What do you get when a group of petty larcenists, entry-level organised crime hopefuls, someone claiming to be Saint Francis, and a former philosophy professor turned arsonist are locked in a room?

For Inspector Jones, a nice kind of man with a good collection of hats, you get the locked room mystery of your career and a chance to get on television as you save the world, beginning with one small corner. You also notice that pigeons are a lot more vindictive than you might have initially thought.

Curious: a novel is the first mystery novel from William Murphy. He used to write for Sane Magazine, an online magazine, and has recently returned as their senior writer. He thought briefly about a career as John Grishman, before he realised that position was taken. He lives in Worcester, Massachusetts with a typewriter, a few bookshelves, and a picture of his old dog.

"So which one of us is going to commit the perfect crime?"
"Why?"
"We're in a locked room."
"Being in a locked room isn't the perfect crime."
"I know that. So which one of us is going to kill somebody?"

In the grand tradition of Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Donald E. Westlake, Colin Bateman, and the Hardy Boys and not, in any way, in the tradition of Horace Walpole, Inspector Jones uncovers a curious problem in his once manageable city. It seems none of the usual suspects want to talk, nor does almost anyone else he can round up, except for Sergeant Dunne, and he only wants to talk about video games, which isn't anything unusual.

And Inspector Jones has a feeling he's not going to like it when everyone starts talking again. If only he had a sidekick to talk things over with.