Under Lock & Skeleton Key

If you’re as deeply obsessed with locked room mysteries as me, you’ve probably gotten well acquainted with jolly old England. Probably owing to Golden Age legends like Agatha Christie, most detective fiction written in English is set there. Even foreign authors like John Dickson Carr from the U.S. and Paul Halter from France abandon their home country to send their detectives on romps through the idyllic British countryside or the gloomy streets of London. Not that I have any strong distaste for the UK, but in a genre whose most famous works were written before my parents were born, it’s refreshing to discover a modern impossible crime writer who plants their characters anywhere else. As it turns out, Gigi Pandian was the cure to an ailment I didn’t know I had.

Under Lock & Skeleton Key is the first book in Gigi Pandian’s new series which focuses on Tempest Raj, a former stage magician with Scottish and Indian heritage who lives in an odd community near San Francisco. Tempest’s father’s company specializes in building magical secrets in people’s homes, from secret passages to sliding bookcases, a job which clearly pairs well with impossible crimes.

While mysteries are Pandian’s forte, Under Lock & Skeleton Key marks the beginning of her first series to deal entirely with impossible crimes, something she admitted was a dream of hers. Ever on the lookout for a more modern take on my favorite genre, I had to check the book out. So how well does Pandian stack up to the greats of the Golden Age?

The mystery’s setup is fairly straightforward—Tempest is helping her dad and his crew do some refurbishing in a house when they break through a wall and discover a closed-off room that hasn’t been touched in 20 years. Inside, Tempest finds the body of her stage double Cassidy who was alive and well only a few months ago. For Tempest, whose magician family has a history of dying in performances gone wrong, this seems like an awful omen.

From there, Tempest begins to investigate the mystery…sort of. Most of the first half of the book is spent introducing us to characters and developing Tempest’s relationship with them. With the story set in Tempest’s hometown of Hidden Creek, which was effectively built by her parents, Tempest has personal history with nearly everyone. This is an interesting dynamic, especially for a mystery, as Tempest winds up doubting people she’s grown up with. Having spent the last few years in Las Vegas, she even has to reconnect with the people she already trusts.

This book has a lot of characters…and I mean A LOT. Fortunately, Pandian’s skill at crafting memorable personalities and physical characteristics makes it easy to tell them apart. While there’s a few forgettable characters, these usually end up being relatives of supporting characters who don’t matter anyway. Tempest ends up getting bounced around between locations in order to develop key characters, some of whom are mostly developed through narration, though it never feels rushed or unrealistic aside from a few exceptions.

But again, there’s a lot of people involved, some of whom seem unnecessary. Having read one of Pandian’s short stories called “The Locked Room Library”, it’s clear that her books are all part of a shared world. For example, Sanjay Rai, the Hindi Houdini, is apparently friends with Jaya Jones, the protagonist of Pandian’s other series as well as starring in “The Locked Room Library”—and that story’s setting shows up here too, which means the librarian gets involved. You get the idea.

Having a shared universe like this is fun, but it makes me wonder if certain characters are only here as a cameo. The obvious example is Nicodemus the Necromancer, some Scottish guy who calls Tempest twice to support a running gag and appears for less than a page total. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that my confusion might come from not being part of the “ingroup” yet. But I will add that right after Sanjay is introduced in this novel he gets slapped in the face by Tempest for saying something stupid, which gave me a much worse first impression of his character than I might have gotten otherwise.

Anyway, let’s move on to the mystery. Like I said, Tempest only sort of starts solving it. At first, we’re introduced to a lot of plot threads. Along with the murder, we have Tempest’s mother’s disappearance, her subsequent haunting of Tempest’s house, the Raj family curse, the victim’s mysterious actions, and a stalker hanging out for good measure. It’s a lot, but it takes a while for Tempest to actually figure anything out. I can’t think of a single piece of evidence pertaining to the murder that’s found after the body is discovered, which made me feel like the plot was moving a lot slower than it was. It feels more like characters talking about a murder than an actual investigation.

