Amateur Detective
#551: The White Cockatoo (1934) by M.G. Eberhart
Sometimes quality and taste do not overlap. For instance, I have every reason to believe that The White Cockatoo (1934) by Mignon G. Eberhart is a very good book, but given that it veers far more heavily into the suspense/HIBK/EIRF schools of writing rather than anything qualifing as detection it’s not especially to my taste. It’s well- (if perhaps a little over-) written, has some good atmosphere, and introduces in the eponymous bird Pucci an unusual twist that enlivens the eventual resolution…but amidst all the mysterious happenings — sinister hotelier, sinister guests, sinister wind, sinister banging shutters, sinister everything — it’s just a bit too bland for my palate.
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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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#548: The Seventh Guest (1935) by Gaston Boca [trans. John Pugmire 2018]
The recent, very exciting publication of the brand new Paul Halter novel The Gold Watch (2019, tr. 2019) served to remind me that I still hadn’t read Locked Room International’s previous publication, a translation of Les Invités de Minuit (1935) by Gaston Boca. This is by my reckoning the sixteenth title from the Roland Lacourbe-curated list of 99 excellent impossible crime stories that John Pugmire has brought into English, and his tireless promotion of these books across the language barrier is a continued source of joy for those of us who lament the dearth of great impossible crime fiction being written these days. Pugmire always has something up his sleeve.
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#546: The 10 Types of Impossible Crime – Categories and Titles from Our Talk at Bodies from the Library 2019
After being on something of an enforced hiatus for a little while, The Men Who Explain Miracles, the occasional podcast run by Dan from The Reader is Warned and myself, returned yesterday for a live show at the Bodies from the Library Conference 2019 at the British Library.
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#545: The Case of the Inconstant Suicides – Mystery in Room 913, a.k.a. The Room with Something Wrong (1938) by Cornell Woolrich
Today is the fifth Bodies from the Library conference at the British Library where, at approximately 16:40 this afternoon, after the intelligent people have had their say, Dan and I shall take to the stage to discuss impossible crimes in fiction.
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#540: Adventures in Self-Publishing – The Boy Who Played Rama [ss] (2017) by Sharath Komarraju
In my experience, self-published impossible crime fiction doesn’t produce much in the way of short story collections.
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#530: Serving Up a, uhm, Verger’s, er, Breakfast – The Montague Egg Stories of Dorothy L. Sayers (1933-36)
Dorothy Leigh Sayers is undoubtedly one of the most influential and enduring writers to emerge from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction — as a founding member of the Detection Club and the creator of one of last century’s best known amateur sleuths she was in at the blood of the formulation of GAD and has remained hugely popular ever since.
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#528: Going Home – Blood Work (1998) by Michael Connelly
Another week, another look at a book which put me on the path to the classic detection obsession which occupies my every waking moment.
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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 