Man plans and God laughs, words which apply in life as in blogging. And, as The Invisible Event turns ten years old next week, I don’t want you thinking that I’m the acme of perfection and everything I’ve ever done — in my life and in blogging — has worked out exactly as intended.
And so, to counter the no doubt massive hubris that pours out of my views on classic detective fiction and impossible crimes, here are ten things I tried on this blog which I thought would be more of a feature here than they turned out to be. No particular order, I’m freestyling it today.
1. Cover Stars
Back in October 2019, Abi Salvesen very kindly agreed to write about designing the covers for two new John Dickson Carr reisues. I hoped this might be a new chance to explore the thought that goes into cover art, a topic which genuinely fascinates me — not least because, as a man who has done nothing to foster his artistic talents, the skill that goes into it seems like witchcraft to me. Alas, only one other person was willing to contribute, with Jo Walker writing about The Tattoo Murder in October 2022. With that spacing, we should be due a third one in October 2025, but all my other attempts — and there have been many — to get people to write about their processes have met with nothing, so I think this is as good as it gets. You can, though, read about my 10 favourite reprint covers here, as evidence that my interest in this still burns bright!
2. Guest Posts
Along the same lines, I had the idea that it might be interesting to get other people to highlight their particular interest or speciality on the blog — but, then, of course most of the people I could ask had blogs of their own where they’d be perfectly capable of writing what they wanted. One from Matt Ingwalson and one from Ryan O’Neill is as far as this went, with the relatively slight footfall on this blog not yet enough to entice any authors to write about their books or projects, etc. as a way of drumming up interest that would provoke a huge spike in sales. Sure, this arguably got turned into my increasingly occasional In GAD We Trust podcast, which was probably better, but it still didn’t quite materialise as I had envisaged it.
3. The Tuesday Night Bloggers
This was a collective endeavour in which several of us with GAD-focussed blogs would, in a given month, blog on Tuesdays on a given theme, and I loved it. I imagine that co-ordinating across eight to ten bloggers, or finding themes we felt we could all contribute to, became too complex and so it ended up slowly drifting into the ether, but it’s because of this that I still do themed posts (on my own) on Tuesdays to this day — you might have noticed the category for those is called The Tuesday Night Bloggers. I understand why this ran its course — my own Tuesdays have recurring themes, like Minor Felonies or Sherlock Holmes stories, and the joy of our various blogs is that we don’t always overlap in interests or ideas — but I loved it while it was a thing.
4. Collaborations
Again, I can understand why posts where I paired up with someone else — Spoiler Warning discussions with multiple people, picking through Edgar Allan Poe’s mystery stories with Christian — dried up, because they depended on finding a common interest and then being able to find a common free period to put time into the post itself. And, yes, there’s a sense of this becoming increasingly a part of my (once more, increasingly occasional) podcast, too, so I suppose it did catch on in a way, but it was usually a lot of fun to have discussions with people about stuff. I could attempt to relaunch this, but I get the impression blog users would rather listen to than read this sort of thing, and the podcast has to be something I do when it’s fun…because I’m not doing it for the money, that’s for damn sure!
5. Think Pieces
Where I used to have opinions on themes, or would hold forth on a favourite topic, now I mainly just write reviews — largely, I can’t deny, because I got the impression that people would rather read a review than try to unpick my impressions of something they probably weren’t interested in. It’s also partly a time thing, too, as I’ve gotten older and busier away from my computer — it’s easier to confine my thoughts to a single book, say, than to cover every aspect of some obscure principle that probably I’m the only one thinking about — but I also think some of my best (and most fun) writing was when I just felt something keenly and went for it. I think I’ve rarely written anything on the blog as good as this piece likening detective fiction to comedy, for instance. And that’s over 8 years old.
