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#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.
Continue reading#1030: Little Fictions – ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#1027: Little Fictions – ‘The Red-Headed League’ (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#1024: Little Fictions – ‘A Case of Identity’ (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#1023: “The act of homicide always throws a man off balance.” – Bodies from the Library [ss] (2018) ed. Tony Medawar
The annual Bodies from the Library (2018-present) collections, in which Tony Medawar expertly selects long-forgotten and previously-unpublished stories and plays, have become essential purchases for anyone with even a passing interest in the great and the good of detective fiction’s Golden Age.
Continue reading#1021: Little Fictions – ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Today begins a long-range project in which I work through the 56 canonical short stories featuring Mr. Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle…some of which I haven’t read in over 20 years. I’m fascinated by Holmes, especially when he is as his creator made him, and, while I doubt I’ll have anything new to say, I intend to enjoy rereading him from first to last.
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