Goodnight Irene (2018)
Available on Amazon
A birthday party. A house cut off from the world. A murder that may be years in the making.
When Detective Rowan Manory is hired to prevent a killing at a secluded Mississippi manor, he expects a threat, not a trap. Surrounded by floodwaters from the Great Flood of 1927, the estate is completely isolated, its guests stranded with no way in or out. Each has been invited for a reason. Each carries a past they would rather keep buried.
As the night unfolds, it becomes clear that the danger lies not in the present, but in a crime committed twenty years earlier one that has gone unpunished. To stop the killer, Manory must unravel that past before revenge is delivered. But in a house full of secrets and perfect alibis, the truth may come too late.
Goodnight Irene is a dark, atmospheric locked-room mystery where isolation breeds suspicion and every guest may be marked for death.
The Opening Night Murders (2019)
Available on Amazon
Chicago. 1935. The city is desperate for escape and opening night at the Red Rising Theater promises a spectacle no one will forget.
When the lead actress receives a death threat, Detective Rowan Manory and his partner Walter Williams are called in to prevent a murder. But when the curtain rises, they find themselves facing the impossible: a crime committed in full view of hundreds of witnesses with no clear suspect and no obvious means.
With the audience watching and the cast under suspicion, Manory must untangle a mystery built on illusion, performance, and deception. Because in a theater, everyone is playing a role and someone is willing to kill to make it real.
The Opening Night Murders is a clever and atmospheric impossible crime novel where the stage is set, the audience is watching, and the truth is hidden in plain sight.
The Strange Case of the Barrington Hills Vampire (2020)
Available on Amazon
In 1880, something stalked the people of Barrington Hills—something that left bodies drained, mutilated, and impossible to explain. The killings stopped as suddenly as they began, and the legend of a vampire faded into local myth.
Forty years later, the murders have returned.
When Detective Rowan Manory and his assistant Walter Williams are called in to investigate, they expect superstition not evidence. But the crimes defy reason. Victims are found in rooms no one could have entered or left. Footprints vanish in the snow. And the killer moves as if walls offer no resistance at all.
As fear spreads and the body count rises, Manory must prove that something impossible can still be understood before the legend claims another victim.
The 5 False Suicides (2021)
Available on Amazon
It’s 1947, and Gretta Grahame has left her past behind…until it comes looking for her.
A suicide in the family reveals a terrifying pattern: every member of the Grahame line has taken their own life. Now Gretta is next. Desperate for answers, she gathers a group of friends—fellow lovers of murder mysteries and travels to a remote island to confront the origin of the curse.
What they find defies explanation.
One by one, members of the group begin to die by their own hands, in locked rooms, under circumstances no one can explain. None of them are suicidal. None of them should be able to do it. And yet it keeps happening.
Is it a curse? A trick? Or something far more dangerous?
As fear tightens its grip and reality begins to fracture, Gretta must solve a mystery unlike any she has ever imagined before the curse claims them all.
The Five False Suicides is a dark and unsettling mystery where logic and madness collide and the truth may be the most dangerous answer of all.
Monkey See, Monkey Murder (2023)
Available on Amazon
Chicago, 1921. A powerful man is marked for death and the weapon is unlike anything Detective Rowan Manory has ever encountered.
After surviving a brutal attack by a macaque in Malaya, industrialist Steven Rinehardt returns home to Chicago, only to find the attacks continuing. The same animal. The same precision. The same impossible question:
How can a monkey be used to carry out a murder?
When a ruthless gangster places a bounty on Rinehardt’s head, the case becomes more than bizarre. It becomes deadly. As the attacks grow more frequent and more deliberate, Manory and his partner Walter Williams must unravel a mystery that defies logic, expectation, and belief.
Because somewhere behind the chaos, someone is pulling the strings and they’ve found the perfect weapon. Monkey See, Monkey Murder is a bold and ingenious mystery where the impossible takes shape in the most unexpected form and the truth is more calculated than it appears.
It’s About Impossible Crime (2025)
Available on AMAZON.
James Scott Byrnside 