A second mystery for Roger, Diana, Snubby, Loony, Barney, and Miranda — and one with a hint of the impossible, about it, to boot.
Continue reading#1232: Minor Felonies – The Rilloby Fair Mystery (1950) by Enid Blyton
Author: JJ
#1231: “These are booming times for crime.” – A Study in Crimson: Sherlock Holmes 1942 (2020) by Robert J. Harris
I’m not quite the target audience for a Sherlock Holmes pastiche taking its motivation not from Arthur Conan Doyle’s original canon but instead the 20th Century Fox films and subsequent radio serial starring Basil Rathbone — being as I’ve neither seen nor heard them — but the notion intrigued me enough to give A Study in Crimson (2020) by Robert J. Harris a go.
Continue reading#1230: Crows Can’t Count (1946) by A.A. Fair
How do you go about discussing a book you couldn’t even be bothered to finish? The tempting thing is not to review it at all, but I’m committed to certain undertakings on this blog — the complete works of Freeman Wills Crofts, the complete John Thorndyke stories of R. Austin Freeman, more Walter S. Masterman than most people will ever consume — and the full Cool & Lam by A.A. Fair, nom de plume of Erle Stanley Gardner, is one of them. So how to write about Crows Can’t Count (1946), the tenth published Cool & Lam novel, and the first time this normally lively and entertaining series has draaaaaaagged me into the doldrums of an almost spiritual level of indifference?
#1229: Minor Felonies – Bear Bottom (2021) by Stuart Gibbs
I had hoped to diversify these Minor Felonies posts this month, and to bring in some new authors who might produce well-structured juvenile detective fiction. But, well, that didn’t work out, and so instead I guess I’ll just have to return to Stuart Gibbs’ FunJungle, perhaps the best series of detective novels for 8 to 12 year-olds currently on the market.
Continue reading#1228: “So you admire the man.” – Dear Mr. Holmes [ss] (2011) by Steve Hockensmith
I thought that the novel Holmes on the Range (2006) by Steve Hockensmith was the first time he wrote about crime-solving cowboy Gustav ‘Old Red’ Amlingmeyer, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that some earlier short stories had featured the character first.
Continue reading#1227: Impact of Evidence (1954) by Carol Carnac
It usually takes me about five books to figure out where I stand with an author — to cover something good, something borrowed, something blue and eventually figure out whether I like the skull beneath the skin of their writing. Impact of Evidence (1954) is my eleventh book by Edith Caroline Rivett — here writing as Carol Carnac, though best-known as E.C.R. Lorac — and represents another example of me not quite figuring her out. Her ideas are interesting, and she demonstrates no small acuity with her characters, but her plotting seems to stall at times and so the book didn’t for me reach the same level of immersion as Crook o’ Lune (1953) from the year before.
#1226: Minor Felonies – Montgomery Bonbon: Mystery at the Manor (2024) by Alasdair Beckett-King [ill. Claire Powell]
A third entry in the delightfully silly Montgomery Bonbon series, from the mind of the equally delightfully silly Alasdair Beckett-King, Mystery at the Manor (2024) is…delightfully silly.
Continue reading#1225: “Our path may be a murky one, but our enemy has shown himself.” – Moriarty (2014) by Anthony Horowitz
Last Saturday I wrote about Holmes and Moriarty (2024) by Gareth Rubin, and that got me thinking about Anthony Horowitz’s second novel in the Sherlock Holmes universe, Moriarty (2014), which I first read ten years ago.
Continue reading#1224: The Shadow of the Wolf (1925) by R. Austin Freeman
Far from the short story collection my House of Stratus edition pictured here promises on the back cover, The Shadow of the Wolf (1925) is the eighth novel to feature R. Austin Freeman’s “medico-legal hermaphrodite” Dr. John Thorndyke and an inverted mystery to boot — a particular delight to discover, because I’ve been giving this form of detective story a lot of thought lately. And so when Varney — I don’t think we ever learn his first name — murders Dan Purcell on a boat in the opening chapter and begins to put in place that which makes it seem the dead man has fled of his own accord, I was even more delighted than I usually am at the start of a Thorndyke tale.
#1223: Minor Felonies – Catch Your Death (2023) by Ravena Guron
An isolated, snowbound mansion, a wealthy family at each other’s throats…you’d frankly be disappointed if this setup didn’t result in a murder.
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The Invisible Event 