6. The Criminous Alphabet
In part, I think, to enable me to keep writing the sort of thing I’m talking about above, I launched The Criminous Alphabet in October 2018 with a series of posts — on Tuesdays — themed around the letter A, like a sort of felonious Sesame Street. I picked out the themes for the letter B (one of them was Bloodless Bodies, I remember, in which I would look at the reputed absence of violence in a lot of GAD fiction), designed the above graphic to sit at the top of each post and…never wrote them. And, sure, there’s nothing stopping me going back and picking up from B, except that it feels like this isn’t the sort of thing I do any more, and it would be a lot of work in a direction that I feel wouldn’t necessarily be fully desired by the six people who read me (hi, Mum).
7. Obscure Readings from the British Library
Okay, one that isn’t my fault: the republication of Robert Adey’s impossible crime reference work Locked Room Murders (1991) by Locked Room International finally allowed me to purchase it at a reasonable price, and it proved to be a positive cornucopia of obscure wonders. Full of excitement, I reserved some obscure entries at the British Library and wrote a few of them up, then did the same again later with more popular authors because, well, that seemed more like it would pique people’s interest. I let it linger for a bit, intending to return to this as a way of mixing up topics on Tuesdays posts…and then the BL suffered that horrendous cyber attack which, I believe, is still causing chaos (and also my Reader’s Pass expired). So, well, let’s see what happens, eh?
8. Ellery Queen in Order
Ah, yes, Ellery Queen in order, announced to great fanfare in May 2017, only for the books themselves to prove to me tedious, dense, and thoroughly unenjoyable and so quietly vanish from my blog and life. I tried Cat of Many Tails (1949) recently with my book club as a sort of expiation and, sweet horns of Methuselah, I simply — a few titles aside, like Halfway House (1936) — do not see the appeal of these guys. The good news is that I’ve finally decided to give up on Queen altogether and maybe (maybe…) come back in, like, a decade when maybe I’ll have mellowed and/or run out of everything else, but for now we’re parting ways and it feels like a weight being lifted from my soul. And, yes, before you ask, I did read The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933). No, I don’t think it’s good.
9. Workload
Now, look, yes I do this by choice, and I’m far from complaining, but, Hairy Aaron, if I’d known how much reading I was going to have to do to maintain a (self-imposed) schedule of three posts a week, well, I might have reconsidered. To post three times a week I must write at least three posts a week just to keep pace — more, if I want to get ahead of myself. This often, though not always, means reading three books a week. It’s…a lot. I have been accused — and perfectly accurately, I must say — of sometimes lacking perspective on the books I write about, but, yeesh, when I’m ploughing through them as I do (I finished my one hundredth book of 2025 just before the end of July) sometimes it’s hard not to. The occasional hiatus, taking a month or two off here and there, has helped, but it’s still a lot (and makes what Kate and Puzzle Doctor do — posting multiple times a week without pause for 10 and nearly 15 years now — all the more impressive).
10. Discussion in the Comments
One of the ways I’m convinced this blog is really failing is in engagement. I started the blog with the intention of provoking conversation about classic mysteries, and it certainly worked for a while, but as the numbers above — provided by WordPress — show, the average comments per post has been in decline every year since 2018. I can understand this, and I’m arguably responsible for it: if I’m doing less in the way of opinion and think pieces then, really, if you haven’t read the book I’m reviewing what can you, the reader, say? So this is completely my fault, and, since views have increased year-on-year (though a lot of that is bots, of course) it means that a smaller and smaller proportion of people are feeling motivated to comment here. So clearly I’m getting something very wrong!
~
So now that I’ve torn myself down in your eyes, dear reader, here’s hoping you think of me more as a human than the god you’ve built up in your mind. Next week…something else about ten years of blogging, but I’m not sure what. I really do make this up as I go along sometimes…
The Invisible Event 
Interesting and unexpected topic for a blogiversary!
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Keep ’em guessing 🙂
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For your next “10” post, how about a “10 Hidden Gems from the Blog Archives” post — reviews of books you loved but that never got much traction at the time. The posts might have low view counts (relatively), but the books deserve a second chance to shine.
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Not a bad idea; I was thinking of maybe my ten favourite posts, given that next week is my actual anniversary, so let’s see what I’m able to summon the enthusiasm for….I, er, mean come up with.
