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The Stranger’s Companion (2024) by Mary Horlock
I won a copy of this book on “X” (a.k.a. Twitter) from Baskerville books who published it. It also came with a very nice bar of white chocolate, which certainly didn’t last very long! I would...
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Bodies from the Library 2024: A Report
Yesterday was the 9th year the Bodies from the Library conference has ran and it is an absolute must for golden age detective fiction fans. It has a friendly atmosphere, knowledgeable speakers, and a...
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Bloodshed in Bayswater (1935) by John Rowland
It has been just over 8 years since I have read anything by John Rowland. Back in 2016 I reviewed Calamity in Kent (1950) and Murder in the Museum (1938), which had been reprinted in the British...
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Midsummer Murder (1956) by Cecil M. Wills
I hope I am not the only one who initially confused this book with the Clifford Witting novel of the same name (which Galileo Publishing have also re-published). The author’s full name was Maitland...
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Death Under Snowdon (1954) by Glyn Carr
Like John Rowland, who I reviewed a title from earlier this week, Glyn Carr (real name Frank Showell Styles) is another author I have not read anything by for the best part of a decade. The only other...
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Mr Monk is Cleaned Out (2010) by Lee Goldberg
I had another train journey last week, so that meant another new-to-me Adrian Monk mystery to read. If you know anything about Monk as a character, then you’ll appreciate the title with its double...
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Book of the Month: May 2024
Whilst numbers don’t matter when it comes to reading, it is pleasing when you manage a good reading total for a month – particularly when you’ve got one eye on your TBR pile, and you have fond hopes...
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A Lurking Primrose (2024) by Suzette A. Hill
After reading a couple of non-mystery stories at the start of June, which did not turn out as well as I had hoped, I decided to return to a series I was fond of. On the 2nd of July, A Lurking...
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One O’ Clock at the Gotham (1974) by Rae Foley
It has been a couple of years since I have read anything by this author. To date I have reviewed Wake the Sleeping Wolf (1952) and Nightmare Honeymoon (1963), and today’s title unintentionally moves...
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The Maze (1932) by Philip Macdonald
The Maze is my book group read for June and Brad, a fellow book group member, has already posted his thoughts on his blog Ah Sweet Mystery. Whilst writing up this review, I decided to count how many...
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The Voice of the Corpse (1948) by Max Murray
I didn’t realise until I started writing this review that The Voice of the Corpse is Murray’s first crime novel. Like my recent read, Midsummer Murder (1956) by Cecil M. Wills, this is also a poison...
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Helle & Death (2024) by Oskar Jensen
Today’s mystery is set a little closer to home in Northumberland, although the characters rapidly become snow-bound at a country abode, so the similarities did stop there, as when I was reading the...
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Mr Monk on the Road (2011) by Lee Goldberg
Regular readers of the blog will know that I have been dipping into the Adrian Monk mysteries a lot this year. I’ve mostly been working through them chronologically, so I was intrigued when I arrived...
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Book of the Month: June 2024
June was not my best reading month. For quantity or quality. I guess I gambled a bit by reading some books outside of the crime fiction genre. Sadly, these were frustratingly disappointing. Moreover,...
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Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries (2022) ed. by Otto Penzler
It has been a while since I read this collection, but for various reasons I wasn’t able to put up a review nearer the time. So, this review is going to be a test of how good my notes are… Story No. 1:...
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The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine (2021) by P. J. Fitzsimmons
Before today’s read, I had already read two books by this author: The Case of the Canterfell Codicil (2020) and The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (2021) and this review is for the third book...
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Mr Monk on the Couch (2011) by Lee Goldberg
At the start of July this was one of the books that I chose to reboot my reading mojo, as by the end of June I was finding it hard to concentrate. The blurb interested me as it indicates that Natalia...
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A Wreath for the Bride (1960;1966) by Maria Lang (Trans. Joan Tate)
‘From that astounding moment the mystery was a fact. The mystery which was to perplex and agitate Skoga more than anything else in its hundreds of years of history, the mystery which was to end with...
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Come, Thick Night (1951) by Margot Neville
Come, Thick Night is a non-series title by the Australian crime writing sister duo Margot Goyder and Anne Neville Goyder Joske, who wrote under the penname of Margot Neville. They wrote 21 mystery...
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Black Orchids (1942) by Rex Stout
All my previous reading by this author, nine books in total, seems to have occurred between 2015 and 2017. There were no utter duds, but there were no stellar reads either. In some ways the books...
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