Here’s a question for you: at what point did the Five Find-Outers series by Enid Blyton peak?
Continue reading#729: Minor Felonies – The Mystery of the Pantomime Cat (1949) by Enid Blyton
Juvenile Mysteries
#722: Junk in the Trunk with The Mystery of the Talking Skull (1969) by Robert Arthur
Whatever happens to the series from here, it would be difficult to deny that creator Robert Arthur set Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews off to a magnificent start with his ten Three Investigators novels.
Continue readingIn GAD We Trust – Episode 11: The Tropes of Detective Fiction [w’ James Scott Byrnside]
The time has come again for some nerdy Golden Age Detection podcasting, and James Scott Byrnside is here to oblige with a discussion about some of the tropes we know and love from GAD fiction
Continue reading#690: Minor Felonies – Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries [ss] (1963): ‘The Mystery of the Four Quarters’ by Robert Arthur
For the fifth and final Tuesday in June — holy hell, that means the year is practically half over — the fifth and final story in this collection.
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#687: Minor Felonies – Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries [ss] (1963): ‘The Mystery of the Man Who Evaporated’ by Robert Arthur
Having previously read two fabulous impossible crime stories by Robert Arthur, I was especially eager to see what he’d cooked up for this week’s tale.
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#684: Minor Felonies – Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries [ss] (1963): ‘The Mystery of the Three Blind Mice’ by Robert Arthur
Last week we had the shortest mystery in this collection, this week it’s the longest.
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#681: Minor Felonies – Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries [ss] (1963): ‘The Mystery of the Seven Wrong Clocks’ by Robert Arthur
Another short conundrum from Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries (1963), which contains the following being covered this month:
1. ‘The Mystery of the Five Sinister Thefts’
2. ‘The Mystery of the Seven Wrong Clocks’
3. ‘The Mystery of the Three Blind Mice’
4. ‘The Mystery of the Man Who Evaporated’
5. ‘The Mystery of the Four Quarters’
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#678: Minor Felonies – Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries [ss] (1963): ‘The Mystery of the Five Sinister Thefts’ by Robert Arthur and Morris Hershman
Five short mysteries from the pen of Robert Arthur in the year before he launched The Three Investigators on the world? What’s not to love? And this first story even comes with a supplementary mystery all of its own.
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#663: Minor Felonies – The Mystery of the Hidden House (1948) by Enid Blyton
I was recently moved to suggest that The Secret of Hangman’s Inn (1956), the sixth title in the Ken Holt series by husband-and-wife team Bruce Campbell, was the point at which that series found its feet and jumped to life. Today I’m going to promulgate that The Mystery of the Hidden House (1948), the sixth title in the Five Find-Outers series by one-woman publishing sensation Enid Blyton, is the point where this series finds its feet and jumps to life. Coincidence? Yes, undoubtedly.
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#660: Minor Felonies – Mic Drop (2020) by Sharna Jackson
The Invisible Event 