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As a regular reader of your blog for the last seven years or so, I consistently enjoy your perspective and mostly agree with you where I have read the same book. I use your blog as well as those of Tomcat, Kate, Steve, Brad, etc. to curate the best of GAD. I won’t use a completist approach for any author including Christie (e.g., I’m never going to read “Passenger to Frankfurt”, “The Big Four”, “They Came to Baghdad” or “Destination Unknown”). My fear is that I miss out on great detective fiction because I bothered to read an average or poor one.
Whilst I also miss the ‘golden age of GAD commenting’ of a few years ago, I have seen a number of GAD blogs slow or stop altogether. Those bloggers of course were part of the reliable commenting community.
As you say, it is hard for me to comment if I haven’t read the particular book you’re reviewing. So isn’t the number of page views your get on a particular post a better measure of engagement?
Regardless, I appreciate what you do and look forward to your posts each week. Thanks for that.
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I completely get where you’re coming from, even if I’m not sure I could adopt the same approach — mind you, that said, I have given up on a couple of unreadable later Carr titles that I may never get back to (I like to think I will…it’s just a matter of when). I enjoy the highs more for knowing how low some of the lows can be 🙂
And, yes, the bloggers who hjave fallen by the wayside were, you’re quite correct, part of the regular commenting crew. Even allowing for that, though, I’ve gone from 20-some comments per post on average to, like, 5. That’s…steep.
The main thing is that I’m still enjoying this, and people like yourself are here and enjoying what is being offered. As I’ve said before, I’ll keep doing this for as long as I enjoy it, and I see no sign of that ending soon (even if the occasional unenjoyable title does puzzle the will somewhat).
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There was a golden age a few years back, wasn’t there? And it was a blast. I’m definitely part of the falling off crowd, and I do look back at those times fondly. There are some absolute gems of conversations hidden in these blog posts, and it would be fun to one day dredge them up. But man, it might take some time to find them.
I still read (not nearly as much), I still collect (just nabbed a dozen pre-60s Christie paperbacks from the likes of Dell, Pocket, Fontana, and Pan that have covers to die for, and paid less than $10 for the lot – I’ve still got it boys), and I have a number of posts that I for some reason never got around to publishing.
I finished Carr by the way. My last novel was Death Turns the Tables.
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Many congrats on finishing Carr; I don’t know if I ever will, having given up on three of his later novels in recent months. Those bad times are…very bad, especially when you consider how damn high the highs are.
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As this is a meta post, I have a meta question which I have always wondered about: what determines whether you attach a star rating when you write a review? If there’s a pattern, I haven’t spotted it.
I rarely comment, but I find this blog invaluable because of the sheer volume of books you’ve written about when I am looking around for the next author to try out.
Our tastes don’t always align: however much I try (and despite my love of Jonathan Creek), I don’t enjoy crime fiction which relies upon Impossible Events which are mechanical in nature – but I’ve wolfed through a ton of R Austin Freemans because of the blog, and am now coming to the end of the Anthony Berkeleys too, having greatly enjoyed most of them
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My approximate thinking goes like this: Thursday posts have a star rating because they are typically a) books I’ve not read before and b) restricted to under 1,000 words (I used to say 1,300, but those posts are, I now appreciate, too long).
Tuesdays in any given month have a theme running through them and so are exempt from star ratings, and Saturday posts are not restricted in word count — see the 1,800 words I recently put up about Not to be Taken (1938) by Anthony Berkeley. The star rating is a shortcut to summarise my overall feelings given that I allow myself less space on Thursdays to maunder on (people like short posts, I feel, and I’m going to try and reduce this 1,000 word limit to 800 words over the next year or so to see if I can).
So now you know 🙂
Thanks for the kind words about the blog, lovely to think that people find it useful — that’s sort of what it’s here for, after all. And more people reading Berkeley and Freeman is absolutely a good thing. Mission accomplished!
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I’ve thought about starting a GAD blog but only want to do so if I can complement what’s already out there and not just repeat what you and others do in an excellent way.
Beyond reading the books and presumably making notes along the way, you must make time to write a coherent analyses of those books. The time commitment is impressive and requires dedication. If you don’t mind me asking, how long on average do you spend creating any given post?
