Introducing Senator Brooks Urban Banner, a gargantuan 270 lb individual wrapped up in various varieties of garish clothing, a patron of diverse establishments and activities, and, of course, a sleuth of great renown.
In this volume, we see fourteen of Banner’s cases, from a murder victim sealed inside a giant glass jar, a murder during a séance where everyone is holding hands, a phantom killer in the middle of a lake, and his most famous case, that of a man being shot dead, only for the murder weapon to be found inside a sealed envelope (with no bullet holes, obviously).
This will have to be a quick review as I’m pushed for time but I want to fit this in as another Crippen & Landru 30th Birthday post, so I’ll start with a  story about this one.
It was a relatively early release from the company. Commings’ stories had quite a reputation in the locked room world, but, bar The X Street Murders, were pretty hard to find. I bought a physical copy of it when it came out… and left it on an aeroplane, much to my chagrin. Especially when you see how much copies of that paperback go for these days. Thankfully it’s now available as an affordable ebook (and even more thankfully, C&L sent me an electronic copy for this review).
It’s a bit of an oddity, not least because of Banner. If you find Sir Henry Merrivale a bit much, then I’d steer clear of Banner. The humour is broader than Carr and a number of the impossibilities are definitely at the implausible end of the spectrum. But there is a great imagination on show here and the book is definitely worth a look, especially if you’re a locked room fan.
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 
Hi, I greatly enjoy your articles and appreciate your taking the time and effort to give a tip of the hat to these great writers. Thanks for taking the time and effort to pass along a word about these great books. I’m a mystery buff/writer myself. In case you’re interested, you can check out my writing at http://www.dennison-diamond-mysteries.com/home Cheers, Karen Gilleland Author of Diamond in the Desert and Diamond on the High Seas Colorado Authors League, Denver Woman’s Press Club, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers 303 443-3428
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Thanks for the Commings recommendation. I just finished the Crippen & Landru collection, “Banner Deadlines”. This was my first time reading Commings’ detective, Senator Banner, who positively reminded me of an extreme version of Sir Henry Merrivale.
Most of the stories offer creative, impossible crimes coupled with creepy, haunted settings (e.g., a shooting that seemingly could only be done by someone hanging upside down inside a haunted mansion, etc.). The best stories in that collection get the setting, characters, puzzle/solution, and the narrative right (e.g., The Black Friar Murders, Death by Black Magic, The X Street Murders, and The Whispering Gallery are excellent).
Shame there is no second C&L collection as tracking down much of Commings’ work means locating old copies of “Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine”. At least though I can dig out of the big pile, “Bodies in the Library Volume 3” to read “The Scarecrow Murders”.
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