The Hangman's Handyman

Rogan Kincaid #1

by Hake Talbot

When Rogan Kincaid arrived at the mysterious island known as The Kraken, he expected to find a lavish party thrown by Jackson B. Frant for a dozen guests. Instead he found only young Nancy Garwood, who had been drugged and left in her bedroom. The rest of the mansion was completely deserted and all Nancy could remember was that somebody died at dinner-and she thought it was the host! It doesn't take long before Rogan starts to wonder if there has been a mass murder-and that there might just be two more bodies to add to the slaughter!

Genres: Mystery

198 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 2009

Reviews

[Tim Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting one. I came to it after reading Rim of the Pit (which I thought was fantastic). It was oddly disjointed in the beginning, with the murder being recounted in retrospect and a lot of the suspects being unseen to start with. I appreciate Talbot is doing something different here, but the plot becomes increasingly convoluted and spirals out of control.

I'm always a sucker for supernatural elements in murder mysteries. There were some good ideas here, with Od and his curse, but I could have done without the 'ye olde Englishe' info-dump near the start of the book. I was already struggling to get into the plot as it is.

I was initially going to give this two stars. There's a definite dip in the middle, with a second 'locked room scenario' that's not very interesting, and I could have done without the Kincaid 'family issues' that are never resolved. However, the saving grace was a finale that (just about) delivered on its solution and kept you guessing throughout the denouement. Kincaid is at the very least a unique detective figure.

I vastly prefer Rim of the Pit though.

[Irfan Nurhadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hangman's Handyman is the first novel by Hake Talbot, featuring Rogan Kincaid before his memorable appearance in the atmospheric impossible murder, Rim of the Pit. I've been reading reviews of Talbot's work and from what i gather, the consensus was Rim of the Pit is superior to The Hangman's Handyman. After reading these wonderful books myself, I tend to disagree with the general opinion. For me, The Hangman's Handyman is a little bit better than or at least at the same level as Rim of the Pit.

Many argued that RotP offered a thick atmosphere, many impossibilities and more superior and compelling mystery. Though I agree that THH was inferior in its atmospheric nuances and offered less impossibilities than RotP, THH compensated it with its characters (especially Kincaid's, as we see more of his bold and daring action here, also we get a little of his backstory; oh and there was Bobby, a more interesting conjurer than Mr. Vostok); witty dialog; an equally clever plot; and a solution that was much more cleverly handle than in RotP, IMO.

I absolutely love Kincaid's character here. Yeah, I know he was a badass from RotP. But THH gave a good showing of his baddassery. He kind of remind me of John Constantine, but i have to racked my brain to figure out why he did.. Anyway, there's a certain quality of Kincaid's character that impressed me, especially in a particular scene in the latter chapter in which his head was at stake. You'll know it when you read the book.. :P

Last, but not least, was the solution to the mystery. There are many going-ons in the middle of the book as the characters discussed the possible solution to the mystery. It get more complicated when the police started investigating and it lead up to the scene which I mentioned above. As to how the Kincaid arrived at the solution, its quite fairly clued. But I can't see how he could arrived at every aspect of it, and that explained why Kincaid used that particular scheme, and maybe that's what made THH seems like inferior to RotP.

[Gregory Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

The general consensus is that Hake Talbot wrote one of the greatest impossible crime novels, and also this. I don't mind being contrary, but as an impossible crime novel, this is indeed the weaker of the two; while Rim of the Pit piles impossibilities upon impossibilities, here there are really only two, and the solution to the important one should be obvious to anyone who gives it a moment's thought.

However, there are things this novel does better than its illustrious successor. In Rim of the Pit, Rogan Kincaid felt like the wrong kind of detective for the novel, a pulp hero who's wandered into a Golden Age mystery by mistake. The fact that the impossibilities are less dazzling here makes Rogan a better fit, and his relationship with one of the suspects makes things personal in a way that Rim of the Pit never was.

[Chris Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only bad thing about this otherwise fantastic bit of gothic crime fiction is that I absolutely detest the ostensible hero. Kincaid got on my nerves from the very start and I was most annoyed when he survived the murder attempt. Otherwise it’s the best impossible crime of its kind this side of Dickson Carr, with a shared fascination with horror fiction, the macabre and especially magic. In fact the best character in this, Bobby, is essentially Talbot’s stand in (as a professional magician himself) as well as a strikingly sympathetic portrayal of someone clearly on the autistic spectrum. It’s a rare and beautifully judged character and already one of my favourites in the genre

[Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many people, probably, I read the second book first, but this one really does a lot to introduce our detective, Kincaid. Like Rim of the Pit this one involves impossible crimes and hocus pocus—or hokum, if you prefer. There’s a lot to like here and it’s well worth reading more than once. Rim of the Pit is superior but not by that much. Shame that Hake didn’t write more of these yarns.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Inside a candle-lit room, the leaping flames of the great fireplace danced grotesquely on the walls. A man swaggered over to their warmth; he stood there and laughed. It was an ugly sound in the gracious room.

"You actually believe that fantastic story." he said. "You really believe you can kill me with a curse. Well, why don't you try? It's a good night for ghosts and old wives' tales. Go on, I'll risk it."

His brother rose and joined him at the fire. He was pale with anger but he spoke quietly. "You're a fool," he said, "but you asked for it. very well." He paused briefly, then his voice echoed in the silent room. "Od rot you," he said. "Od rot you."

The swaggerer smiled; the grimace stayed fixed on his face. Then he fell heavily to the floor. When they picked him up, he was dead.

* * *

That was the incredible situation Rogan Kincaid found when he arrived at The Kraken. His host was dead, killed by a curse that was literally fulfilling its threat. Kincaid heard about a table set for thirteen, although only eight had arrived. He read the Tale of Od in the old manuscript burned in the fireplace. He listened to the oter guests as they fearfully tried to dismiss the evidence of their eyes; "Apoplexy," they said, and "heart failure," and "a mysterious poison."

But the incredible fact remained. A man had stood alone in the center of a room, with seven pairs of eyes fixed upon him, and he had been murdered by a curse.

"The Hangman's Handyman" offers the reader a truly impossible crime and a completely satisfactory and rational solution -- rare phenomena both. It is a murder story that challenges the most astute reader, and introduces a new writer who proves himself a master of illusion."

- - - - - - -

In this precursor to "Rim of the Pit," Talbot came up with a twist to the impossible murder scenario, and used a setting familiar in the genre: an isolated island. But when the police arrive the day after the murder, the victim's corpse is in an advanced state of decay -- after all the curse was "Od ROT you."

Rereading this after 30+ years, I was less impressed. The author cleaned up his act on the next book, but this was too long, with meaningless dialogue passages and a too-long retelling of the legendary curse at the center of the outlandish murder plot. It's a shame Talbot didn't keep writing Rogan Kincaid mysteries after his next Kinkaid story.

[Asnipiv · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not up to the mark.Rim of the pit was way better in the sense it was very atmospheric.
Solution did not feel like fair play.
One of the culprits is given just a perfunctory reference in the beginning of the book and no clue to guess his identity is provided in the book.

[Pietro De Palma · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, it's better than "The Rim of the Pit".
The Locked Room invented by Talbot that is in this novel, influenced several others writers, from Pronzini to Paul Halter.
Article about this novel to:

http://deathcanread.blogspot.it/2012/...

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good old fashioned Old Dark House, Scooby Doo type mystery.

On an isolated island, a patent medicine tycoon keels over when his brother curses him. Was it really a curse, or was it murder?

Very good Weird Mystery.