It really doesn't fit into the "classic mystery" pattern, but Julian Symons's "The Kentish Manor Murders" is such good fun and so elegant that it's worth a separate mention here. It's also out of print, alas, but the button below will take you to Amazon's second-hand booksellers, who seem to have plenty of inexpensive copies. You might even check your own public library, which is where I found the copy I read.
During his lifetime, Symons was named a Grand Master by both the Mystery Writers of America and the Swedish Academy of Detection, and he succeeded Agatha Christie as president of the Detection Club in Britain. "The Kentish Manor Murders" is one of his later works, and it's delightful - more so, I must say, than some of his other books that I've read.
It's Sherlockian in nature and theme, too. The central character is an English actor, Sheridan Haynes, who has made a specialty out of playing Holmes on stage and in films. He is hired to present a private reading of his Holmes show to an American multi-billionaire recluse at his private English manor, which he has renamed "Castle Baskerville," after the hound of the same name. Haynes finds himself confronted with a number of puzzling questions: is the recluse really the billionaire? Is he being held captive by his staff? And then there is the document which is said to be a manuscript of an unpublished Sherlock Holmes novel, which Haynes is asked to show to the billionaire. Is it legitimate? What's the point of the exercise? And to further complicate the matter, there's another subplot involving drug dealing. It's quite complex, but very nicely (if, to my mind, somewhat unbelievably) sorted out at the end.
It's great fun - and, as I say, it's not really a classic puzzle mystery - but then, in his later years, Symons wrote mostly "psychological" thrillers. This is closer to a puzzle than many of his other books, and it's a quick and enjoyable read.
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