James Scott Byrnside is a murder mystery/impossible crime fanatic. He likes locked rooms, footprints in the snow, missing murder weapons, and unreliable suspects. All of his novels deal with impossible crimes and baffling plots. Goodnight Irene (2018) tackles the problem of the locked room within a country-house murder mystery.
The Opening Night Murders (2019) is a densely plotted example of the invisible killer. The Strange Case of the Barrington Hills Vampire (2020) is a paean to the supernatural detective story, including a no-footprints problem and a locked-room murder that must be read to be (dis)believed.
His latest novel, The Five False Suicides (2021), is his first novel not to feature the detectives, Rowan Manory and Walter WIlliams. It is a nearly unclassifiable strain of pulp (dedicated to Fredric Brown), replete with locked-room murders, witchcraft, and a serial killer.
