When I was younger, I thought mysteries were literarily inferior &, for the most part, didn't read them. Then I read Hammett & Chandler & changed my mind. Ellroy & Highsmith came later. I liked the cover of this bk & had, admittedly slim, hopes that its era of publication, 1935, might be promising. Well.. it's no Hammett but it did turn out to be interesting in ways I didn't expect. For one thing, it's openly atheistic & dismissive of scare-preachers - in fact, the character who's a popular fire-&-brimstone pulpit pounder seems included mostly so the author can ridicule him thru other characters. But, more importantly, there's heavy referencing of Charles Fort's philosophy - esp his bk "Wild Talents"! THIS, I definitely didn't expect! The mystery itself is fine, albeit frustrating at times in the "such-&-such-is-obvious!" & "why-doesn't-he-do-this?" veins. Since the tale takes place mostly on a 'plane {I write it this way b/c that's the way it's written throughout the story - a correct, for its time, abbreviation of "aeroplane" just as "ma'am" wd be a correct abbreviation of "madam" - bringing up a pet subject of mine that I won't go into here], the chapters are broken into sections w/ distance-above-sea-level heading such as "7900 feet". This, in addition to the bk's beginning w/ an Epilogue & penultimately ending w/ a Prologue makes for some formal novelty. Given that the author is also a psychologist, there's a substantial amt of frank psychological analysis that might've been shocking in its day - latent incest & the like. All in all, not bad - despite its pretty conventional sexual mores & rather stupid heterosexuality. ( )

Amos Cutter, a surgeon (get it?), is about to embark on a cross country flight to perform a life-saving operation on his brother, the Secretary of State, when he receives a very specific death threat. He enlists the help of detective Michael Lord for protection. Lord, Cutter, and 10 others board a small transport for the flight. It is 1935. While the plane is airborne, Cutter is killed in front of all passengers, but no one knows who the murderer is. It's a locked room mystery, and twists and turns follow.

The problem with books like this is that the only way the author can make his exceedingly clever plot work is to have the characters behave as real people would never behave. For example, Lord's plan to protect Cutter, which is essential to the many twists that follow, is ludicrous. And at several points in the story, Lord fails to take straightforward actions to investigate the murder or to protect Cutter or the other passengers. The passengers seem unconcerned about sharing a cross-country flight with a murderer and only pop out of the background as necessary to feed information into Lord's deductive process (which is outlined in tiresome detail). Lord's sidekick, a psychologist and fellow passenger, provides tedious, outdated, and absurdly detailed psychological analyses based on little information. Motives, when revealed, don't make much sense.

Some people consider this to be a "fair play" mystery, because the clues are there, and the author actually goes so far as to point them out at the end of the book. But when the characters are living is a surreal world where the rules are driven by the author's need to support the highly improbable plot, when something seems amiss the reader can't tell why. Is it a clue, or just weirdness necessary to advance the plot? How can you assess motivation when characters don't behave like real people? When misdirection and red herrings are piled on top of each other, how can you tell what's real? The deductive process basically becomes a guessing game.

Bottom line: Obelists Fly High was intriguing enough to keep me reading to the end, but is too complicated and clever for its own good. ( )