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I started a blog for the simple reason that — while TomCat and Sergio (Tipping My Fedora) and Noah (Noah’s Archives) and Puzzle Doctor and Rich (Past Offences) would write about something that interesting me a lot of the time — I wanted there to be a blog that was of 100% interest to me. I never imagined I was doing anything new or groundbreaking, I was just adding my oewn thoughts to a busy, healthy forum. Any thoughtful anaylsis is useful, and you’fre never goingto agree with everyone all the time, so any new perspective is worthwhile.
As to the writing, a 1,000 Thursday post takes about 50 minutyes on average. I have one coming up — Cat and Mouse by Christianna brand — that took half an hour, but then I have one (title undisclosed) that was tougher to get my thoughts in line for. But 50 mins is a good expectation.
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Ok fine I’ll comment if you twist my arm
My experience writing a blog that probably gets way less views is that the main thing that prevents me from getting comments is that people will contact me on other channels to express their thoughts instead. Don’t know if this applies, like if people are reaching out on Facebook or something, but sometimes engagement manifests in a way that’s not measurable. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people link your posts and talk about them without liking or commenting, for instance.
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You’re doubtless right about engagement elsewhere, but I still think the same issue stands: mostly, people aren’t going to say anything if they haven’t read the book, whereas a broader topic discussion is likely to encourage people in.
I only really think about this because the intention was to get some conversations going on a topic I love, but, yeesh, that drop off in comments per post is steep!
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I’m a very infrequent commentator, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your posts. You’ve been pointing me toward authors I haven’t tried and offered a fresh take on other authors and why I should read more by them (see anybody with Freeman in their name). Like Scott, I use your blog as well as those of Tomcat, Kate, Steve, Brad, etc. to curate the best of GAD.
So, I wouldn’t worry about comments – on your 20th anniversary we throw you an internet party with comments galore.
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Hahaha, on my twentieth anniversary I’ll take my five most frequent commenters out to dinner, how about that? 😄
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It’s a deal. We can celebrate my 90th birthday as well.
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It’s a shame that the cover stars feature was so hard to find people to interview. I thought the ones you did were really interesting – particularly given how important a cover is to marketing.
As someone who also made a pledge to read all of Ellery Queen in order as a monthly series, I can really relate to that one…
Anyway, just to say Happy Blogiversary to The Invisible Event. I have discovered so many wonderful books through you and really enjoy getting to talk GAD with you! Here’s to the next ten years…
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I was very excited when I got that first Cover Stars post setup, and then, wow, did it become swiftly apparent that very few people were as accommodating as Abi 😄 I still feel very lucky to have gotten those two posts on the topic, but, man, I wish there were more.
Yes, here’s to another ten years of discussing eGAD and avoiding Ellery Quen together. First one to understand the dying message in The Tragedy of X is a loser…
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The dying message was clear: as soon as I saw that the victim had scrawled an X, I knew that the killer was the suspect named Mark de Spott!
Seriously, though, didn’t you read the dying message lecture contained their in? It explained that a dying message has to be obscure enough so that the killer won’t erase it but clever enough so that the brilliant detective will figure it out!
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There are sixty-one more Agatha Christie’s I’m itching to spoil with you. Also, I’d be happy to start an Erle Stanley Gardner podcast with you, which will last sixty years at least and will probably have to be completed by our Horrified Heirs!
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Our new podcast God Rest Ye, Perry, Gentleman goes into production next month!
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Fascinating post, like an amble through history, some of which I shared. Made me wonder what my list would be for this topic.
Tuesday night’s have never been the same since. I miss those moments. Kate was always good at organizing, but I think she got tired of the inevitable cooling off.
and, congratulations on 10 years of fabulous blogging, which I promise you is very much appreciated, always has been always will be. I couldn’t count the number of books I have bought after a blogpost from you. I didnt always like them, but I never asked for my money back from you did I?
