Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

Anthony Boucher is best known in SF circles as the first editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He pushed for higher writing standards in science fiction. Outside SF he was known as a mystery writer.

Rocket to the Morgue is NOT a science fiction mystery. It is a locked room mystery in the milieu of early (1942) California SF fandom. It is a sequel to Nine by Nine, another locked room mystery, that introduced Lieutenant Marshall and the Holmes-like nun, Sister Ursula. Reader comments are not too kind to Nine by Nine, but I found this novel to be a solid entry in the locked room canon. There are many red herrings but it plays fair.

Rocket was known for including many real science fiction authors and editors -- including Boucher -- mostly by reference, but sometimes lightly disguised as peripheral characters.

What I found most interesting was the appendix written in 1951 where Boucher reveals that Marshall's introduction to and eventual conversion to reading SF mirrored Boucher's personal journey.

Recommended as a fun read, if you can get past the fact that every female character is introduced by their body type. ( )

Science fiction is in its infancy, and one of its earliest legends is Fowler Foulkes, who created the immortal Dr. Derringer. Fowler’s son, Hilary, administers the Foulkes estate with a view to wringing every penny out of reprints, not even extending favours to the nuns who would make a Braille version for blind readers. With such a talent for making enemies, it’s not surprising that someone would try to kill Hilary. What is surprising is the locked-room nature of the attempt—and it will take all the ingenuity of Detective Marshall and his occasional confidante, Sister Ursula, to figure out who attempted-to-do-it.

This book is not only a mystery novel; it’s a portrait of the sci-fi community in the United States in the late 1930s. Boucher himself makes a cameo appearance, while several of his friends appear as caricatures or as composite characters. It’s a light, wry sort of mystery, both in terms of writing style and in terms of plot. I’m not really one for the locked-room mystery, because I don’t have the faintest hope of guessing whodunnit, but this story was agreeable enough. I’d recommend it if you like light Golden Age mysteries, mysteries about writers, or perhaps the Anthony Horowitz books where he is a character in his own story. (Or if you thought Horowitz’s idea a bit over the top, you might like this better, because Boucher appears only sparingly in his own book.) ( )

Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher is one of the classic mysteries re-printed by Penzler Publishers under their American Mystery Classics imprint. Writing in the 1940s, Boucher was known for his versatile talents within Science Fiction, Fantasy and Mystery fiction. A prolific contributor to each of these genres, Boucher utilized his familiarity with the publishing world to add depth and humor to his work. Rocket to the Morgue is a classic detective novel representative of its time with all the requisite elements: an insightful and quirky detective, a plethora of potential suspects from all levels of society, and a seemingly unsolvable locked door case to confound the police. What distinguishes this novel, however, is its setting within the incestuous and often cut-throat world of Los Angeles pulp fiction. Boucher provides his inside view of the experience of a writer in the pressurized atmosphere that he himself inhabited. Along the way, he does not neglect to provide a charming, fast-paced and well-plotted mystery to challenge any armchair sleuth. Delightful for its reflection of a revered era of detective fiction, and surprising for its unexpectedly modern approaches to class/gender stereotypes, Penzler Press has done a favor to modern mystery fans by introducing Rocket to the Morgue and Boucher to a new crop of readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penzler Press for an ARC of this book in return for an unbiased review. ( )

A. P. White (a.k.a. Anthony Boucher) used the pen name H. H. Holmes in writing the novel Rocket to the Morgue, but he includes a character named "Anthony Boucher"! "Boucher" is not all a central figure in this murder mystery, which postpones the accomplishment of the crime until the later chapters. But he is included as an element in a milieu that the author drew from his own experience: the Los Angeles "scientifiction" scene of the early 1940s. The roman à clef elements of the novel supply various characters transposed from members of the actual Manaña Literary Society, to whom the book is also dedicated. These include Robert A. Heinlein ("Austin Carter"), L. Ron Hubbard ("D. Vance Wimpole"), Cleve Cartmill ("Matt Duncan"), Jack Parsons ("Hugo Chantrelle"), and Jack Williamson ("Joe Henderson"). The portrayals are loose, but recognizable. Rocket scientist Chantrelle, for example, is abstemious with respect to drink and sex, which is hardly faithful to the actual Parsons. The Hubbard-based character Wimpole is the one who is likely to inspire the most suspicion as a possible culprit.

The book is also the second written by "Holmes" to feature the nun Sister Mary Ursula as a principal sleuth, although the police lieutenant Terry Marshall -- also a continuing character -- is the main protagonist with whom readers are invited to identify. The mystery genre aspects are all self-reflectively stock elements, with much made of the "locked room" scenario. (Marshall's wife is an avid mystery reader.) These are then counterpoised to the novelty and marginality of the experimental "magazine-based" science fiction genre. I'm no wide reader of mystery fiction, but this one seems to derive its enduring interest for readers primarily from its social setting and metatextual features.