Blog fun
#615: And the Knights are No More and the Dragons are Dead – Viewing the Detective Through a Glass, Darkly via The Hero (2019) by Lee Child
You’ve doubtless heard of Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher books in which the gargantuan ex-serviceman does plenty of fightin’ and figurin’, and if there’s a bigger name in publishing today it’s only because James Patterson has, like, 86 co-authors.
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#582: Cain’s Jawbone: A Novel Problem (1934) by Torquemada
No, this is not a review of Cain’s Jawbone (1934) by Torquemada, a.k.a. Edward Powys Mathers. In order to review it, I must first read it, and reading it presents a difficulty as many of you will be aware…
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#579: Cover Stars – Abigail Salvesen on Hag’s Nook (1930) and She Died a Lady (1943) by John Dickson Carr [Polygon Books 2019 editions]
Book cover art is, for me, a source of huge excitement. Be it for reasons of apt evocation of a bygone era — the British Library Crime Classics, say, or the reams of Dean Street Press reissues — or the beautiful, almost utilitarian simplicity of the much-coveted Green Penguin, there’s an ineffable element of skill in striking the right balance.
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#570: Squaring the Circle – Suspects, the Other, and the Difficulties Faced by Crime Fiction
I’m on holiday and not doing a huge amount of reading as a result, and so may not have thought this out properly, but here’s an idea I just had.
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#561: Thinking Too Precisely on th’ Event – Clued and Unclued Detective Fiction, or: The Active and the Passive Detective-Reader
August is my summer holiday, and I’m contributing to the slow death of the planet by taking a few breaks here and there, so might not be as hot in the comments as usual. But the nature of what we mean when we say “GAD” has been on my mind for a while, so here goes nothing.
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#550: Little Fictions – Curiosities from Adey: ‘The Phantom Killer’ (1946) and ‘The Impossible Crime’ (1946) by Nigel Morland, A Play-Along-at-Home Experiment
Something a little different this week, potential threats of legal action notwithstanding.
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#539: The Origin of Evil – Contrasting Malice Aforethought (1931) by Francis Iles with The Colour of Murder (1957) by Julian Symons
Genre is essentially the formalisation of deja vu. Those of us who return to — or avoid — particular genres do so because of the essential ingredients that recur there, whether through implicit rules or otherwise.
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#533: “Magicians have an advantage; they never have to reveal the trick” – An Interview with James Scott Byrnside
Back in December 2015 I read and reviewed Matt Ingwalson’s first two self-published Owl and Raccoon novellas and, impressed with their quality, undertook what has since become my Adventures in Self-Publishing in which I work through impossible crime fiction following a non-trad route to its audience.
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#527: Plotting the Perfect Crime – Potential and Pay-Off via The House of Haunts, a.k.a. The Lamp of God (1935) by Ellery Queen
The Invisible Event 