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Those Tuesday posts were so much fun, weren’t they? Man, can’t believe I’ve been doing this long enough to get nostalgia about how things used to be 🙂
Thanks for the kind words; please address any refund requests to my accountant at B. Friedman Enterprises.
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OK, great, so when I feel bad that I’m bugging you with random reply threads on random posts every few weeks, I’ll just reassure myself that I’m adding to your comment count!
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Oh, dude, people commenting on old posts is wonderful. It’s all here so that anyone can access it at whatever is the right time for them — the notion that each post has a shelf-life would be entirely antithetical to what I’m trying to do here.
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Interesting to see the things that didn’t work out. Like you, I’m surprised that Cover Stars didn’t work out. Also disappointed that The Criminous Alphabet got dropped.
I miss the days of The Tuesday Night Bloggers. I never participated (almost did, once), but it was great to see.
And I sympathize with the comment thing. It looks like there’s been a drop off across everyone’s blogs, not just yours. But like Pierce said, most people will engage through other means; I usually share reviews (including yours!) on Discord.* (Don’t worry, I still read them.) And you’re right, if people haven’t read the book, then there’s not much to say But I admit I bring this up because I’m bitter about the lack of comments on my posts. 😛
Let us hope for another ten years of exciting blogging. 🙂
*Ho-Ling joked that the worst thing he did for his blog’s engagement was start a Discord, which I think is true, because most of the comments he got on his reviews of Japanese-only novels that most of his audience couldn’t read rarely had anything to do with the post.
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It’s not so much that The Criminous Alphabet got dropped, I think I just left it too long between instalments and then, when the time came to do it again, I just…didn’t. Maybe I could pick one month a year and do a new letter every October, say. I’d be interested to see what I’d write about, and doing it that way would give me time to plan and research. Something to think about.
I’m too old to know what Discord is. Do I want to?
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Sorry for not responding to this sooner.
Well, I hope to see more of the alphabet!
Discord is essentially an app that lets you make servers (if you ever used IRC, think something like that). They can range from small ones for you and your friends to play games on (I think Discord was originally made as an improvement on other group chat services at the time) to giant ones dedicated to well-known games or companies. Ho-Ling has one dedicated to mysteries.
Personally, I’d prefer a forum, but I guess your blog is a good substitute. 😛
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Many thanks; I understand some of those words, so I’ll take this as confirmation that I’m officially old 🙂
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It happens to the best of us!
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But not this quickly, surely?!
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Ahh, I do miss the think-pieces; I can’t be the only one? Love a good theorize. Those pieces definitely benefitted from the chattier state of the blogosphere back then. I’ve contemplated writing a few but my productivity is so shocking even when writing about one book that I never quite manage it.
Congrats once again on having such a storied blog history that these threads can be picked up, fade away, be replaced…
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Maybe I’m just scared of doing a Think Piece again because I’m worried I’ll find I’ve lost the ability to think. My mind is increasingly muddled these days 🙂
And, thanks for the kind words, but really I’m just writing lots of individual book reviews, which is Blogging 101. I should do some Serious Thinking about what I want TIE to become over the next decade, but I’ve always been bad at planning ahead. Watch this space, I suppose.
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You may recall that we coincidentally started trying to read Ellery Queen in order at practically the exact same time. Man, that was a rough patch. I gave up after The Greek Coffin Mystery and I have zero interest in ever picking up the next few books. I recall The Roman Hat Mystery, The French Powder Mystery, and The Tragedy of X being particularly painful.
I did skip forward though to the Wrightville series, and I will say Calamity Town was pretty good. Then it falls back off. The Tragedy of Y is also good, and I somewhat enjoyed The Queen of Hearts.
I’d love to read your thoughts on your experience with Cat of Many Tales. It felt like Queen was trying to write The Great American Novel, and I was rolling my eyes constantly.
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My thoughts on Cat of Many Tails can be summed up by the opening saying “There were nine murders by The Cat in all…” and the next chapter going “Here are the details of the first five deaths, in tediously repetitious and forensic detail — this is better than seeing the actual discovery and investigation of these crimes, isn’t it?”.
No, Fred; no, it’s not.
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