this being a honkaku mystery, i refuse to believe the characters’ code names are not significant/symbolic in some way. so just wanted to take a minute to note down some details on each of the characters’ namesakes that may or may not turn out to be relevant at all…

Agatha Christie: mysterious disappearance? she also loved a twist, and the ‘least likely person’ as criminal. right now i’d say Agatha is the least likely suspect for me, so that would be such a twist. John Dickson Carr: lawyer, and the character is a law major, possibly significant in relation to the emphasis on judgement outside the court of law in the prologue (and parallels with Christie’s And Then There Were None). master of locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes. Ellery Queen: actually a pseudonym for two people… twins trope?! jk. known for elaborate puzzles, fair-play deduction and dying messages. Gaston Leroux: known for locked rooms, disguises/masks and ingenious mechanical solutions. books involve a lot of passion, jealousy and revenge. this could be a hint at a motive or method? Baroness Orczy: i hadn’t heard of her before but apparently she’s known for disguise and dual-identity twists… so who is Orczy really? Edgar Allen Poe: gothic poet, alcohol issues, mysterious death. often wrote about guilt, madness and the supernatural. could tie in to the guy in the prologue being “mentally unstable”. S.S. Van Dine: health and drug/alcohol issues. known for convoluted plots, highly cerebral analysis, and personal (rather than political) motives. and the character’s already feeling ill…

I just finished A Dead Djinn in Cairo (included in my edition of A Master of Djinn), so I guess I've reached 0% and I'm curious: do your editions also include this prequel or just the main book?