The Wrong Letter

by Walter S. Masterman

Locked room mystery from the beginning of the Golden Age

Genres: Mystery

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1926

Reviews

[Mike]

The introduction by G.K. Chesterton mentions unspecified faults with the book, which he however commends for fooling him about who the murderer was.

These faults, from my perspective, include simplistic prose mainly consisting of declarative sentences, some of which are comma-spliced, others of which are missing their question marks despite being phrased as questions. The paragraph breaks sometimes make it slightly confusing to work out who is speaking, since the author uses a break after a beat, even if the dialog that follows is from the person who was taking action in the beat.

It's a locked-room mystery, made less mysterious by the fact that in the discovery-of-the-body scene the amateur detective of the (unrealistic) amateur-and-professional pair opens the door of the murder room by manipulating the key, which is in the lock on the other side, with a pair of pliers, thus demonstrating how the murderer could have left and locked it behind them. However, nobody seems to pick up on this, and the police strip the entire room looking for secret passages.

I was finding it tedious, mainly because of the prose style, so I glanced at the ending to see what Chesterton was talking about, only to find that it breaks two of Ronald Knox's rules of detective fiction (rules 1 and 7, if you want to look them up and don't mind a big spoiler). So I didn't bother to finish it.

[MH · Rating 2 out of 5]

A classic locked-room murder mystery, with a scandalously high-profile victim. The writing is OK as it goes, and the clues are all neatly lined up, but the ending is very unsatisfying. Inspector Sinclair says something about motive: "I have been too long in the service to look for motive till I have a case", and it feels like the author did the same, "resolving" the question by revealing the suspect to really be a master criminal of whose activities no mention had been made anywhere else in the book. Its not quite Chesterton's sin of introducing a professional criminal to take the blame, but its damned close to it.

[James Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The crime itself is well-presented -- a man is found shot inside a locked room. However, the more you read, the more oddly structured it becomes. The main detective (there are two and they don't tell each other what they discover) seems more interested in romance than solving the case. In the end, there is a reason for the characters' strange behavior. I'm not sure it all works, but it's entertaining and more than a little experimental for its time.

[Martina Sartor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buon giallo classico, buona costruzione di un delitto apparentemente impossibile. Ma la spiegazione finale mi ha lasciato un po' insoddisfatta, non mi sembra che tutti gli indizi combacino con essa, anche se, vista la scarsità di personaggi presenti, si poteva individuare il colpevole per eliminazione.
L'unico vero indizio che ha colpito la mia immaginazione è stato l'accenno alla sonnolenza, cosa che fa un solo personaggio, mentre gli antri non ne sanno niente.
Invece la faccenda delle orme mi ha lasciato alquanto perplessa.

[Juan Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Primera novela del Inspector Sinclair. Excelente plot, desarrollo y un final perfecto. Buena serie para leerla toda.

[Daniel Stainback · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining but certainly not a fair play mystery, the last 2-3 chapters was nothing but exposition.

[Sourav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. There's a closed-room murder and two of the detectives are in charge of solving it. Although the author throws some crumbs at the beginning of the story, foreshadowing the culprit of the crime. But without the motive, it's pretty much impossible for a majority of the readers to figure it out. Only in the last chapter is the motive behind the murder revealed, also justifying the book's title. The beginning and the ending were quite good, but the story starts to adrift in the middle, mainly because of the love angle that the author introduces. In the end, everything falls into place and all the questions are answered without leaving any loose ends.