The Invisible Event has, as of yesterday, officially been online for ten years. Where does the time go? And when does the money start pouring in?
Continue reading#1334: The Tenniversary – Ten Positive Side-Effects of Blogging
#1333: “Why shouldn’t I know? I know how people act, don’t I?” – My Mother, the Detective [ss] (2016) by James Yaffe
I first encountered James Yaffe via his story ‘The Problem of the Emperor’s Mushrooms’ (1945), but have heard much about his ‘Mom’ stories, in which a police officer’s mother “is usually able to solve over the dinner table crimes that keep the police running around in circles for weeks”. So I was delighted to acquire the complete collection of those tales.
Continue reading#1332: Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke (1931) by R. Austin Freeman
One sympathises with Martin Edwards when he says that he found the style of the opening pages of Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke (1931), the nineteenth book and thirteenth novel by R. Austin Freeman to feature medical jurist Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke, “off-putting”. I am an avowed Freeman fan, this being the 19th book by him I have read, and I nearly quit on page 2. But if you persevere, dear reader, you’ll find an interesting story with some very, very good detection indeed that definitely improves once Freeman curbs his initial pomposity…though the book as a whole does suffer slightly from an absence of content to fill out the closing few chapters
#1331: The Tenniversary – Ten Things That Didn’t Pan Out as Intended
Man plans and God laughs, words which apply in life as in blogging. And, as The Invisible Event turns ten years old next week, I don’t want you thinking that I’m the acme of perfection and everything I’ve ever done — in my life and in blogging — has worked out exactly as intended.
Continue reading#1330: “We’ll all come under suspicion sooner or later, mark my words.” – Not to be Taken, a.k.a. A Puzzle in Poison (1938) by Anthony Berkeley
I first read Not to be Taken, a.k.a. A Puzzle in Poison (1938), my debut experience of the work of Anthony Berkeley, after happening across a Black Dagger Crime edition in about 2005. And I bloody hated it. Over the years, however, I’ve come to love Berkeley’s work, so the recent reissue of the title in the British Library Crime Classics range was a (welcome…?) chance to reappraise it.
Continue reading#1329: The Greene Murder Case (1928) by S.S. van Dine
Having curbed the slaughter in his first two books, S.S. van Dine’s early promise that The Greene Murder Case (1928) is “the first complete and unedited history of the Greene holocaust” certainly sets you up for carnage galore. And the book offers this and more: a veritable cornucopia of almost everything the detective novel should have, as if, having learnt from his opening brace, Van Dine was keen to cram in just about every trick, revelation, and reversal1 he could possibly envisage. And yet, for all its trappings, the book does suffer from the same problem as its predecessors in that the killer is blindingly obvious, and no amount of telling me otherwise will change my mind.
#1328: The Tenniversary – Ten Books That (Unwittingly) Shaped This Blog
On 18th August 2025, The Invisible Event will have been running for ten years. And while I’m not a big one for introspection — I read books, I write about those books, some people read what I’ve written, rinse, repeat — a decade feels like a notable achievement and so some introspection is going to be had, for today at least.
Continue reading#1327: “There’s a plain, logical solution to the whole business…” – The Case of the Substitute Face (1938) by Erle Stanley Gardner
While Brad adopts a thematic approach to reading the Perry Mason novels of Erle Stanley Gardner, I’m more a sort of wander in the meadow, la-la-la, isn’t everything beautiful kinda guy, and so I’m just getting it into my head I want to (re)read one and picking them up on a whim. But let’s attempt some method and stick to the approximate era of the last one I reviewed, eh?
Continue reading#1326: Bedrooms Have Windows (1949) by A.A. Fair
The twelfth published novel from Erle Stanley Gardner under his A.A. Fair nom de plume, Bedrooms Have Windows (1949) finds L.A. P.I.s Bertha Cool and Donald Lam once more skirting the law in pursuit of a case whose precise shape is obscured by the sheer number of actions dragged across its trail. And while this should be getting pretty tiresome by now, the truth is that since series nadir Crows Can’t Count (1946) Fair has delivered some blisteringly fast and fun little crime thrillers that go a long way to show how to write entertainingly: let everything fly at the page, and have someone as unshakeable as Donald on hand to unpick whatever madness you throw him into.
#1325: Minor Felonies – Montgomery Bonbon: Sabotage at Sea (2025) by Alasdair Beckett-King [ill. Claire Powell]
It’s true that, by reading a lot of crime and detective fiction and trying to write three posts a week on that subject, I sometimes forget to just enjoy my reading. So thank heavens it’s time for another Alasdair Beckett-King novel, with Sabotage at Sea (2025) being the fourth in the Montgomery Bonbon corpus.
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