Let's take a look back today at a really clever "impossible crime" story: someone is killed in a church tower when a giant statue is tipped over and smashed into small pieces. Unfortunately, rubble from the smashup blocks all the entrances and exits - yet, while the victim most definitely could NOT have committed suicide by toppling the statue on himself single-handedly, there is no sign of anyone else in that tower. What caused that enormous statue to fall on its victim? The answer may be found in His Burial Too, written in 1973 by Catherine Aird, one of her "Calleshire Chronicles" featuring Inspector C. D. Sloan of the Calleshire police. Here's my original review from the Classic Mysteries podcast, updated somewhat with availability information:
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One thing was very clear to Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan: the man found dead in the church tower could not have committed suicide. He had been killed when a giant memorial statue was toppled over onto him. The statue was smashed into a lot of smaller pieces, most of which quite effectively blocked the doors and made it impossible for anyone to get in or out of the room. Yet the victim was there, under the statue – and there was nobody else in the tower, nor was there any other way in or out. Inspector Sloan was not happy. Neither was his boss, Superintendent Leeyes, who groaned irritably and said, “Not another of those locked room mysteries, Sloan, I hope.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he gets in His Burial Too by Catherine Aird.
The impossible crime at the heart of Catherine Aird’s His Burial Too is really one of the more ingenious plots I’ve read. Consider the problem: a man is found, quite clearly murdered, crushed by a gigantic statue that has been toppled over on him. The statue is massive; there is no way that anyone could have pushed it over single-handedly. Even more conclusively, though, the destruction of the statue has resulted in huge chunks of marble blocking all the doors so that it is impossible to open them – in fact, when the police need to get into the sealed room, a crew of workers must use welding equipment to remove the door from its hinges. So how did the statue get pushed over onto the victim – and how did the killer escape from the room?
The job of answering those questions falls to Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan. He is assisted – although that may be the wrong word – by Detective Constable Crosby, a young man so dense that he is referred to by other officers as “the defective constable.” In all of Catherine Aird’s books about Sloan, the inspector is invariably weighted down with the dubious assistance of Crosby because there simply is nobody else in the small local police department available to work on the case.
Sloan’s problems also extend to the higher-ups in the local constabulary, for his superior, Superintendent Leeyes, is extremely irascible and not particularly helpful, cherishing his own feuds with other police departments and always taking self-improvement classes, which he does not always understand. Aird describes it this way:
The various instruction courses attended by Police Superintendent Leeyes left their scars in a way which would have astonished the highly skilled instructors who lectured at them had they known. Like a sticky snail the Superintendent strewed a trail of imperfectly assimilated concepts behind him: not only did they show where he had been but they were a nuisance to the unwary.
All the same, Inspector Sloan manages to negotiate his way through something of a minefield when dealing with the superintendent – sometimes by reflecting on his own need to preserve his future police pension!
Catherine Aird juggles these elements quite nicely, with a great deal of quiet humor and writing which brings out the conflicts among the characters. As with most of her stories, there are some elements of a police procedural here: Sloan and the other police do their questioning and collect their evidence, discarding false trails as they are discovered. But this is still primarily a puzzle mystery, with that most peculiar locked room problem at its heart. As Sloan realizes, the problem is not only how the murder was accomplished, the question is why it was necessary to go to such elaborate lengths. As with any good mystery, the reader is presented with clues, although I suspect most may be led astray by the assorted false leads. If you enjoy witty mysteries, with intelligent protagonists and believable characters, you are quite likely to savor this book, His Burial Too, by Catherine Aird.
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Since this review was written several years ago, Open Road Media has brought many of Catherine Aird's titles back in e-book formats. There are also print copies, mostly used, I believe, available through your local mystery bookstore or through Amazon's network of second-hand booksellers. I do recommend the book quite highly, particularly if you haven't yet met Sloan and company.
You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.
Next: Holy Disorders, by Edmund Crispin.
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