On the surface, it seems like Tempest is trying to investigate, but her actions happen to not reveal anything. For example, remember the Locked Room Library? That’s a building in San Fransisco which has collections of locked room mysteries. Tempest and her old friend Ivy end up going here to get inspiration…but fail to figuring anything out at all. It feels like a lot of scenes are like this. Fortunately, the characters are fun enough to carry the plot, but it slowly began to lose its steam.

However, there’s one key turning point where everything starts to pick up. From here, the book is a blast as all the plot threads are finally explained. Unlike typical mysteries, the ending has shades of a treasure hunt, likely inspired by Pandian’s other series. The way Tempest catches the killer is also ingenious and exciting. Once I got to this half of the book, I couldn’t put it down.

As for the solution, it’s beyond clever. Obviously, I want to avoid spoilers here, but I will say the impossible crime itself could have been better. It felt like it hinged on details which weren’t made completely clear to me, and some parts of the crime seemed to happen “off-screen” as it were. However, the fundamental idea is solid in that way that seems oh-so-obvious, and there are additional layers to the crime that are sure to surprise. In the end, I was pretty satisfied.

I do have one issue though, and that’s with the killer. They’re one of the only characters that feel underdeveloped, in a way that honestly made me wonder if they’re returning from some other book. Tempest makes a big deal about how their personality completely changes after they’re discovered, but we haven’t seen enough of them to know how they were supposed to act. It feels like an odd oversight. However, the killer does share one interesting characteristic with the killer in The Mystery of the Yellow Room—one that makes me very excited to see what Pandian will do next.

And now, I’ll touch on a few minor thoughts. First of all, I can’t think of any other mystery stories I’ve read where the detective’s entire family plays active roles. Occasionally a parent might factor into a backstory, but that’s it. In Under Lock & Skeleton Key, Tempest lives close to her father and one pair of grandparents, her missing mother is an important figure, and her family history is detailed up to five generations. Her family all play active roles and have personalities and quirks that set them apart, and I feel like they added a lot to the story.

She also has a pet rabbit, who’s incredibly cute. Pandian is just as good at characterizing animals as humans.

Tempest’s culture is also a huge part of the novel, but not as the main focus—it just informs a lot of Tempest’s character and way of life. For example, we hear a lot of interesting stuff about Tempest’s grandpa’s cooking that mixes Scottish and Indian cuisine—and there’s even recipes for these dishes in the back of the book. It’s obvious that Pandian is simply writing what she knows, and it makes her characters feel much more rich and realistic.

As a former magician, Tempest knows a lot of magicians who show up and do magician things. They often perform tricks that (with one exception) go completely unexplained. I found this was a bit odd coming from an impossible crime novel, and it made me wonder if Pandian had explanations in mind or was just having them do whatever. I would have liked more explanation for these tricks, especially when Tempest herself is performing them.

It’s obvious that Pandian is well-versed in impossible crime novels as well, with several of the characters nerding out about them. It’s nice to get some recommendations for other books to read in the book you’re already reading, but I also felt like these scenes could break the immersion—like characters were nudging the reader and saying “hey, look, this is an impossible crime, you like those, right?” I guess the upside is that this proves that if me and Gigi Pandian ever had a conversation we’d probably drive anyone else in the room insane. The only other minor complaint I have is that it was hard to get a clear picture of the victim, and I would have liked to see them in a flashback or something.

I feel like a lot of this review has come off as me complaining, so I want to emphasize that I love this novel. The fact that I’m diving so deep into discussing it should be proof of that. I’m really looking forward to seeing where the series goes—especially with the newest installment coming out this month!

I think in order for fair play mysteries as a whole (especially in the impossible crime genre) to become common again, writers have to quit trying to capitalize on the settings and tropes of long-dead authors and make the genre truly modern. I already talked about DWaM, another author whose bringing her own style to the genre, but Gigi Pandian’s work is a great example of what I’m talking about, by letting the age-old rules of the game be shaped by her own identity and outlook. It’s a breath of fresh hair for a genre that often feels thoroughly trodden down.

If you like impossible crimes, this book is written for you. If you’re used to normal mysteries, maybe this book will help you understand where my obsession comes from. And if you’re neither of those, this book is still a great time just for the brilliant plotting, fun characters, and magical imagery.

I have a feeling this author’s going places, so I can’t wait to see what comes next!