#1479: Ghost of a Chance (1947) by Kelley Roos


One of the especially lovely things about having a blog is when someone discovers an old post and restarts a conversation from, like, eight years ago. It was a key reason I opted for blogging ahead of other online options, since everyone reads books at their own rate and should be able to discuss them when they’re ready (I, for instance, am months and years away from reading a book that you, dear reader, already absolutely love). So when a representative of Digital Parchment Services cropped up on an old post to let me know that reprints of the wonderfully witty Kelley Roos novels and novellas were in the works, well, I was delighted, to put it mildly.

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#1247: The Frightened Stiff (1942) by Kelley Roos

Frightened Stiff

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“I stood staring about the room, and the first disadvantage of living in a basement apartment occurred to me.  Jumping from a window would bring no release”. The much-missed Rue Morgue Press reprinted only four Jeff and Haila Troy novels from husband-and-wife team Kelley Roos. The Frightened Stiff (1942), the third, opens magnificently and wastes barely a word right up to THE END, so let me say this now: someone needs to reprint this series. Not a few selected titles as we’d likely get from the (excellent) American Mystery Classics range, but the whole kit and caboodle. Sure, some will be better than others, but I refuse to believe that they don’t deserve rediscovery.

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