Rosy Waltz

近づいてくる至福の時は

痛みを伴いながら足音をたてる

「夏の幻」（Garnet Crow）

The approaching time of bliss

makes footsteps while accompanied by pain

"A Summer's Illusion" (Garnet Crow)

Okay, I don't have the book with this cover, but when I searched for images, I found this was the most interesting one in the sense that it still does feature a staircase, but not as the focal point of the design (most of them did feature staircases as the centerpiece, and there was an odd one that didn't feature a stairscase at all).

Sir John Judge was born in the Netherlands as Jan Rechter, but managed to make a name in the UK as a succesful entrepreneur and a philantropist, earning him his title and a new nationality. Recently, he has also shown to have a keen interest in politics, especially in fascism, but that has also garnered him some enemies, who seem to be after his blood: it started with letters that warned him for 'accidents', but there have even been incidents with people shooting at him, and he certainly would've been a goner already if it hadn't been for his childhood friend Tjako. John Judge, his wife Anja and their entourage are now back in the Netherlands for the late summer, but Anja is still very worried for her husband's safety, and asks for the police to keep an eye out on him. The man on the job is Inspector Lund, a young police detective who has made a name for himself after solving the Mondschein Sonate murder. Lund however is not able to prevent the murder on Sir John Judge, which occurs one day under impossible circumstances: the victim was found shot in his study, but the door was locked from the inside (the key in the keyhole) and the windows too were bolted on the inside. Other evidence shows it could not have been a suicide, and other events seem to muddle this locked room murder case like sleepwalkers, sightings of a mysterious man with crooked shoulders and the unaccounted noise of footsteps on the stairs in Willy Corsari's Voetstappen op de trap ("Footsteps on the Stairs", 1937).

Willy Corsari (real name: Wilhelmina Angela Douwes-Schmidt) was a Dutch female author who wrote children's novels and mystery stories. She debuted in 1927 as a writer, and was especially popular in the fifties and several of her mystery novels have also been translated in several European languages. Her detective character Inspector Lund made his debut in 1934's Het Mysterie van de Mondscheinsonate ("The Mystery of the Mondschein Sonata"), which has also been adapted into a succesful Dutch film. Voetstappen op de trap is I believe the second book in the series and is a way, exactly what you'd imagine if I asked you to expect the stereotypical Golden Age mystery novel.

Well-to-do, respected citizens residing in their summer country house, friends staying over for extended periods, everyone has some secret to hide, hidden pasts that come back to haunt those in the present, the police finding out the victim was not as loved first believed: if anything, Willy Corsari knew very well how to write classical Golden Age mystery novel and there's certainly no cultural shock when reading this Dutch mystery novel. If someone had said this had been translated (localized) from English and not an original Dutch novel, I'd definitely been fooled.

Which might be the reason that while Voetstappen op de trap is, on the whole, a decent mystery novel, it's also not really a novel that'll lead that much an impression, as little of the novel feels unique enough. Most of what you'll read will be familiar in one way or another and even the one or two twists thrown in the plot after the midway point won't be as surprising as actually intended, I think. The locked room mystery for example is built around a concept that is very common, and as it is done now, it's far too easy for the readers to guess what has happened simply because it's such a basic idea when it comes to locked room mysteries. There are some other, minor incidents that are involved with the locked room murder, but with half of them relying on coincidences and the other half too obvious in the way they're connected to the solution, my overall impression is that Voetstappen op de trap is a competently constructed mystery, with (most of the time) fair clewing and build-up, but it lacks something that actually sets its apart. Even the attempt at going for the least-likely suspect doesn't really work because they're not really the least likely suspect considering everything that was going on.

ADDENDUM: One day after writing this review, I also read the third Inspector Lund novel, Een expres stopte ("An Express Stopped", 1938). I really don't feel like writing a full review about it, as it's not really that good a novel, so I figured I'll just write a few notes about it here. The story is about the murder on a mister Kampen, who had been stabbed to death in his own attic, at a time nobody else was at home. What makes this a tedious novel is that everyone in the novel only acts as suspiciously as possible to make things difficult for the police and the reader, and everything would've gone much smoother if they wouldn't act so ridiculously overdramatic about small things. Also: Corsari attempts to go for the "least-likely-suspect" again in this novel, but to accomplish in her goals, she comes up with a rather ridiculous murderer. Finally, the title is.... weird? Sure, a train did stop... in a scene of the very first chapter. And that stop had no direct connection with the main plot of the story!  It'd be like calling A Study in Scarlet, Two Men Have Lunch.

I don't know if Voetstappen op de trap is one of those novels that has been translated already, but if it not: I don't think this is necessary per se, because on its own merits it simply has too little unique to offer, but it's a decent enough locked room murder mystery if you happen to come across the book. Een expres stopte on the other hand is one you can skip without any hesitation, as there's far too little redeeming material there.