Short stories
In GAD We Trust – Episode 1: Female Sleuths [w’ Kate @ CrossExaminingCrime]
You’re stuck at home, you’re bored, you could really do with a new, Golden Age Detection-focussed podcast to help pass the time, eh?
Continue reading
#650: Puzzles for Players – The Baffle Book (1930) by Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay [ed. F. Tennyson Jesse] Problems 8 to 14
As in life, this blog has a few untrimmed threads hanging — one of these days I really must return to The Knox Decalogue and The Criminous Alphabet — but for today it’s back to The Baffle Book (1930). The first seven problems in F. Tennyson Jesse’s edit of Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay’s famous puzzle series failed to excite my reason or my enthusiasm, so how does this second quarter of puzzles stand up?
Continue reading
#636: Justice It Was That Moved My Great Creator – It’s About Crime [ss] (1960) by MacKinlay Kantor
Marketing has a lot to answer for. In much the same way that Herbert Brean a couple of weeks ago found himself the centre of a tussle between competing crime fiction ideologies, and endless crime fiction authors these days end up with “as gripping as Agatha Christie” in their synopses, it’s fashion that determines how to lie to you when selling something.
Continue reading
#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?
Continue reading
#624: Bob’s Yer Uncle – Locked Room Murders Supplement (2019) ed. Brian Skupin
The reprinting of Robert Adey’s Locked Room Murders (2nd ed., 1991) at the end of 2018 was a delightful turn-up for those of us who had been dreaming of owning that reference bible. And once the excitement settled, I’m sure more than a few people started thinking “Hey, they should really do another one of these…”.
Continue reading
#613: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Man of the Crowd’ (1840), ‘Into the Maelstrom’ (1841), and ‘The Oblong Box’ (1844)
The accepted wisdom is that Edgar Allan Poe wrote five stories which formed the basis of the nascent detective fiction genre, and the plan for this month had originally been to look at one story each week. But that’s what you plan when you fail to account for the rigour and research of Christian, who blogs at Mysteries, Short and Sweet.
Continue reading
#610: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Gold Bug’ (1843) and ‘Thou Art the Man’ (1844)
It’s Christmas Eve, you’re keenly watching for snow and listening for reindeer hooves on your roof, and Christian and I are moving onto the lesser crime stories of Edgar Allan Poe — the weaklings which nevertheless still hold some sway where the development of detective fiction is concerned.
Continue reading
#607: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Purloined Letter’ (1844)
For this, the third week of examining the hugely influential crime stories of Edgar Allan Poe, we come to the last of the tales to feature his genius amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin.
Continue reading
#604: Little Fictions/Going Home – The Crime Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ (1842)
The Invisible Event 