The Great Gatsby Murder Case

Finkle (Keys to an Empty House) offers a whimsical take on the locked-room mystery in this entertaining supernatural whodunit. New Yorker Daniel Freund, a writer who collects rare editions of The Great Gatsby, is delighted to find one he doesn’t own in a pile on a brownstone stoop. He brings it back to his apartment, where the book starts displaying magical qualities: certain words begin to glow, and an invisible presence guides Freund’s hand to phrases that seem to allude to an unsolved murder. Wondering if the paranormal activity is a beyond the grave message from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Freund visits the brownstone where he found the edition. There, he learns that his new Gatsby belonged to septuagenarian venture capitalist Fulton Cutler, who recently shot himself inside his locked apartment. Convinced that Cutler was murdered, Freund investigates who might have wanted him dead, and tries to deduce how they committed the seemingly impossible crime. Eventually, he teams up with a pair of retired detectives to crack the case. Finkle effectively suspends disbelief en route to a clever solution. It’s a gleeful good time. (Self-published)