OOP
#365: Minor Felonies – Welcome to Danger, a.k.a. Danger Unlimited (1949) by Christianna Brand
Every so often someone will email me to let me know of books that may pique my interest: Kate at CrossExaminingCrime has brought several Freeman Wills Croftses to my attention, and Ben of The Green Capsule has also informed me of some bargains, including today’s title that, it’s fair to say, we’re still not sure who was most excited to discover existed.
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#364: An Egyptian Chinese Puzzle in The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965) by Robert Arthur
So, here I am in the throes of a month of Tuesdays posts looking at GAD-era YA novels and — boom! — here’s a YA novel on a Saturday?! What on earth…?
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#362: Minor Felonies – The Clue of the Phantom Car (1953) by Bruce Campbell
An orphaned young man who lives with his red-haired best friend’s family, all the while having adventures…yeah, okay, no, the Harry Potter similarities stop (and indeed, don’t even start — he’s not an orphan, his father’s just away a lot) there. But it’s interesting to reflect, as these YAGAD novels are making me do, on the format that adventures for younger readers take and how little the classic tropes have needed to change in the intervening decades.
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#361: False Economies – On the Buying of Second-Hand Books (Definitely Not a Rant…)
A recent post by Noah on the topic of book-scouting came hard upon the back of an experience of mine that really brought home the frequent futility of buying second-hand books. And, since the timing was rather too apt to ignore, I thought I’d share my frustrations. But I’m not ranting; be sure to note at the simplicity of the ensuing vocabulary, indicative as it is of me in a reflective (rather than bad) mood.
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#357: Dead Man Control (1936) by Helen Reilly
We are 30 pages into Dead Man Control (1936) when the case is sealed up beyond any doubt: a millionaire shot dead in his study, the door locked and bolted on the inside, his new, much younger wife unconscious on the floor (her fingerprints on the gun, too), no hiding places, and freshly fallen snow on all the window-ledges to preclude the clandestine exit of anyone else who could have been present. Clearly the wife dunnit, and everyone can go home early today. So therefore Inspector Christopher McKee has to be summoned back to New York from his holiday in England because…er, it looks too easy? And as he investigates, secrets there was no reason to suspect begin to spill out…
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#356: Minor Felonies – Young Robin Brand, Detective (1947) by Freeman Wills Crofts
Image via Facsimile Dust Jackets
The thirty-first novel Freeman Wills Crofts published in his career was this novel for younger readers. Let that sink in a moment. Captain Dryasdust encroaching on Enid Blyton’s territory seems about as likely as Blyton herself trying her hand at Raymond Chandler’s metaphor-laden hard-edged novels of moral decay…the difference being that Crofts actually tried it.
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#355: Change a Letter, Alter the Plot
If you’ve been paying attention, especially to my comments left both here and elsewhere, you’ll be aware that my typing is rather famously variable. 90% of the time I’m good, but that other 10% — man, some errors there are. Writing something recently, I made reference to the novel Five Little Pugs by Agatha Christie and then — catching myself in time to correct it — I had a thought…
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#350: The Men Who Explain Miracles – Episode 4.2: The Edward D. Hoch ‘Best Impossible Crime Novels’ List of 1981 (Books 10 to 6)
Continuing our examination of the 15 best impossible crime novels of all time as compèred by Edward D. Hoch in 1981, here is the second of three episodes looking at the titles in question from Dan and myself in our occasional podcast The Men Who Explain Miracles.
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#348: Golden Age Detection 101 – The Setting
The Invisible Event 