A final outing for James Ponti’s very entertaining trilogy in which two junior sleuths help the FBI solve baffling cases, it is perhaps unsurprising that Trapped! (2018) follows the age-old tradition of having this case cut Very Close To Home.
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Subtitled Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime [ss] (2009) collects twelve stories originally published between 1896 and 1919 — an era which I find myself increasingly interested in, giving birth as it did to the Golden Age of the 1920s-40s.
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In the latter stages of World War 2, artist Bruce Manaton is painting the portrait of a friend dressed in the robes of a cardinal, and his sister Rosanne fretting about the efficacy of the blackout curtains on the studio where they live, when there is a knock at the door. It seems that a special constable has discovered the body of murdered Old Mr. Folliner, the Manatons’ miserly landlord, and apprehended the killer as he was fleeing. Leaving the suspect in the care of the five people in the studio — two chess-playing friends have also dropped by for the evening — the constable summons the police, and before long Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald finds himself with another complex tangle to unfurl.
Lion Down (2019) is the fifth book in Stuart Gibbs’ FunJungle series and, with previous entry Panda-Monium (2017) being one of the best juvenile mysteries I’ve yet read in this Minor Felonies undertaking, expectations were high.
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Another Nero Wolfe novella, this time from the February 1956 British edition of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
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I’m starting to develop the belief that the novelistic output of Cornell Woolrich can be broadly summed up in a single word: ‘Loss’. The six novels of his I’ve read so far all concern the desperate search for — and horror associated with — something either already lost or on the verge of being so, be it love, opportunity, or escape. And The Black Curtain (1941) extends this theme by finding yet another string of loss to add to the great man’s bow in Frank Townsend’s misplacement of perhaps the most crucial of all things: himself. And, this being a work of suspense writing, when he starts to uncover what the eponymous curtain obscures, he’s not necessarily going to be thrilled with what he finds.
The Seaside Corpse (2022), Martha Jocelyn’s fourth novel to feature the Agatha Christie-inspired 13 year-old sleuth Aggie Morton, recently won the Edgar for Best Juvenile Mystery, so let’s jump back into the series where I’ve reached to date: book 3, The Dead Man in the Garden (2021).
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I might have read as many as half of Erle Stanley Gardner’s 80-some Perry Mason books — it’s difficult to remember, I didn’t used to keep track — and am fond of stating the opinion that eleventh title The Case of the Lame Canary (1937) is perhaps the peak of those I have encountered to date. So let’s revisit it, eh, and see how my memory stands up.
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The core framing of Billie Houston’s sole crime novel Twice Round the Clock (1935) — a murdered man discovered in the opening scene, before we jump back in time twelve hours and see events that lead up to the murder, then the twelve hours that follow the discovery — is hardly new, but the book is written with a fresh eye, and such clear lines in its character and narrative that it’s difficult not to enjoy. Don’t come for the detection or clues, which are scanty, but those of you who enjoyed Death of Anton (1936) by Alan Melville, another British Library Crime Classic, will find this equally to your liking for its clear setting, distinct characters, and occasionally unusual ideas.
The World’s Greatest Detective sure does very little in the way of detecting sometimes, doesn’t he?
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