John Sladek's brief but brilliant career as a writer of locked room mysteries came to an end with Invisible Green (1977). in which his Great Detective, an American living in London called Thackeray Phin, made a triumphant return after his successes in Black Aura. Apparently Sladek didn't make enough money for writing more books of this kind to be worthwhile - a real shame.
With this book, he moved publisher from Jonathan Cape, who published Black Aura, to Victor Gollancz. The front cover of the first edition bore a typical Gollancz summary: 'A real, classical detective story that might have been written in the ingenious days of the last century, or of the first quarter of this, with an amateur detective from the same mould, but a puzzle to tax the most up-to-date minds'. And this is all perfectly true.
The book begins with a Prologue set in August 1939 and featuring a group of mystery fans with the pleasing name of the Seven Unravellers. We then move forward to the present with one member of the group, Dorothea Pharaoh, planning to organise a reunion of the seven keen puzzle-solvers. When she is confronted by a troubling problem, she calls on Phin - with whom she has been playing postal chess - to help.
There are some genuinely funny moments in this story, as well as some neat mysteries to fathom. We never learn much about Phin (where does his money come from? I kept wondering) but the story moves at a brisk pace and intrigues from start to finish, and although I did figure out the culprit in good time, some aspects of the solution eluded me. Very good light entertainment and a book that deserves to be back in print.
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