As a fan of the impossible crime novel You’ll Die Laughing (1945) by Bruce Elliott, I was delighted when I accidentally discovered that Stark House Press had put out a collection of Elliott’s short fiction, Do You Know Me? & Other Aberrations (2025). I was aware that You’ll Die Laughing is atypical of his output, … Continue reading #1492: “You got trouble, haven’t you, honey?” – Do You Know Me? &…
All I really knew about To Catch a Thief (1943), published by Craig Rice under the nom de plume Daphne Sanders, was that it represented something of a change from the work she’d done to that point in her career. And having read most of the work she’d done to that point in her career … Continue reading #1491: To Catch a Thief (1943) by Craig Rice [a.p.a. by Daphne Sanders]
Having thoroughly enjoyed some of the entries Dennis Lynds wrote as William Arden in the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, I was surprised and curious when I discovered that he had written an impossible crime story listed in Adey, ‘The Bizarre Case Expert’ (1970). Rigour isn’t always Arden’s jam, so how did he … Continue reading #1490: Little Fictions – Curiosities from Adey:…
Back in 2020, as part of my occasional Adventures in Self-Publishing undertaking, I read two stories by Jamie Probin — the novel The Thirteenth Apostle (2020) and the much shorter ‘The Adventure of the Nine Monets’ (2020) — and followed this up a few years later with two of Probin’s further short stories, ‘The Heir … Continue reading #1489: Following in the Footsteps of Giants – ‘Chapter 17:…
When Adelaide Barnett is found strangled to death in her fourth-floor flat in Monmouth Mansions, Platt Street — that’s a clue to the sort of time you’re in for here — author and amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham, trying to take Inspector Moresby out to lunch, is invited along to the scene of the crime. “I … Continue reading #1488: Top Storey Murder (1931) by Anthony Berkeley
Twenty-Twenty-Six has been a big year for me finally tracking down long-sought stories of murder. First there was Into Thin Air (1928) by Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk, then The Tube (1958) by Boileau-Narcejac, and now I’ve finally run a copy of ‘Death Buys a Ticket’, a.k.a. ‘Nine Hours Late on the Opening Run’ (1941) … Continue reading #1487: Little Fictions – Curiosities from Adey: ‘Death…
Never Trust a Partner [ss] (2021), another collection from Crippen & Landru, is composed of two complete series by Robert Edward Eckels: 12 stories revolving around art forgery with Lang and Lovell, and five tales of “the world’s greatest adjutant”, Major Henry T. McDonlevy (ret’d). Editor Brian Skupin — yes, that Brian Skupin — is … Continue reading #1486: “The really essential thing would be to…
Newly-married and living in England, young American Sally Bowen receives a letter from a friend in the U.S. expressing concern for surprising recent developments: “It must be dreadful to be so far away from home and have your aunt confess that she poisoned her husband“. The only problem is, the letter fails to mention which … Continue reading #1485: The Seven Deadly Sisters (1947) by Patricia…
Fourteen alternative takes on the Great Detective — editor Sebastian Wolfe is unable to distinguish “parodies, pastiches and burlesques” from each other — fill out The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes [ss] (1989). No, not the Ellery Queen one. This is different. Wolfe’s stated intention is to draw on “less familiar” takes on Holmes, and I … Continue reading #1484: No Police Like Holmes – The…
As Northern Hemisphere summers get increasingly sweltering — I wrote this post during the heatwave that the U.K. underwent in late June 2026 — let’s enjoy 18 tales of people murdering, cheating, lying to, and generally mistreating each other, selected for our enjoyment once more by the fabulously knowledgeable Martin Edwards. Of course, Hercule Poirot … Continue reading #1483: “You’ve got a bee in…
When the mayor of Oldhaven apparently leaves the local pier one evening without gathering in his fishing paraphernalia, initially it seems like he may have just been forgetful: his daughter was due to give birth, after all, so he had other things on his mind. Then his body is discovered the following day “sprawl[ed] hideously … Continue reading #1482: Death of Cold (1956) by Leo Bruce
I thoroughly enjoyed the very readable set of stories collected in Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot [ss] (2018), which gave a variety of almost crossover mystery interpretations to the Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson pastiche. So I’m back for the original volume in this brace to see what other twists have been put on that … Continue reading #1481: No Police Like Holmes – Baker Street…
