Author: JJ
#611: The Seventh Hypothesis (1991) by Paul Halter [trans. John Pugmire 2012]
Aaah, Christmas; time to drop into the comforting arms of the ones we know and love. I tried to mix things up a bit this year, starting two Christmas mysteries to review this week…but neither really worked for me, and so I’m following my own advice and adding another pre-blogging Paul Halter title to my archives. I distinctly remembered The Seventh Hypothesis (1991, tr. 2012) to be a doozy, with less of a focus on the impossibilities — though we get two in quick succession — and more attention drawn to a complex switchback of mellifluous plotting…so how’d it stand up to a second look? Rather well, as it turns out.
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#610: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Gold Bug’ (1843) and ‘Thou Art the Man’ (1844)
It’s Christmas Eve, you’re keenly watching for snow and listening for reindeer hooves on your roof, and Christian and I are moving onto the lesser crime stories of Edgar Allan Poe — the weaklings which nevertheless still hold some sway where the development of detective fiction is concerned.
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#609: The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of the Collins Crime Club (2019) by John Curran
Recent years have been very kind to the Golden Age Detection nerd seeking non-fiction reference works. Indeed, if it didn’t seem like so much of a rip-off of the Reprint of the Year Award Kate runs over at CrossExaminingCrime, I’d be inclined to start a GAD Reference Work of the Year Awards.
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#608: Ghost House (1940) by Norman Berrow
Norman Berrow seems to flourish under the eye of the eldritch. Impossible hoof-marks in the snow mystery The Footprints of Satan (1950) is widely seen — correctly, in my opinion and experience to date — as his strongest work, and Ghost House (1940) is another atmosphere-drenched invocation of supernatural terror. Evidently Berrow himself was either extremely taken with the book or extremely disappointed in it, since he rewrote some of the plot, changed the names of the characters, and reissued the book in 1979. I’ll get to v2.0 last of all, since I’m now reading Berrow chronologically, but for now let’s look at the original.
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#607: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Purloined Letter’ (1844)
For this, the third week of examining the hugely influential crime stories of Edgar Allan Poe, we come to the last of the tales to feature his genius amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin.
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#606: Ooh-Ma, Ooh-Pa – Obvious Creative Divergence in Monk Season 2, Episodes 1-8 (2003)
Thank heavens that the Andy Breckman-created TV series Monk is now finished, because at this rate I’ll probably never finish watching it myself. One and a half seasons down, six and a half to go…how are things shaping up?
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#605: Castle Skull (1931) by John Dickson Carr
I’m being a bit cheeky here, using what I believe will be the cover for the British Library Crime Classics reissue of this due out early next year when it’s not actually my copy — I’ll show that below — but, c’mon, it’s a thing of beauty. The skull-shaped castle the title promises and narrative delivers has been somewhat done to death in previous editions, and it’s nice to see someone being a little more liberal in their interpretations. Though, now I’ve said that, the BL will change the cover ahead of its January release to a castle made entirely of skulls, presided over by a man made of skulls, punching Skeletor with a skull-shaped boxing glove.
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#604: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ (1842)
Another week, another cornerstone of the detection genre as laid by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.
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#603: I’ll Do My Loving in the Winter – Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura: ‘The Hagoromo Witch’ (2019) by Nemoto Shou [trans. Osakanon 2019]
The Invisible Event 