A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #3 - Devil Mask Mystery

Now, right off the bat, I will say that this book instantly intrigued me based on the title alone.  It is of the same style and nature as the titles to the classic Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books from back in the day.  You remember those days - "The [adjective] [noun] Mystery" or "The Mystery of the [adjective] [noun]" and the like.  From the title alone, you had a pretty good idea of what the mystery was going to be about.  Well, author Josephine Kains, in the first Zebra Mystery Puzzler starring her TV newswoman, Terry Spring, offers up a tale that centers around the very thing mentioned in the title - and also happens to be set in a small community theater!

Devil Mask Mystery (I keep wanting to type the word "The" in front of that title!) attempts to be a spooky murder mystery that hints at involvement of witches and Satan worshipers!  Set in the fictional town of Grimshaw at Halloween, the story finds Boston TV newswoman Terry Spring, along with her assistant Jess Berkeley and her cameraman Janeiro Chavez, heading to the New England town to film a story about the town's latest play - a melodrama about the nineteenth century witch hunts that made the town famous.  Terry is less than thrilled with the assignment, but she and her crew head over to Grimshaw to see what they can put together.  Little do they know they are going to have to solve a murder in which all of the suspects are known for acting - whether on the stage or in real life.

The story does not open with our protagonist; rather, the author opens this mystery with a young woman (Elizabeth Tanner) facing down the fear of a devil-faced creature.  But by the second page, the reader learns that this is merely a hypnotic vision she is being coerced to see by a self-proclaimed witch by the name of Annabelle Winn.  Also present are Laura Cross and Julius Wigransky, who both happen to be part of the play that Terry and her crew are coming to town to spotlight.  Quickly enough, on the fourth page, the story shifts to a scene where an unidentified man is taking  heavy metal box and hiding it behind a sliding panel in the wall.  Oddly enough, this is a scene the publisher decided to provide an illustration of, so while we get an image of the man, the reader has no idea who he is. The scene this shifts again on the sixth page to a mysterious person who is painting a wooden mask of Satan!  All of that in the first chapter alone.  It's not until the second chapter do we get to meet the pretty, young television reporter, Terry Spring, who is described as slender and having "long auburn hair" (p. 10).  And isn't it funny how Max, the Hollywood gossip columnist from the first book in this series also had red hair?  Makes me wonder how many more sleuths in these Puzzlers will have red/auburn/titian hair - maybe it's a nod to a certain teen detective who has become such a huge pop culture icon when it comes to female sleuths?

Anyway, we get introduced to even more of the ever-growing cast of characters in chapter four - Alan Roderick, yet another actor in the play, and Claudia Merritt, an older woman in a wheelchair who is assisting with the play.  In addition, there is Garrett Brooks, a stodgy actor who is not only playing a major role in the production, but he also seems to have made quite a number of enemies among the cast and crew - meaning ... yes, you guessed it!  Mr. Brooks becomes the victim when someone dressed up in a cloak and devil mask comes onto stage during a dress rehearsal, literally stabs him in the back, and runs out, disappearing backstage...and thus, the stage is set (yes, pun fully intended) for a murder mystery that only Terry Spring can solve.

The killer's identity is not really hidden, and in fact, there is one scene a little over half-way through the book in which Terry (as well as the reader) figures out who the killer is - which kind of spoils the whole "last chapter sealed" gimmick, since, if we already know who the killer is, why bother sealing up that final chapter?  While the overall story is okay, and I like Terry and her crew (Chavez is a hoot, always eating candy and making snarky remarks), the opening chapters are somewhat clunky as the author tries to bring in all of the characters as quickly as possible without allowing the reader an opportunity to really get a feel for who any of them are before moving on to the next ones.  It took me until I was about one-third of the way through the book before I finally was able to sort through all of the names and figure out who was who. And I do like the added "abandoned mansion on the hill" aspect of the story, with hidden passages and secret tunnels under the house.  Between that and the occult aspects to the story, one could almost think of this as a mild gothic tale of suspense.

 

Something I thought was rather interesting is that this is not Terry Spring's first time solving a murder (at least, according to her crew).  Several times throughout the story, Jess mentions the fact that Terry is rather well known for solving murders, and even Terry herself raises the point.  Sadly, there are not specific mentions of her prior cases, just the general statements that she is known to be an amateur sleuth, and that she has excellent detecting skills.  Makes me wonder if any of the other Zebra Mystery Puzzlers featuring Terry will give us the back story on these adventures, or if they will forever remain an unsolved mystery!

The author, Josephine Kains, as so many of these Zebra books, is a pseudonym.  It seems many a male author hid behind female pseudonyms when writing books with female leads.  In this instance, the real author is Ronald Joseph Goulart, who apparently wrote under quite a few pseudonyms back in the day - Kenneth Robeson, Chad Calhoun, Ian R. Jamieson, Jillian Kearny, Howard Lee, Frank Shawn, and others.  He also ghosted books starring pulp characters such as Flash Gordon, the Phantom, Vampirella, and the Avenger, as well as two books in Marvel Comics' series of novels back in the late '70s.  And based upon what I could find, the author used the pseudonym "Josephine Kains" only for the books he wrote in this Zebra Mystery Puzzler series - that name was not used for any other books he wrote.

As far as the art in this book goes, there is no credit given to either the cover artist or the interior artist, and none of the internal drawings are signed.  However, comparing the art with that in the first book in the series, and it appears to be the same artist - it's the same style, the same type of shading, and the same appearance in the people drawn.  And, like in the first book, the way the internals are drawn, there is really no way to discern any clues from the illustrations.  Further, the internals do not necessarily match the description on the story, which is the issue I had with the illustrations in the first book.  However, there were sufficient clues in the story itself to help me identify the murderer, so while the illustrations were nice to look at, they were not really needed to solve the mystery.

I would have to say of the three Zebra Mystery Puzzlers I've read thus far, this one probably comes in last.  That is not to say I did not enjoy it; rather, I just think the second book was definitely the most well-written, while the first one definitely provided stronger characterization than this one.  We will have to see what Kairns next book (#7 - The Curse of the Golden Skull) holds in store before I make any definite judgment calls on whether this is just a one-off, or whether it's truly the author's writing style.

RATING:  7 spilled cans of green paint out of 10 for providing a few somewhat surprising twists to the story and the characters to keep the solution from being too easy to solve!