The private eye of fiction is positively assailed on all sides by the classic Simple Case That Turns Out to Lead to Something Much Bigger. So I guess it’s not surprising that the Three Investigators aren’t immune. The Mystery of the Dancing Devil (1976) is the 25th entry in the series and the seventh to … Continue reading #1480: And They Would’ve Gotten Away with It, Too… in The Mystery of the…
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 … Continue reading #1479: Ghost of a Chance (1947) by Kelley Roos
Hand on heart, I honestly believed I had read The Infernal Device (1978), the first of five books about Professor James Moriarty written by Michael Kurland, before now. Hell, I have talked about this book at length with various people, recommending it to them in very strong terms. So to pick it up and discover … Continue reading #1478: No Police Like Holmes – The Infernal Device (1978) by Michael…
I’ve read, in my general perusal of the crime and mystery genre, some of the Union Club mysteries by Isaac Asimov, but this collection of 30 of them was a chance to diver deeper into the canon, and so I snapped it up. Originally written for Gallery magazine — as Asimov explains in the Foreword, … Continue reading #1477: “You may all be admiring my powerful mind, but none of you will ever have one…
J.J. Connington would, from time to time, fancy a bit of a break from his usual sleuth, Sir Clinton Driffield, and the outcome of these meanderings leave something to be desired. The bland Supt. Ross got a brace of novels to himself — the awful The Eye in the Museum (1929) and The Two Tickets … Continue reading #1476: The Counsellor (1939) by J.J. Connington
A collection of 11 non-canonical takes on Sherlock Holmes by eleven different authors, The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [ss] (1985) has lingered long on my shelf, and its day in the sun is finally here. This was, I believe, my very first exposure to the idea of a Holmes pastiche, since my copy, pictured … Continue reading #1475: No Police Like Holmes – The Further Adventures of Sherlock…
Three weeks ago I finally caught up with ‘The Dashing Joker’ (2001) by Ashibe Taku in an old Ellery Queen Mystery magazine. This week, I finally run ‘Sacrifice in White’ (2012) by Qinwen Sun to earth in another, more recent EQMM, the January/February 2024 issue. Rather than allowing you to find your feet in a … Continue reading #1474: Walking in a Winter Wonderland – ‘Sacrifice in White’ (2012) by…
I first read The Kennel Murder Case (1933), the sixth book by S.S. van Dine to feature the love-him-or-hate-him amateur sleuth Philo Vance, when in the initial thralls of having discovered the impossible crime. I tore through it, remember little of the impression it left on me, and doubtless threw it aside for the next … Continue reading #1473: The Kennel Murder Case (1933) by S.S. van Dine
Well, the penultimate Lord Darcy story was fucking awful, so the final one has to end things on a more positive note, right? Right? When you get to the end, I suppose it sets one thinking about the beginning, and so it seems for Garrett as we enter… ‘The Spell of War’ (1979) In contrast … Continue reading #1472: Little Fictions – ‘The Spell of War’ (1979) by Randall Garrett
Firstly, no: I have no idea what the cover of this 1973 pocket edition of The Case of the Counterfeit Eye (1934) by Erle Stanley Gardner is about. This sixth novel to feature the sharp-brained lawyer Perry Mason does involve a shooting, but never anything close to the scene depicted on the front. Mind you, … Continue reading #1471: “You have the reputation for being a very clever and adroit…
The metafictional world inhabited by Anthony Horowitz in this series, where he plays Watson to the mysterious, ingenious ex-DI Daniel Hawthorne, kicks up a notch in sixth title A Deadly Episode (2026). A film is being made of the first book, The Word is Murder (2017), and early on Horowitz reflects on its being set … Continue reading #1470: A Deadly Episode (2026) by Anthony Horowitz
With an uptick in quality in the previous two Lord Darcy short stories, I was very much looking forward to the penultimate one — also the longest, by a significant amount — continuing this trend. And, wow, was I mistaken. If you think Freeman Wills Crofts writes boring train-centric stores, then brother stay the hell … Continue reading #1469: Little Fictions – ‘The Napoli Express’ (1979) by…
