So, after delighting me and then slightly underwhelming me, how did I do in solving the mystery of The Malinsay Massacre (1938) as laid out by Dennis Wheatley and J.G. Links?
Continue readingEpistolary Novel
#900: The Twyford Code (2022) by Janice Hallett

Depending on who you ask, the wartime children’s books of Edith Twyford are either “an unchallenging read on every level [with n]o subtext [and n]o depth” or they’re “nasty, sadistic, moral little tales full of pompous superiority at best and blatant racism at worst.” Her series based around The Super Six in which “[t]hree girls and three boys…solve mysteries that have been puzzling the local community” has been gradually updated with each successive generation and translation, so that their outdated attitudes can be put aside once and for all. But might something else have been lost along the way? Something people would kill for?
#899: The Malinsay Massacre (1938) by Dennis Wheatley and J.G. Links: Week 3 – The Investigation
I may have called this week of The Malinsay Massacre (1938) “the investigation” but, in reality, I’m just working through the second half of the case in a manner uncannily reminiscent of how what like I did last week.
Continue reading#896: The Malinsay Massacre (1938) by Dennis Wheatley and J.G. Links: Week 2 – The Problem
So, how best to explore The Malinsay Massacre (1938) by Dennis Wheatley and J.G. Links?
Continue reading#893: The Malinsay Massacre (1938) by Dennis Wheatley and J.G. Links: Week 1 – The Dossier
Whether or not you agree with the concept of detective fiction being a game, there can be little doubt that much has been done to play up to the game-esque elements of murder mysteries for well-nigh the last century.
Continue reading#821: The Appeal (2021) by Janice Hallett

Do not adjust your sets, The Appeal (2021) by Janice Hallett is a modern crime novel that does not contain an apparent impossibility…and yet here I am reading and reviewing it. I was struck by the idea behind this: essentially an update of The Documents in the Case (1930) by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace, The Maze, a.k.a. Persons Unknown (1932) by Philip MacDonald, and the Dennis Wheatley “murder dossier” books that began with Murder Off Miami (1936), in which the story of a murder is told through emails, text messages, interview transcripts, and more. And as updates go, this is a very good one indeed — very cleverly written, very easy to read.