Crime, Supernatural and Adventure fiction. Obscure, Forgotten and Well Worth Reading.
THE STORY: Noel Ross, ex-police sergeant with Scotland Yard, has just ad an operation to remove shrapnel from his head. He and his wife take a vacation for him to recuperate. Ross is distracted and annoyed by his fellow guests at the White Cliffs Hotel on the South Coast of England. When Mr. Griggs, a supposedly amusing and witty man, is found unresponsive in his room the maid jumps to the…
There is nothing more upsetting than falling for the hype on a book jacket. The Swan Island Murders (1930) with its striking Art Deco influenced illustration of a silhouetted damsel being threatened by claw-like hands and the promise of "mystery, horror and detection" was enough to lure me in. While there is plenty of mystery and a smattering of rudimentary detection on display there is little…
Paolo Levin, concert pianist living in Rome, is being followed by an emaciated and crippled young man. He stands outside Paolo's apartment and watches the pianist. For weeks the young man shadows Paolo. He starts to show up dressed exactly like Paolo. After several failed attempts to get the stalker to explain himself the young man speaks: "I wish you would speak in English. I don't understand a…
THE STORY: Liz & Bob Macklin purchase an old home in Marshall, Massachusetts and begin an extensive rehab project transforming the gloomy, dark paneled, house into a bright, livable home. Liz is curious about the former owner, Seton Williams, who died in the house several years ago. Cancer she's told was the cause. A lonely old man dying alone, she thinks. But who was he? One day at the post…
This bookshop receipt was Left Inside a copy of The Wallet of Kai Lung that I purchased many moons ago from John Chandler's long-lived but sadly now defunct bookstore Bookman's Corner on Broadway and Wellington in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. I've mentioned this mess of a bookstore that I dearly loved visiting a couple of times on this blog. I bought both books listed on this receipt as…
THE STORY Elmer Bliss, reporter, is hired by a mysterious gentleman called Philander Summerfield to look into a recent Peter Somhers murder case that he believes was never solved. Bliss has been fascinated by the case because Somhers' nephew, Harrison Milbrath, was tried twice for the murder. In the first trial he was found guilty then he and his lawyer appealed due to an abundance of…
These bits of ephemera are rather remarkable for both being well over 100 years old. Both post card and newspaper story were Left Inside my extremely scarce copy of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Harper & Brothers, 1894. Revised 2nd edition). I have to brag a little about this book because my partner Joe found it at a book sale in Libertyville, Illinois many moons ago. I paid one buck for the…
The results of the Cecil M. Wills book giveaway are in. After a highly scientific method that I left to one of the many Random Number Generators on the internet a winner was selected at random by a machine. How fitting for our new age of omnipresent AI and robots. And now for the Lucky Stiff...uh, lucky winner -- Comment #5 assigned to jdf21 was selected. Congrats to jdf21 ! You are the winner of…
On rare occasions I find a letter still in its envelope inside a book. This one dated January 29, 1976 and mailed on Jan 30 of that year was Left Inside my rare copy of Call Mr. Fortune (Dutton, 1921) by H. C. Bailey. I uncovered a wealth of information about the letter's writer, her husband and the photographer who took the photo on the stationery. First, the photographer. Sally Savage has had…
A couple of years ago I bought a small pile of rare hardcover editions of Cecil M. Wills mystery novels. These included Author in Distress (his debut as a mystery writer), The Chamois Murder and Death Treads . I read all of them in quick succession, but only reviewed Author in Distress (1934) on the blog. Shortly after I posted that review I sent a PDF of the entire book to Gavin O'Keefe as a…
For those among you who were with me from the start of this blog back in 2011 you may recall I had a somewhat regular feature (at one time weekly) in which I share photos of objects, mostly paper ephemera, found in the old books I own. Well, this summer that feature has returned. Huzzah, hurrah and hallelujah! Each Sunday, for the next three or so months, I'll have some little tidbit to share with…
THE STORY: Matt Galt, Scottish ex-pat and private detective with a middling business, lives and works in Stratford primarily because he is an aficionado of the Bard. At the start of this novel he is hired by antiques dealer Timothy Barton to discover who has been sneaking rats into his shop. Galt spends the night in the shop, has a frightening encounter with the vandal and a small army of rats.…
