The Footprints on the Ceiling

FOOTPRINTS ON THE CEILING is the second of four mystery novels featuring a magician – one mythically inspired Great Merlini – as the amateur sleuth and a wise-cracking sidekick-cum-narrator in the form of publicity writer Ross Harte. Rawson was a magician himself which probably explains his choice of protagonist and possibly has something to do with the fact he only published four mystery novels and a handful of short stories despite being one of the founding members of Mystery Writers of America.

The book starts with Harte seeing a classified ad seeking a haunted house which turns out to have been placed by his old friend Merlini so Harte drops by Merlini’s magic shop to find out more. He and Merlini are soon deeply embroiled in a show more bizarre whodunit which plays out on a fortuitously isolated island in New York’s East River. A wealthy heiress named Linda Skelton is found dead in the locked room of an outbuilding of her home while a house party of suitably suspicious guests and hangers-on take part in a séance. Mayhem ensues.

As locked-room stories goes this one offers the classic elements of an impossible crime, as evidenced by the plot hint provided by the title, and gets points from me for having a logical resolution not requiring any paranormal intervention or other such silliness. That said, the plot does rely on some oddities and several people having highly specialised knowledge of vastly disparate subjects. There are for example two characters with extremely rare medical conditions and different elements of the plot which rely on a knowledge of such things as photographic dark room techniques, deep-sea diving and spiritualism. But somehow Rawson – and Merlini – do pull this all together and have a lot of fun along the way. This is not a book that takes itself too seriously and there are even some mild digs at the detective fiction genre.

This is a traditional whodunit which focuses almost entirely on providing an intriguing plot with little consideration given to character development which is par for the course for mystery novels of the period. But other than this the book does not read in a particularly ‘dated’ way even though much of the technology relied upon is of course obsolete now. But Rawson’s writing is good enough to explain all that needs explaining and to easily draw the reader in to the environment. I did wonder if it was because the book is American rather than European that there is absolutely no sense of the story unfolding at a time when much of the world is on the brink of war or if it’s my own hindsight that makes me assume everyone would have been pondering world politics at the time.

I’ll admit I got a bit lost a couple of times when the narrative delved very deeply into very specific technical matters but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is a light-hearted tale in which spiritualism is debunked, circus acts make cameo appearances, the magician’s art of misdirection takes centre stage and the resolution to the locked-room plot element is elegant. show less

This novel has a huge cast of characters and a hideously complex and very tangled plot. I chose it because the review I read said it was a locked room mystery and I needed one to complete a "bingo" line in the 2014 Vintage Mystery Challenge.

The story is mainly told through the eyes of Ross Harte, the Great Merlini's friend, and mostly the author plays "fair" with the reader. There are times though when the police detective, Gavigan, or even Merlini himself, or another character playing sleuth goes off on a tangent which Harte is excluded from. At times the solution to a knotty problem is something the reader could not be expected to know: such as how to produce footprints on a ceiling, the characteristics of death by "the bends", or the show more nature of a disease that produces blue pigmentation in the skin. These are pieces of antiquarianism provided to tickle the reader's fancy.

As I've come to expect from crime novels of The Golden Age, red herrings, which Merlini calls "misdirections", abound. Just when you think you've got it all worked out Merlini puts another spanner in the works and you see that your solution has many holes in it. People are not who they appear to be either - almost as if the author is looking for another way to confound his own logic and to prolong the pages a bit more. By the end though I was getting a bit tired of these extensions and just wanted to know the "proper" solution.

This is my third "vintage" crime novel in a row and I think I'll be glad to get back to a more modern author. show less

Two men, one a magician and puzzle solver known as "The Great Merlini," and the other, Ross Harte, are called out to Skelton Island in New York to check out a medium who was planning to hold a seance. As they arrive, they run into trouble immediately and discover a woman dead, seated in a chair. Problem is the woman lived on the other end of the island and never left her house because she had an incredibly severe case of agorophobia. Add to this a fire, footprints in the ceiling in the room where the dead woman was found, a blue man, a man who was discovered dead of the bends in a hotel in New York City, and you've got a very strange case. The Great Merlini and Ross have their hands full, and their job is not made easier with a show more multitude of suspects.

Not a bad effort, but it is so involved that it begins to be a bit convoluted after a while. The solution to the mysteries is also a bit convoluted but overall, it works. I don't know if I'd classify this is an "impossible crime," but it was an interesting one.

The characterizations fall a bit flat, although I kind of enjoyed the Great Merlini ... a man with a solution to everything. He makes the tough New York cops look a little silly when he sets his mind on problem solving.

This is the second in a series, and I'd recommend it probably only to people who enjoy these Golden-Age mysteries. It may be quite involved for modern readers, and cozy readers may be put off for the same reason. I wouldn't put it on the mystery readers' must haves, but it was okay. show less

In [b:Death from a Top Hat|453601|Death from a Top Hat|Clayton Rawson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1269767463s/453601.jpg|442206], Rawson served up a campy concoction of delicious "impossible" crimes and plummy tidbits about the magician's trade. Maybe he should have economized, because this less inventive sequel feels worked-up from leftover ingredients: even some of the suspects are reused. And while the creativity drops off, the writing and characterization remain at the same flat level.

Really a sore disappointment. Too many plots, too hard to follow. And the solution to the impossible crime really not that interesting.