This latest title by the wonderful Dean Street Press is really intriguing. And what is intriguing about The Invisible Host was the introduction in which we read that five years after a film was made of this title “there appeared a novel by a popular English mystery writer that bore and uncanny resemblance both to the film and the play and the book which inspired it.
The author of this novel is of course Agatha Christie”
And the Christie title which is mentioned is And then there were None, surely one of Dame Agatha’s most well known books. The question of plagiarism reared its ugly head but a crime writer of the time stoutly defended her saying that Agatha Christie was unaware of the existence 
of, much less, had read the Invisible Host. Can we be sure? She may have unconsciously drawn on it as it is possible that Dame Agatha saw the film which was released in England in 1934.
Of course we will never know but it does put this mystery in a fascinating context. And if you have read the Christie title, then the setting of the Invisible Host will need little explanation.
Set in New Orleans, eight guests are invited to a party at a luxurious penthouse apartment and when they arrive it turns out that nobody knows who the Host is. We never see him but only hear him as he communicates with the guests through a radio. I freely admit that I found this device rather clumsy and is a clear indication that one of the guests must be the Host as its questions and replies and interaction between the two parties could not be scripted and depended on events and reactions. No matter but it is a pointer.
All of the guests are linked, albeit in a tenuous way, and all of them have done something that could reflect badly on them. The Host knows all about these peccadilloes and weaknesses and has decided that they must pay for their actions.
As with the Christie one by one the guests meet their demise in more and more bizarre ways and it is here that I feel The Invisible Host parts company with And then there were None. In the Christie there is more plausibility and logic. In the Bristow title we have electric doors to prevent escape, poisons a plenty and servants in the kitchen drugged so they cannot help or know what is going on. It is all slightly over the top and overly dramatic and I must say I simply adored it. I read it through in one sitting and then immediately checked and found that Bristow and Manning have more titles available. I can feel my fingers twitching already…..
I don’t think I am giving much away if I say the ending, which I did see coming (but then I have read too many crime stories) is different from the Christie but if you want mysterious deaths and pile up of bodies – there is even a stack of coffins on the balcony for the other guests to drop them in – this is the book for you.
When this book arrived and I saw the names of the two authors, Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning, my first thought was “that’s a familiar name” and my mind went back to when I worked in a library in London years ago in my youth, and a novel Calico Palace by one Gwen Bristow was on the shelves and I read it and loved it. And yes it is the same writer but this is one in a series of Classic 30’s mysteries and light years away from her Out West titles with which I was familiar. These are now available so I feel my finger twitching…
I simply loved it and Dean Street Press have another winner on their hands.
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