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.
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An earlier British Library Crime Classics short story collection today, with The Long Arm of the Law [ss] (2017) featuring 15 stories of professional police selected by the hugely knowledgeable Martin Edwards.
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One of many classic detection titles I read before I started this blog, The Judas Window (1938) is arguably among the most popular books John Dickson Carr ever wrote, under his nom de plume Carter Dickson or otherwise. The seventh book to feature his barrister-detective Sir Henry ‘H.M.’ Merrivale, and the only time H.M. enters the courtroom in all his cases, this was actually the first Merrivale book I read, way back when, and so a revisit seemed on the cards, especially with the British Library Crime Classics adding Dickson’s The Ten Teacups, a.k.a. The Peacock Feather Murders (1937) to their stable next month. Might this one follow suit? Lord knows it deserves to.
Having looked at Silent Nights [ss] (2015), the first collection of Christmas-themed short stories in the British Library Crime Classic collection a fortnight ago, I move on to Crimson Snow [ss] (2016), the second such collection, edited once again by Martin Edwards.
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I’ve been planning this for over a year, since reviewing the British Library’s fifth collection of Christmas short stories last November. Finally, then, December will see me reviewing Christmas-themed books for perhaps the first time since starting this blog in 2015, with a second BL collection coming in the weeks ahead.
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It usually takes me about five books to figure out where I stand with an author — to cover something good, something borrowed, something blue and eventually figure out whether I like the skull beneath the skin of their writing. Impact of Evidence (1954) is my eleventh book by Edith Caroline Rivett — here writing as Carol Carnac, though best-known as E.C.R. Lorac — and represents another example of me not quite figuring her out. Her ideas are interesting, and she demonstrates no small acuity with her characters, but her plotting seems to stall at times and so the book didn’t for me reach the same level of immersion as Crook o’ Lune (1953) from the year before.
As someone who has never taken the time to foster any artistic talent, I’m amazed at the skill of people who design book covers. I even tried to start a regular feature on this blog celebrating such endeavours, but couldn’t get enough people interested to go beyond two posts.
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Astoundingly, Who Killed Father Christmas? (2023) is the fifth collection of seasonal mysteries collated by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics range. And, with the BL kind enough to provide me with a review copy, it seemed like the perfect excuse to start some Christmas reading a little earlier than planned.
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Good heavens, after this second reading of Christianna Brand’s Suddenly at His Residence, a.k.a. The Crooked Wreath (1946) do I have plenty of Thoughts. Indeed, I have so many Thoughts that I’m deliberately writing about it on a Thursday so that my self-imposed 1,000 word limit stops me going on for about four times that length, to the enjoyment of no-one. So: Sir Richard March, tiring of the attitudes of his grandchildren, threatens to rewrite his will, retires to the lodge in the grounds of Swanswater Manor for this express purpose…and is discovered dead the following morning. Having been visited by various people throughout the previous evening, who actually poisoned him?
Young Iris Carr is travelling back to England alone when she is befriended by governess Winifred Froy; taking tea in the dining car of their train, they return to their carriage, where Iris falls asleep. Upon awakening, she finds Miss Froy has disappeared and, more confusingly, that all the forriners sharing the compartment insist there never was such a lady to begin with. Might the attack of sunstroke Iris suffered on the platform before boarding be to blame, or might there be a more sinister explanation? Thus The Wheel Spins (1936) walks in the same furrow as a good many suspense stories, not least Phantom Lady (1942) by Cornell Woolrich and the Jodie Foster-starring Flightplan (2005).
The Invisible Event 