Juvenile Mysteries
#583: Minor Felonies – The Clue of the Coiled Cobra (1951) by Bruce Campbell
There’s a comforting familiarity about the Ken Holt Mysteries for Boys written by Beryl and Sam Epstein under the nom de plume Bruce Campbell. This is only the third one I’ve read, but, perhaps because of the strict adherence to classic ingredients, I feel like I’m about 12 books deep in the series.
Continue reading
#580: Minor Felonies – Spaced Out (2016) by Stuart Gibbs
Space Case (2014), the opening volume in Stuart Gibbs’ Moon Base Alpha trilogy, did a very good job of marrying some intelligent scientific speculation with an appealing juvenile detective and a decent whodunnit plot, and follow-up Spaced Out (2016) is even better again.
Continue reading
#577: Minor Felonies – The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters (1946) by Enid Blyton
In the most recent episode of our podcast, I mentioned how Agatha Christie’s The Moving Finger (1942) was the book which made me appreciate how threatening a poison pen campaign could actually be. And four years after Christie used the conceit to drive a town mad, surprise Crime Writers’ Association member Enid Blyton made it the background for some childhood japes. What fun!
Continue reading
#574: Minor Felonies – High-Rise Mystery (2019) by Sharna Jackson
Right, let’s get back into blogging things. This week, three very different novels published this year, beginning with High-Rise Mystery (2019), the debut fictional work of Sharna Jackson.
Continue reading
#573: Lamentings Heard i’th’Air in The Mystery of the Screaming Clock (1968) by Robert Arthur
With a new school year about to start, and Peter F. Hamilton’s 1,152-page epic Pandora’s Star (2004) crushing the peak of Mount TBR, I’m going to take a break from blogging in September. But here’s one last trip with Jupe, Pete, and Bob before I go.
Continue reading
#555: Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave in The Mystery of the Silver Spider (1967) by Robert Arthur
Thus far in my reading of the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators books, the clear pattern of The Odd-Numbered Ones Are the Good Ones has emerged…so how did this, the eighth title, fare?
Continue reading
#542: One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure in The Mystery of the Fiery Eye (1967) by Robert Arthur
The human mind is obsessed with patterns, because by spotting them we make sense of nature; be it the golden ratio in the seed spirals in the head of a sunflower, fluid dynamics in the formation of sand dunes, or the growing box office returns of successive Fast & Furious movies, patterns are hard to resist.
Continue reading
#521: Spoiler Warning 10 – Tantei Gakuen Q/Detective School Q: ‘The Kamikakushi Village Murder Case’ (2003)
