be disappointed). However, I deducted a full star from my review because Leather didn't play fair with his readership. If you're going to pay tribute to the masters of the genre, you should at least write a story of which they could be proud. John Dickson Carr would not have approved of this one.