#516: Minor Felonies – The Clue of the Marked Claw (1950) by Bruce Campbell

April 23, 2019August 30, 2026 / JJ / 10 Comments

Man, things were simpler in the 1950s. Back then, the fourth book in a series of juvenile detective adventures could centre around lobster fishing and the series could still run for a further 14 titles. Kids those days, eh?

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#514: About the Murder of a Startled Lady (1935) by Anthony Abbot

April 18, 2019July 11, 2019 / JJ / 26 Comments

This is another title brought to my attention via the Roland Lacourbe-curated list of one hundred (well, 114) notable impossible crime novels. If I’m honest, I still don’t know what to make of that list — containing as it does some wonderful books that aren’t impossible crimes, some poor books that aren’t impossible crimes, and some thoroughly glorious impossible crimes that would otherwise have passed me by. This one is…fine. While the impossibility isn’t up to much, there’s enough interest in the approach taken to commend it if you can find a copy. Would I put it among the hundred best, however? Er, no…

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#513: Minor Felonies – The Case of the Missing Message (1959) by Charles Spain Verral

April 16, 2019April 15, 2019 / JJ / 8 Comments

The Three Investigators had Jupiter Jones, the Five Find-Outers had Fatty, and the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency had Barclay ‘Brains’ Benton. Welcome to the first of their six cases, from the same Whitman stable that brought us The Power Boys from a fortnight back.

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#511: The Stingaree Murders (1932) by W. Shepard Pleasants

April 11, 2019April 10, 2019 / JJ / 31 Comments

Thirteen people — a publisher and his two grown children, a newspaper editor, a retired General and his wife, a career politician and his bodyguard, a scientist, a lawyer, two servants, and our Everyman narrator — on a houseboat in the Louisiana bayou, intent on a few days of fishing, swimming, and relaxation. Though, naturally, the worries of everyday life never really vanish: a threat against the state Governor hangs over his head, as does his professional association with the scientist, which seems a little strained. With just enough time to get complacent, tragedy strikes, and then there were twelve. And then there were eleven…

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#509: Fair-Play/Cipher – The Baffle Book (1930) by Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay [ed. F. Tennyson Jesse] Problems 1 to 7

April 6, 2019March 20, 2021 / JJ / 11 Comments

You like puzzles, you like detective fiction, so you’d love a puzzle book about detective fiction. Lo, I give you The Baffle Book — originally running to at least three volumes from what I can ascertain, and here boasting two authors and an editor for reasons that will soon become clear.

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#507: Minor Felonies – The Mystery of the Haunted Skyscraper (1964) by Mel Lyle

April 2, 2019March 26, 2019 / JJ / 4 Comments

After March was filled with more social engagements than a debutante’s coming out Season, I’m back with a series that sounds like — though thankfully is not — some sort of Alt-Right recruitment pamphlet.

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#502: The Door Between (1937) by Ellery Queen

February 21, 2019February 14, 2019 / JJ / 51 Comments

Brad has threatened to drum me out of the GAD Club Members’ Bar for my lack of kow-towing to the work of Ellery Queen. In fairness, I really rather enjoyed Halfway House (1936), but here I am fighting for my rights. And I think he’s timed this deliberately, being well aware that The Door Between (1937) was up next for me, because Gordon’s beer is Eva MacClure, the heroine who finds herself at the centre of an impossible murder plot, one of the most frustrating perspective characters I’ve yet encountered. Goodness, she makes one positively ache for the company of Noel Wells from The Saltmarsh Murders (1932) by Gladys Mitchell.

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#497: Plus ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose dans L’onzieme Petit Negre (1977) de Jacquemard-Sénécal [trans. Gordon Latta 1979]

February 9, 2019February 8, 2019 / JJ / 18 Comments

For a book set against the backdrop of a play based on one of Agatha Christie’s most famous works, and featuring a detective the front flap tells us is “unparalleled even by Hercule Poirot”, there’s more than a passing whiff of Ngaio Marsh about this one.

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#491: Spoiler Warning 9 – Mr. Priestley’s Problem, a.k.a. The Amateur Crime (1927) by Anthony Berkeley [a.p.a. by A.B. Cox]

January 26, 2019March 21, 2020 / JJ / 2 Comments

Here we go again, with the usual warnings: this post discusses in spoiler-heavy detail elements of the plot of Mr. Priestley’s Problem, a.k.a. The Amateur Crime (1927) by Anthony Berkeley, also published under the name of A.B. Cox.

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#487: The Polferry Riddle, a.k.a. The Choice (1931) by Philip MacDonald

January 17, 2019January 16, 2019 / JJ / 17 Comments

For now, like, the fourth time in my experience — and the second involving a book by Philip MacDonald — the Roland Lacourbe-curated list of 100 excellent impossible crime novels has disgorged a title which is not in any way an impossible crime. I’m still fully capab- (hang on, carry the one…then minus…yup, you’re good) fully capable of enjoying a book which is sans-impossibility, but I find it weird that a list compiled by such eminent heads includes so many books that don’t qualify. The simplicity of MacDonald’s own narratives should be a giveaway anyway, since he’s really not about the complexities or misdirection, sticking more to a simpler, thriller-tinged path.

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