I think ‘The Speckled Band’ (1892) is perhaps the most fun Arthur Conan Doyle ever had writing about his most famous creation.
Continue reading#1066: Little Fictions – ‘The Speckled Band’ (1892) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Short stories
#1065: “Well, you know, I’m pretty hot on a murder puzzle…” – Buffet for Unwelcome Guests [ss] (1983) by Christianna Brand [ed. Francis M. Nevins, Jr. & Martin H. Greenberg]
Sixteen stories from Christianna Brand, who, thanks to the likes of the excellent Bodies from the Library (2018-present) series and the British Library Crime Classics range, has enjoyed something of a resurgence of late. So, how do these stack up?
Continue reading#1060: Little Fictions – ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sometimes revisiting the classics is a real chore, y’know? And sometimes, like today, it’s a complete delight.
Continue reading#1057: Little Fictions – ‘The Five Orange Pips’ (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Tuesdays in May will see us recommence charting the complete short stories of Mr. Sherlock Holmes as written by his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Continue reading#1054: Murder in the Mews, a.k.a. Dead Man’s Mirror [ss] (1937) by Agatha Christie – ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, a.k.a. ‘Before It’s Too Late’ (1936)
#1051: Murder in the Mews, a.k.a. Dead Man’s Mirror [ss] (1937) by Agatha Christie – ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, a.k.a. ‘Hercule Poirot and the Broken Mirror’ (1937)
#1048: Murder in the Mews, a.k.a. Dead Man’s Mirror [ss] (1937) by Agatha Christie – ‘The Incredible Theft’ (1937)
Another week, another reworked tale from Dame Agatha Christie, and another borderline impossibility.
Continue reading#1045: Murder in the Mews, a.k.a. Dead Man’s Mirror [ss] (1937) by Agatha Christie – ‘Murder in the Mews’ (1936)
One of the many lovely things about having read the overwhelming majority of Agatha Christie’s criminous novels and short stories before starting this blog is that they’re largely available for rereads, and so with my intended focus for Tuesdays in April proving unreadable I’m able to reach for the four novellas that make up the collection Murder in the Mews (1937).
Continue reading#1035: “Our guest has a problem and I direct him to favour us with it.” – Tales of the Black Widowers [ss] (1974) by Isaac Asimov
“Twelve mystery masterpieces by the maestro” promises the back cover of Tales of the Black Widowers (1974), the first collection featuring Isaac Asimov’s puzzle-solving dining club, and given that Asimov says in the introduction that his “detective ideal is Hercule Poirot and his little gray cells” it seems like it might not be an empty promise…
Continue reading#1032: “It is possible to simulate death, as I can demonstrate to interested parties…” – Adventures of a Professional Corpse [ss] (1941) by H. Bedford-Jones
Henry Bedford-Jones wrote several hundred pulp stories under at least a dozen noms de plume, but this is my first encounter with his work…and a most intriguing encounter it turned out to be, with these four stories about dead-man-for-hire James F. Bronson.
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The Invisible Event 