#1068: “I like sometimes to escape from the humdrum of detective investigation…” – The Door with Seven Locks (1926) by Edgar Wallace

A title like The Door with Seven Locks (1926) suggests all manner of locked room excitement, hopefully resulting is some impossible crime shenanigans. So imagine my surprise when this ended up being little more than a straight thriller with some (perhaps not unexpectedly, this is Edgar Wallace after all) weird ideas at its core.

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#1067: The Case with Nine Solutions (1928) by J.J. Connington

Case with Nine Solutions

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Hard to believe, I know, but I had a life before this blog, and in that life I read The Case with Nine Solutions (1928) by J.J. Connington and was mildly disappointed that those ‘solutions’ were merely permutations on the interpretations put on two deaths and not a Poisoned Chocolates Case-esque reinterpretation of available information to give a nonet of distinct answers to explain away events.  Beyond that, I remembered very little about it and so, now more versed in Connington’s writing, I return — making this the fifth Connington novel I’ve read in the last 12 months, which is probably enough to convince me that I’m now a fan.

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#1064: The Case of the Late Pig (1937) by Margery Allingham

Case of the Late Pig

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I’m in a confusing place with Margery Allingham.  I definitely read three of her books when I started getting into Golden Age detective fiction, one of which, I’m almost certain, was The Beckoning Lady (1955) and very hard work indeed.  A few years passed, and I next thoroughly enjoyed the amoral ingenuity of Police at the Funeral (1931) before stumbling badly over Flowers for the Judge (1936) and sort of abandoning her, faintly dissatisfied. So when The Case of the Late Pig (1937) passed into my hands, the mere 132 pages of this Penguin edition commended themselves as an opportunity to reacquaint myself with the author and see how things go.

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#1061: Death and the Conjuror (2022) by Tom Mead

Death and the Conjuror

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Tom Mead is that rare thing these days: an author writing detective fiction in the classic tradition with some actual interest in the classic tradition of detective fiction. When he peppers the text of Death and the Conjuror (2022), his very entertaining and easy-to-read debut novel, with references to the work of R. Austin Freeman, G.K. Chesterton, Melville Davisson Post and others, you know it’s the result of time spent reading the genre rather than a few quick Google searches to give him credibility. And when he plays the games of identity and location as well as he does here, you also know he’s having a joyous time playing in his favourite sandbox…and wonderful it is to see.

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#1058: The Cat Saw Murder (1939) by Dolores Hitchens [a.p.a. by D.B. Olsen]

Cat Saw Murder

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If, like me, you were dissuaded from reading The Cat Saw Murder (1939) by Dolores Hitchens because the titles brings on the hives of a cozy Cat Catches Criminals caper, rest assured that this is very much not that type of book. The cat does indeed see murder — the surprisingly violent hacking to death of Lily Stickleman in the shabby beachside boarding house where she resides while waiting for an inheritance — but the sleuthing is done by a combination of Lieutenant Stephen Mayhew and the elderly Miss Rachel Murdock. Samantha, the eponymous moggy, provides a clue and a little intrigue of her own, but she’s much more dragged in rather than an essential catalyst (Ithankyou).

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#1055: Owls Don’t Blink (1942) by A.A. Fair

Owls Don't Blink

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If I remember correctly — and, let’s face it, I probably don’t, since I read them years ago and all out of order — Owls Don’t Blink (1942), the sixth title to feature Erle Stanley Gardner’s irrepressible P.I. duo of Donald Lam and Bertha Cool, starts something of a hot streak for the series. Hired by New York lawyer Emory Hale on behalf of an unknown client to find an ex-model who was last heard of in New Orleans some three years ago, you know Gardner has something special up his sleeve when the resourceful Donald is able to produce the woman within twenty pages. From here, it’s a criss-cross of obscured motives and identities, and enough skulduggery for Yorrick’s remains.

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