Another week, another brace of stories from Mystery and More Mystery (1966) by Robert Arthur.
Continue reading#799: Minor Felonies/Little Fictions – ‘The Glass Bridge’ (1957) and ‘Change of Address’ (1951) by Robert Arthur
Short stories
#796: Minor Felonies/Little Fictions – ‘The Midnight Visitor’ (1939) and ‘The Blow from Heaven’, a.k.a. ‘The Devil Knife’ (1936) by Robert Arthur
This week, as we dive into two more stories by Robert Arthur from Mystery and More Mystery (1966), I meet the two earliest works of his I’ve yet encountered.
Continue reading#793: Minor Felonies/Little Fictions – ‘Mr. Manning’s Money Tree’ (1958) and ‘Larceny and Old Lace’ (1960) by Robert Arthur
It would be difficult to overstate the respect I have for the work done by Robert Arthur in the mystery genre. From creating The Three Investigators to turning out highly enjoyable fair-play mysteries for younger (and older) readers, the man displayed a brilliant creativity and a talent for diversity that makes every encounter with him a joy.
Continue reading#787: “My methods of defence are based on demonstration rather than rhetoric…” – The Magic Casket [ss] (1927) by R. Austin Freeman
At 1.30pm UK time today, the Bodies from the Library Conference starts online for the delectation of classic detection fans the world over. As my talk is due to be about detection, I thought I’d turn that into a flimsy excuse to write about one of my favourite discoveries of recent years: Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke.
Continue reading#777: Circumstantial Evidence – The Baffle Book (1930) by Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay [ed. F. Tennyson Jesse] Problems 22 to 28
I struggle to think of the last thing I read that disappointed me as much as F. Tennyson Jesse’s 1930 edit of Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay’s Baffle Book puzzles. From stories where subtle changes in detail make finding the solution impossible (‘The Warfield-Cobham Jewel Robbery’) to those whose insistence of physical evidence is so ignorant as to defy explanation (‘The Wayside Mystery’) it’s been a…not good time.
Continue reading#766: Little Fictions – Darkness at Dawn [ss] (1988) by Cornell Woolrich
Don’t be put off by the publication date — we’re deep in the Golden Age here, with the twelve stories in this collection originally published in 1934 and 1935. And, oh my, what a collection it is.
Continue reading#763: Little Fictions – Death and the Professor [ss] (1961) by E. & M.A. Radford
A surgeon, a policeman, a psychiatrist, a mathematician, and a pathologist walk into a club — the foundation not of some esoteric wit but instead the Dilettante’s Club, a dinner-and-discussion group who meet fortnightly for their own entertainment. And when Professor Marcus Stubbs joins their number, those discussions take a frequent turn into the realm of the impossible crime.
Continue readingIn GAD We Trust – Episode 18: The ‘No Footprints’ Impossible Crime [w’ Tom Mead]
For a blog set up with the implicit aim to explore the impossible crime in fiction, it has to be said that impossibilities have been rather thin on the ground at The Invisible Event of late. Here, then, is a podcast episode committed to the impossible crime (or one-tenth of it, at least) with author Tom Mead.
Continue reading#760: Little Fictions – The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder, a.k.a. The Murder Book of J.G. Reeder [ss] (1925) by Edgar Wallace
This week, eight stories featuring the unprepossessing Mr. John G. Reeder from the restlessly creative mind of Edgar Wallace.
Continue reading#757: Little Fictions – The Nine Mile Walk and Other Stories [ss] (1968) by Harry Kemelman
A little while back, I decided that short story collections don’t really merit an overall star rating since the stories should be considered individually. Thus, I stopped reviewing them on Thursdays and moved them to weekends. The upshot of this is that I now have a lot of unreviewed short story collections, so I’m going to pick out four single-author bundles to look at on Tuesdays in February. And first up is this collection recommended to me by Christian of Mysteries, Short and Sweet.
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