#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]
Earlier this year, Ho-Ling reviewed the sixteenth volume of the Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura manga by Nemoto Shou, an essentially self-published manga that has received raves for its detective plots and was picked up by a mainstream digital publisher.
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#602: In the First Degree (1933) by Roger Scarlett
It’s been a fun ride with Dorothy Blair and Evelyn Page, but now we reach the end. A mere five books came from these two ladies under their Roger Scarlett nom de plume, and it’s thanks to the tireless work of the folk at Coachwhip publications — and GAD’s own Curtis Evans — that these hugely enjoyable novels have been made available again. Because enjoy them I have, and my feelings about this final volume are amplified by having read all that preceded it; without that context, I (and possibly you — be forewarned) would not have gotten quite as much out of this last hurrah. As it is, and as you can clearly see above, I loved it to bits.
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#601: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841)
Sometimes my Tuesday posts are themed as Little Fictions, wherein I look at short stories; back in May I did a month themed around the origins of my detective fiction obsession called Going Home. This month it’s a Megazord comprised of both, looking at short stories that formed the origins of detective fiction…and there’s only one place to go for that.
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#600: Murderers Make Mistakes – Poirot’s Early Cases [ss] (1974) by Agatha Christie
The Invisible Event 