#1425: “The only pleasure that never flags is that of the fight itself.” – The Eight Strokes of the Clock [ss] (1922) by Maurice Leblanc [trans. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos 1922]

I recently acquired a boxset of 8 Maurice Leblanc novels and short story collections featuring his gentleman bastard Arsène Lupin, and so before I dig into those I thought I should revisit the first Leblanc book I read, the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone collection The Eight Strokes of the Clock [ss] (1922).

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#1398: “It’s goin’ to take a bit o’ thinkin’ out…” – As If by Magic: Locked Room Mysteries and Other Miraculous Crimes [ss] (2025) ed. Martin Edwards

A second anthology of impossible crimes from the British Library Crime Classics range, As If by Magic [ss] (2025) is another genre-spanning collection from editor and Detection Club President Martin Edwards that does much to highlight the depth and breadth of classic crime and detective fiction.

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