#1224: The Shadow of the Wolf (1925) by R. Austin Freeman

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Shadow of the Wolf

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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.

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#1221: Case for Sergeant Beef (1947) by Leo Bruce

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Case for Sergeant Beef

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Ronald Shoulter has been found shot in the appropriately-named Deadman’s Wood, and his sister refuses to believe the police’s easy assumption of suicide.  While “[t]he fashion was for detectives of high social standing and large private incomes”, she “won’t have one of these pansified snobs who are supposed to be brilliant investigators hanging around” and seeks out ex-Sergeant William Beef to get to the bottom of things. And so Lionel Townsend, Beef’s Boswell for four previous cases, finds himself once again, though more unwillingly this time, drawn in to the matter of a devious murder that the earthy Sergeant must untangle.

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#1220: “About ghosts in particular he was a blatant and contemptuous sceptic.” – Wicked Spirits [ss] (2024) ed. Tony Medawar

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Let’s take a moment to reflect on what Tony Medawar has done in recent years for GAD fans, with Wicked Spirits (2024) being the eighth collection of lost, forgotten, and so-rare-they-doubt-their-own-existence stories by GAD luminaries Medawar has edited under the …from the Library label. Whether we get any more after this or not, and I sincerely hope we do, it’s a wonderful body of work, and only the tip of an iceberg of effort he has been putting in for decades now.

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#1219: The Examiner (2024) by Janice Hallett

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Examiner

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Janice Hallett fairly set the crime fiction firmament a-gaggle with her debut The Appeal (2021), a story of murder in a community theatre group told via emails and texts. Her third novel, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels (2023), was, to my thinking, even more successful again, not least because of how it stirred in a speculative plot about the Antichrist and a forthcoming apocalypse so confidently, again told via various media rather than in straight prose. So when her fourth novel The Examiner (2024) was announced, I was at the head of the (library) queue, and, well, we might be in an her-odd-numbered-novels-are-the-good-ones situation.

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#1218: “Ever hear of the classic locked-room theme?” – Too French and Too Deadly, a.k.a. The Narrowing Lust (1955) by Henry Kane

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Having thoroughly enjoyed the hard-edged cynicism of P.I. Peter Chambers in Death on the Double (1957), which had an impossible crime in it just to add to the fun, I sought out Too French and Too Deadly, a.k.a. The Narrowing Lust (1955) due to Adey promising me similarly impossible happenings.

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#1217: James Tarrant, Adventurer, a.k.a. Circumstantial Evidence (1941) by Freeman Wills Crofts

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James Tarrant

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Having previously had a new business undertaking result in murder in Fatal Venture (1939), and having dealt in business manipulation in The End of Andrew Harrison (1938), Freeman Wills Crofts once again mixes his earlier experiences to bring us something similar to before but deliberately different enough to matter with James Tarrant, Adventurer, a.k.a. Circumstantial Evidence (1941). And so we have our eponymous chemist setting out “adventuring himself on a flowing tide, and instead [finding] himself floating in circles in a backwater,” and coming up with a canny idea to ride on the tails of a successful patent medicine brand. What could possibly go wrong?

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#1216: A Little Help for My Friends – Finding a Modern Locked Room Mystery for TomCat Attempt #23: Black Lake Manor (2022) by Guy Morpuss

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I try to keep a weather eye on modern crime fiction publications, mainly so that anything which sounds like it might contain an impossible crime can be tried out in this occasional undertaking where we all pretend that I’m only reading them so I can recommend one to TomCat. But Black Lake Manor (2022) by Guy Morpuss, well, I sort of went looking for this one…

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#1215: The Dark Angel (1930) by James Ronald

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Dark Angel

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There were, I think, few people more excited than me when it was announced that Moonstone Press would be republishing the complete mystery fiction of James Ronald. I’ve been adding to my existing posts with quick reviews of the novellas and short stories included in earlier volumes, but fifth volume The Dark Angel (1930) marks the first time that I’m reading a new-to-me James Ronald novel, one that I would in all probability have had no opportunity to experience but for the excellent collaboration of Moonstone and Chris Verner. And a selfless old lady receiving a demand to pay £5,000 (£400,000 in today’s money) is exactly the sort of pulpy setup Ronald could doubtless spin to entertaining ends.

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