I wasn’t going to post on Tuesdays in December, but then Moonstone Press committed to republishing the crime and detective fiction of James Ronald, of whom I have been quite the fan for a few years now. And then they were generous enough to send me a copy of the first volume of tales, and, frankly, try and stop me writing about it.
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Another year, another Bodies from the Library collection — incredibly, the sixth — and another opportunity to sit down with Tony Medawar and talk about the wonderful work he’s doing on all our behalfs.
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My slow cataloguing of the Sherlock Holmes short stories from the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle progresses to the second collection, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894).
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Situation vacant: creepy house with forbidden annexe seeks youthful governess to act naively with light menacing; 4 bed, six bath, plenty of free time in the afternoons.
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Bodies from the Library 6 (2023) represents another delightful foray into the neglected and forgotten stories from many of the luminaries of the Golden Age, as editor Tony Medawar puts his enviable genre awareness to wonderful use bringing yet more gems to public attention.
Continue readingFor Tuesdays in November we return to the Sherlock Holmes canon, as I continue my self-appointed task of revisiting all the stories featuring the character written by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.
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Astoundingly, Who Killed Father Christmas? (2023) is the fifth collection of seasonal mysteries collated by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics range. And, with the BL kind enough to provide me with a review copy, it seemed like the perfect excuse to start some Christmas reading a little earlier than planned.
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Seven stories featuring Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke, medical jurist extraordinaire and one of my very, very favourite detectives from the genre’s Golden Age.
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A big game hunter, an explorer, and a master sharpshooter attend a magic show while on a cruise…not the setup of a disappointing joke, but rather the core idea at the centre of ‘The Hand is Quicker than the Eye’, a.k.a. ‘Lester Leith, Magician’ (1939), the fifth and final story collected in The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith (1980).
Continue readingAnother tale of professional thief Lester Leith (hey, that rhymes…!), and another impossible crime. Who knew that Erle Stanley Gardner dabbled in the best subgenre in the world so frequently?
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The Invisible Event 