Into the Thinnest of Air : Ishmael Jones Mystery

A centuries-old Cornish inn with smuggling roots makes for an atmospheric backdrop when Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny arrive for its grand reopening. The evening begins innocuously enough, with guests swapping ghost stories drawn from local legend, but the festivities take a sinister turn when people start vanishing without explanation. No bodies, no evidence, no clues. Ishmael, a skeptic by nature, refuses to accept a supernatural answer and sets about untangling a puzzle that grows more baffling with each disappearance. It is the fifth entry in Simon R. Green's series, and it leans fully into the locked-room tradition.

The full-cast production transforms what is essentially a dinner-party mystery into something closer to an old-fashioned radio play. Each of the eight performers brings a distinct personality to the ensemble, and the tight 5-hour runtime keeps the tension brisk. The intimate inn setting translates especially well to audio, where shifting voices and overlapping suspicions create the same claustrophobic unease the genre depends on.