Self-Publishing
#672: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Murder by Magic (2017) by Paul Tomlinson
Typical, eh? You wait years for a blog to talk about magic, and then suddenly three posts come along at once: the most recent In GAD We Trust episode with John Norris, and two self-published impossible crime stories — one this week, and one next. Sure, that’s stretching the definition of “at once” to an Orwellian degree, but that’s how I apparently roll.
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#669: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Murder in a Watched Room (2019) by A.G. Barnett
My previous encounter with A.G. Barnett’s self-published impossible crime fiction was An Invitation to Murder (2019), which saw an interesting-if-cozy impossible battering in a locked room lose points for drawing attention to the one detail it then failed to explain. But, everyone gets two books, and so we’re back, this time with a different series and a stabbing in a locked and watched room.
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#666: Adventures in Self-Publishing – The Thirteenth Apostle (2020) + ‘The Episode of the Nine Monets’ (2020) by Jamie Probin
There’s a quote attributed to Michaelangelo essentially stating that a statue already exists inside a block of stone and it’s merely the sculptor’s job to chip away the stone that isn’t part of the resulting artwork. This came to mind a lot whilst reading The Thirteenth Apostle (2020) by Jamie Probin, because if you remove the excess of nervous repetition and tedious tone setting there’s probably a great book in here somewhere.
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#637: Adventures in Self-Publishing – A Eulogy for Reason (2019) by DWaM
With a lot of Agatha Christie fans — Puzzle Doctor included — throwing their hands up at yet another televisation taking excessive liberties with the source material, I’d like to make you all feel better with the following words: I am a Philip K. Dick fan.
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#634: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Death in Unlikely Places (2014) by John Reisinger
Here’s a poser to wrap your head around: how is it possible for a novel set in the 1920s Florida land rush and containing five murders — four of them impossible — to be so dull?
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#631: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Murder Brewed at Home (2015) by Belle Knudson
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the most unpleasant character in any murder mystery typically ends up dead. The cozier the mystery, the truer this adage becomes. And the more hobby-based the mystery is, the cozier it tends to be…so welcome to Murder Brewed at Home (2015).
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#628: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Murder Most Scottish (2018) by Blake Banner
Well, well, well, 200π posts — or 100τ if you’re a weirdo. Let’s celebrate with two locked room murders…
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#625: Adventures in Self-Publishing – The Matter of the Duct Tape Tuxedo [ss] (2019) by Steve Levi
A lot of impossible crime novels published these days have, let’s face it, about enough impossible crime content for a short story. So a short story collection seems like a sensible thing to try, right? Even one that does put ‘short stories’ on its cover and then call itself “a novel” on the back. Right?
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#624: Bob’s Yer Uncle – Locked Room Murders Supplement (2019) ed. Brian Skupin
