Eking out these recommended episodes of Elementary, having found a lot of joy in Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) solving mysteries in modern day New York, I’m amazed and mildly distressed to have reached the penultimate season already. What am I going to watch when I’m done?
Continue readingCrime-solving couples
#1016: Five to Try – Elementary, Season 5 (2016-17)
Five more recommended episodes of Elementary, in which Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) solve mysteries in modern day New York. Are we really up to season 5 already? Man, they grow up so fast.
Continue reading#1009: The Right Murder (1941) by Craig Rice

“Now you take this guy who was killed New Year’s Eve. If he was gonna be killed, why couldn’t he have had his passport on him, or a driver’s license, or even a calling card? No. Not a damn thing. So I have to go to all the trouble of finding out who he was. When I do find out, then what? More trouble.” Homicide Captain Daniel von Flanagan has a point, as there’s also the matter of the dead man staggering into a bar where lawyer John J. Malone was drowning his sorrows and croaking out “Malone!” before expiring on the floor, added to Malone’s insistence that he’d never seen the man before. And what of the key numbered 114 the man slipped to Malone…a key that was apparently stolen from the lawyer only moments later?
#1005: Minor Felonies – Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: Peril at Owl Park (2020) by Marthe Jocelyn
This second entry in Marthe Jocelyn’s Aggie Morton series — featuring juvenile sleuths inspired by both Agatha Christie and her arguably most famous creation Hercule Poirot — contains much of the charm that made the series opener stand out, but also falls down in ways that leave me a little underwhelmed.
Continue reading#988: Five to Try – Elementary, Season 4 (2015-16)
More Elementary, the modern update of Sherlock Holmes starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in the lead roles. This time, my recommendations of five episodes from season 4, which first aired in the US between November 2015 and May 2016.
Continue reading#985: The World’s Favourite Golden Age Sleuth – Round 3
#976: The World’s Favourite Golden Age Sleuth – Round 2
And then there were 32 — the first round of this vote to find the most popular sleuth of detective fiction’s Golden Age having whittled the original 64 names down to half that number, and the votes available for one week from today due to halve it again. So, who survived and who is out of the running?
Continue reading#968: Going Home – A Drink Before the War (1994) by Dennis Lehane
By the time Dennis Lehane started garnering public attention and huge critical praise for the likes of Mystic River (2001) and Shutter Island (2003) — helped, no doubt, by those two novels being filmed — I couldn’t help but feeling that he’d already done his best work with his first five novels, which featured Boston P.I.s Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro.
Continue reading#967: The World’s Favourite Golden Age Sleuth – Round 1, Bottom Half
Right, you probably know the drill by now: 100+ sleuths nominated, top 64 chosen, the top half of 32 already voted on…today you’re voting on the bottom half of the first round.
Continue reading#961: The World’s Favourite Golden Age Sleuth – Round 1, Top Half
Over one hundred names were nominated. The top 64 have been sifted. Today we begin the process of finding the favourite sleuth of detective fiction’s Golden Age (precise dates pending, but we’re saying 1920-45).
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