With an uptick in quality in the previous two Lord Darcy short stories, I was very much looking forward to the penultimate one — also the longest, by a significant amount — continuing this trend. And, wow, was I mistaken.
Continue readingAnd so, a new-to-me story from Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy oeuvre, since I definitely didn’t read these last three in this collection at first encounter (no, I’m not sure why).
Continue readingUpon first encounter, some 15 years ago, I left four of Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories unread for reasons which now elude me; and those reasons seem even more elusive when you realise that the last one I did read was possibly the strongest of the lot.
Continue readingFive Tuesdays in June means that I have sufficient time and space to read and write about the five remaining Lord Darcy short stories by Randall Garrett which, given that I reviewed the novel Too Many Magicians (1967) back in January, means the full canon will then be covered on The Invisible Event.
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Either one of the greatest innovations in the genre’s history or one of it’s most misguided attempts at latching onto a passing phase, you can bet that I snapped up a copy of this murder mystery containing what my youthful 1990s self knew as magic eye pictures — more formally called stereograms or autostereograms — the second I learned of its existence.
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Earlier this year, I stumbled over The Beanstalk Murder (2024) by P.G Bell, a superb crossover mystery which imports the tenets of a well-clued mystery into the world of Jack and the Beanstalk. Bell’s second novel along this line, The Big Bad Wolf Murder (2025), followed in due course, and a few weeks ago he was kind enough to sit down with me and talk about the writing of these two excellent books.
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P.G. Bell’s first Fairy Tale Murder Mystery, The Beanstalk Murder (2024), was so damn entertaining and so well-plotted that you bet I was going to jump on the follow-up, The Big Bad Wolf Murder (2025), as soon as I could. Indeed, as a glimpse behind the blogging curtain: I read this second book before the review of that first one had even appeared on the blog. Hairy Aaron!
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It’s been a while since I read any of the often boundary-straddling works of DWaM, and with a couple of self-published books by other authors proving hard going, common sense finally prevailed and I turned to An Odyssey to the Castle of Vampires (2023) — an epic which has been patiently waiting its turn for nearly three years now.
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A fourth story from the 13 Crimes of Science Fiction [ss] (1977) collection, as I further explore my interest in the crossover mystery. Might this be the point where this collection springs to life?
Continue readingMy first two excursions into the 13 Crimes of Science Fiction [ss] (1977) anthology haven’t exactly been roaring successes. Might some actual detective work find things more to my liking?
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The Invisible Event 