#1371: The Sealed Room Murder (1934) by James Ronald [a.p.a. by Michael Crombie]


It’s fairly incredible to me that I have a copy of The Sealed Room Murder (1934), originally published by James Ronald under his Michael Crombie nom de plume, at all. Only the recent efforts of Chris Verner and Moonstone Press to bring Ronald’s criminous oeuvre back into print for sensible money have made this and others available to fans like me without endless connections and deep pockets, and I remain extremely grateful for their undertaking. The book, then, delivers largely what one has been able to come to expect from Ronald’s earlier, pulp-adjacent writing, with much thrill and little substance: fun, but not worth the sorts of money previously requested online.

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#1317: Murder for Cash, a.k.a. The Fatal .45 (1938) by James Ronald


Crazy to think that even a couple of years ago the works of James Ronald were so wildly unavailable that it seemed we’d never know exactly what, of the fair amount he wrote, was crime fiction and what came from other, equally profitable, genres. Then Chris Verner and Moonstone Press entered the arena, and Ronald’s criminous oeuvre has become readily available for sensible money. And so Murder for Cash, a.k.a The Fatal .45 (1938), a pulpy tale that comes nowhere near the level of Ronald’s best work — Murder in the Family (1936), They Can’t Hang Me (1938) — but nevertheless warrants examination by anyone curious about what this all-but-forgotten author has done to garner such attention in the modern day.

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#1237: Death Croons the Blues (1934) by James Ronald

Death Croons the Blues

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The recent publication of the tenth and eleventh volumes of James Ronald’s stories of crime and detection by Moonstone Press turned my mind back to the opportunity to read one of his novels that would have been out of my means due to financial or acquisitional circumstances prior to 2024.  And so Death Croons the Blues (1934), a second outing for newspaperman Julian Mendoza, into whose boarding house an inept sneak thief stumbles having just discovered a dead woman in the flat they were burgling nearby. When the victim turns out to be nightclub chanteuse Adele Valée, Mendoza’s journalistic tendencies kick into overdrive as he attempts to find the killer.

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#1215: The Dark Angel (1930) by James Ronald

Dark Angel

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There were, I think, few people more excited than me when it was announced that Moonstone Press would be republishing the complete mystery fiction of James Ronald. I’ve been adding to my existing posts with quick reviews of the novellas and short stories included in earlier volumes, but fifth volume The Dark Angel (1930) marks the first time that I’m reading a new-to-me James Ronald novel, one that I would in all probability have had no opportunity to experience but for the excellent collaboration of Moonstone and Chris Verner. And a selfless old lady receiving a demand to pay £5,000 (£400,000 in today’s money) is exactly the sort of pulpy setup Ronald could doubtless spin to entertaining ends.

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In GAD We Trust – Episode 32: The Revival of James Ronald [w’ Chris Verner]

Five and a half years ago I tracked down and read an obscure novelette by long-forgotten British pulp writer James Ronald, which set me on the trail of his far-from-readily-available other works. This week, Moonstone Press published the first two in a series of reprints that will see Ronald’s entire criminous catalogue made available, and series editor Chris Verner is here to tell us all about it.

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#1148: Little Fictions – The Dr. Britling Stories: ‘The Green Ghost Murder’ (1931) by James Ronald

I wasn’t going to post on Tuesdays in December, but then Moonstone Press committed to republishing the crime and detective fiction of James Ronald, of whom I have been quite the fan for a few years now. And then they were generous enough to send me a copy of the first volume of tales, and, frankly, try and stop me writing about it.

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