#1494: The Five Matchboxes (1948) by John Russell Fearn

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I may not yet share TomCat’s love of John Russell Fearn, but I also won’t deny that in the little I’ve read by the man he’s shown enough spirit to warrant further investigation. Blame, then, my never-ending TBR for the multiple years it’s taken me to get back to him, with The Five Matchboxes (1948) patiently waiting on my Kindle with nary a word of complaint. Much to my surprise and delight, it was an impossible crime, too, with stockbroker Granville Collins shot in his office when there was no-one around and no way to shoot him from outside. Can Chief Superintendent Mortimer Garth get to the bottom of this without his dyspepsia distracting him too greatly?

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#1493: Little Fictions – Curiosities from Adey: ‘The Locked Room’ (1972) by John Sladek

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It’s true that, with a self-imposed target of three posts a week all year long, I can sometimes lose a little perspective on the playfulness of this genre I love so dearly. And sometimes it’s good to be reminded that these sorts of things are supposed to be fun, y’know? Which rather neatly brings us to ‘The Locked Room’ (1972) by John Sladek.

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#1492: “You got trouble, haven’t you, honey?” – Do You Know Me? & Other Aberrations [ss] (2025) by Bruce Elliott

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As a fan of the impossible crime novel You’ll Die Laughing (1945) by Bruce Elliott, I was delighted when I accidentally discovered that Stark House Press had put out a collection of Elliott’s short fiction, Do You Know Me? & Other Aberrations (2025). I was aware that You’ll Die Laughing is atypical of his output, but curiosity reigned nonetheless and here we are.

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#1491: To Catch a Thief (1943) by Craig Rice [a.p.a. by Daphne Sanders]

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All I really knew about To Catch a Thief (1943), published by Craig Rice under the nom de plume Daphne Sanders, was that it represented something of a change from the work she’d done to that point in her career. And having read most of the work she’d done to that point in her career I can reaffirm that position. Not only is the focus of this rather more stern than we’ve seen elsewhere, it’s also less-tightly constructed and decidedly more in the Pulp-y vein than anything I’ve seen from this wonderfully talented writer, and in that regard it came as something as a disappointment. It scores some good points along the way, but overall the Rice non-completist can dodge this one.

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#1490: Little Fictions – Curiosities from Adey: ‘The Bizarre Case Expert’ (1970) by William Arden

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Having thoroughly enjoyed some of the entries Dennis Lynds wrote as William Arden in the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, I was surprised and curious when I discovered that he had written an impossible crime story listed in Adey, ‘The Bizarre Case Expert’ (1970). Rigour isn’t always Arden’s jam, so how did he apply himself here?

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#1489: Following in the Footsteps of Giants – ‘Chapter 17: Perroquet Explains’ (2026) by Jamie Probin

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Back in 2020, as part of my occasional Adventures in Self-Publishing undertaking, I read two stories by Jamie Probin — the novel The Thirteenth Apostle (2020) and the much shorter ‘The Adventure of the Nine Monets’ (2020) — and followed this up a few years later with two of Probin’s further short stories, ‘The Heir Affair’ (2022) and ‘Body of Matter’ (2022).

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#1488: Top Storey Murder (1931) by Anthony Berkeley

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When Adelaide Barnett is found strangled to death in her fourth-floor flat in Monmouth Mansions, Platt Street — that’s a clue to the sort of time you’re in for here — author and amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham, trying to take Inspector Moresby out to lunch, is invited along to the scene of the crime. “I don’t think you’d find it much to interest you,” he’s told. “Just an ordinary case of burglary and murder. No fancy fandangos like you get in storybooks”. And yet for all the sensible detection and astute policing on display — for pure Humdrummery it’s an absolute delight — Sheringham becomes convinced that more is going on than meets the eye.

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#1487: Little Fictions – Curiosities from Adey: ‘Death Buys a Ticket’, a.k.a. ‘Nine Hours Late on the Opening Run’ (1941) by Herbert Brean [a.p.a. by William Beggarate]

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Twenty-Twenty-Six has been a big year for me finally tracking down long-sought stories of murder. First there was Into Thin Air (1928) by Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk, then The Tube (1958) by Boileau-Narcejac, and now I’ve finally run a copy of ‘Death Buys a Ticket’, a.k.a. ‘Nine Hours Late on the Opening Run’ (1941) by Herbert Brean to ground. Very soon there will be nothing left to read.

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#1486: “The really essential thing would be to get some money coming in.” – Never Trust a Partner: The Con Games of Robert Edward Eckels [ss] (2021) ed. Brian Skupin

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Never Trust a Partner [ss] (2021), another collection from Crippen & Landru, is composed of two complete series by Robert Edward Eckels: 12 stories revolving around art forgery with Lang and Lovell, and five tales of “the world’s greatest adjutant”, Major Henry T. McDonlevy (ret’d).

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#1485: The Seven Deadly Sisters (1947) by Patricia McGerr [a.p.a. by Pat McGerr]

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Newly-married and living in England, young American Sally Bowen receives a letter from a friend in the U.S. expressing concern for surprising recent developments: “It must be dreadful to be so far away from home and have your aunt confess that she poisoned her husband“. The only problem is, the letter fails to mention which of Sally’s seven aunts is the poisoner — and with no news agencies open until the following day, Sally doesn’t know who to contact for details…suppose, after all, she asks the poisoner themself? So her husband Peter convinces her to tell him to story of the family, suggesting that he will be able to truffle out the solution and put his wife’s mind at ease.

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