Here we go again. Another puzzle laden "mystery" novel has arrived fresh from the pen of Uketsu and the English language translator Jim Rion. It's Strange Houses (2025, original Japanese edition 2021) and this time instead of a variety of unusual picture puzzles that are supposed to reveal the hidden motives of the criminally minded characters in its pages ( Strange Pictures ) we have an…
THE STORY: Sentence Deferred (1939) tells of how circumstantial evidence and coincidence can complicate a murder investigation. Two men, Beckit and Alford, claim to have shot a thoroughly disliked bank whose savings and loan institution failed taking with it most of the accounts. The victim was shot twice according to each shooter's confessions, once in the head, once in the chest. But only his…
There will always be Sherlock Holmes pastiches. It is the one type of mystery novel homage that seems to be pouring out of an eternal fountain. I tend to avoid them these days but The Final Problem (2026), from the pen of inventive Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte, has an intriguing originality in that this is not only a Holmes homage but also an intricately devised meta-fictional tribute to…
THE STORY: Malcolm Drake has returned from his WW2 Navy service a damaged man. He keeps dwelling on a young sailor whose death he feels he caused. While recuperating in his brother's home he has been amassing sleeping pills for what seems like a planned suicide. Then at an impromptu party he insists his teetotaling Aunt Evie join in drinking and she accepts a strongly prepared cocktail more on a…
Lonely war veteran Major Johnson while doing his best to be neighborly and social finds himself through utter chance implicated in the death of an 11 year-old girl he picked up as a hitchhiker. Two shoplifting delinquent teens apparently hit her with the Major's car that they stole and took for a joy ride. One of the teens dumps the girl's body in the trunk of his car and they leave it outside his…
When last I wrote of Jean Leslie's professor detective, Peter Ponsonby, several years ago ( One Cried Murder ) he was faced with the apparent suicide of a psychology professor that turned out to be nasty murder. He also met his soon-to-be wife Mara Mallory who became his Watson of sorts in two other novels, both of which I have now read. The second outing, Two Faced Murder (1946), with Peter &…
Misanthropic George Potterne is found shot in his back at his solitary retreat, a one room cottage known as The Lake House (1946) a five minute walk from his main house on the estate known as Melcote Priory. The weapon employed is an antique dueling pistol, one of two from a recently purchased set. The case with one pistol inside is found at the scene of the crime, while the other is missing.…
Reporters always seem to be the best crime fiction writers. Collin Brooks is one of better journalists turned detective novelists that I've encountered in my vast reading of the genre. His first "shocker" (as he preferred to call them) Mr. X was published in 1927. He joins the ranks of fellow Brits and former reports B.L. Farjeon and Edgar Wallace along with a slew of Americans like Lawrence…
THE STORY: William Yolland gets some news from a physician who has given him a mandatory exam for an insurance policy Yolland is hoping will help out his dire financial position. And it's not good news. The doctor informs William that he has a cardiac condition and may experience a fatal heart attack in a matter of months. William now finds it necessary to find alternative method to save his…
For the past two years I've seen an intriguing spike in modern writers trying their hand at a retro GAD-style locked room or impossible crime mystery novel. I've read quite a few of them and mostly they tend to be less than gripping in plot, populated with tiresome formulaic characters, and prosaic in their solutions. Tom Mead, of course, seems to be the heir to John Dickson Carr's fame in…
THE STORY: In this seventh Judge Peck detective novel August Derleth once again revisits his favorite plot motif - the family decimation murder scheme. Former pharmacy magnate Josiah Sloan, in the last stages of a terminal illness, has summoned his relatives all of whom will inherit even shares from his vast estate located outside of Baraboo, Wisconsin. The heirs are all eager for the man to drop…
THE STORY: Inspector Jack Grief and John Finnegan, a forensic chemist, join forces to solve two baffling poisoning murders that seem impossible. In the first case the detectives cannot figure out how the poison was administered in a time span of less than five minutes when no food or drink were in the room and the victim showed no signs of a hypodermic needle being used. In the second the victim…
I will always read anything published by Jess Kidd, one of the most imaginative Irish writers of the past 20 years. I first heard of her through the dozens of rave reviews for her unique genre blending debut Himself (2016), a mix of crime novel and ghost story. But the first book I read of hers was Mr Flood's Last Resort (2017) -- original UK title The Hoarder -- an unconventional mystery novel…