Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

The screenplay Rian Johnson published lays the structure bare. The first half is a statement the priest Jud Duplenticy writes out longhand on a legal pad at Blanc’s request; Jud narrates it in voice over, and the narration stops the moment Blanc finishes reading. Blanc does not walk into the church until roughly page 41 of a 146 page script. The turn is not a clue but a sentence: from Jud’s own line about joining the others outside, Blanc works out that he stayed inside. The rules of the puzzle are not hidden. John Dickson Carr’s 1935 novel The Hollow Man is an object passed hand to hand, and Blanc advances by working down the locked room methods Carr’s detective lists; the parish book club roster also holds The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Johnson names Poe, Carr and Christie, especially And Then There Were None, as his key influences. The church exteriors were shot at Holy Innocents in High Beach, Epping Forest, standing in for a town in upstate New York. A good fit if you prefer a detective who arrives late and a first half delivered in a suspect’s own handwriting. Not for anyone who will feel cheated that the solution is run openly against the method list of a named novel.