The idea of a collection of Golden Age short stories based around a theme of animals seemed like an unusual one, until I remembered that one of the genre’s foundational short stories and one of its most famous novels both have animals in fairly central roles. So that’s all right, then. Assembled once again by … Continue reading #1468: “The big idea is murder…” – Guilty Creatures: A Menagerie of…
“There were moments when the police felt like giving up their attempt to find among the scores who hated or feared Emily Purvice the one who had killed her”. That sums up At Death’s Door (1955), the first novel to feature crime-solving History teacher Carolus Deene by Leo Bruce, pretty well: Mrs. Purvice has her … Continue reading #1467: At Death’s Door (1955) by Leo Bruce
And so, a new-to-me story from Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy oeuvre, since I definitely didn’t read these last three in this collection at first encounter (no, I’m not sure why). When is a locked room mystery not a locked room mystery? I present you… ‘The Sixteen Keys’ (1976) On his estate in the French countryside, … Continue reading #1466: Little Fictions – ‘The Sixteen Keys’ (1976) by Randall…
Certain so-called friends of mine have made a point of telling me that back issues of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine are available at their local library. My library, while cool, is not quite that cool, and so it’s taken me a while to track down some stories published therein, including this one from the September/October … Continue reading #1465: Send in the Clowns – ‘The Dashing Joker’ (2001) by…
Clearly on the run, Bill ‘Scotty’ Scott and Eve Roman find themselves in Havana, and are set about living as full a life as they can when the past catches up with them and Scotty finds himself accused of murder. With the police apparently willing to believe his protestations of innocence — at first, at … Continue reading #1464: The Black Path of Fear (1944) by Cornell Woolrich
Upon first encounter, some 15 years ago, I left four of Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories unread for reasons which now elude me; and those reasons seem even more elusive when you realise that the last one I did read was possibly the strongest of the lot. A dead body on the beach, no footprints … Continue reading #1463: Little Fictions – ‘The Ipswich Phial’ (1976) by Randall Garrett
2026 is becoming the year in which I finally capture some white whales, having read the astonishingly elusive Into Thin Air (1928) by Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk and now the equally scarce The Tube (1958) by French maestros Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Returning from their lunch break to the largely-deserted scientific research centre … Continue reading #1462: “We’ve got plenty of…
Prior to reading For the Defence: Dr. Thorndyke (1934), the sixteenth novel featuring R. Austin Freeman’s eponymous esteemed medical jurist, the honour of Most Ridiculous Opening to a Book I’ve Read belonged to thriller The Day After Tomorrow (1994) by Allan Folsom. To Folsom’s credit, that book is pretty insane the whole way through, and … Continue reading #1461: For the Defence: Dr. Thorndyke…
Five Tuesdays in June means that I have sufficient time and space to read and write about the five remaining Lord Darcy short stories by Randall Garrett which, given that I reviewed the novel Too Many Magicians (1967) back in January, means the full canon will then be covered on The Invisible Event. Raise a … Continue reading #1460: Little Fictions – ‘The Bitter End’ (1978) by Randall Garrett
Either one of the greatest innovations in the genre’s history or one of it’s most misguided attempts at latching onto a passing phase, you can bet that I snapped up a copy of this murder mystery containing what my youthful 1990s self knew as magic eye pictures — more formally called stereograms or autostereograms — … Continue reading #1459: “What we’ve got is mighty interesting.” – Death at Sea: A…
Given that A.A. Fair was a nom de plume adopted by Erle Stanley Gardner, a trained lawyer who would write over 80 legal thrillers featuring Perry Mason, it was inevitable that the Cool and lam books Fair wrote would veer into legalistic territory at times. The first in the series, The Bigger They Come (1939), … Continue reading #1458: Beware the Curves (1956) by A.A. Fair
I find my books by various means, but this might be the first time I’ve taken advice from YouTube: this video recommending 15 Criminally Underrated Mystery Books was shared in the Facebook GAD group, and mentioned The World’s Greatest Detective (2017) by Caroline Carlson, with the promise of some impossible crimes amidst the youthful crime-solving…how … Continue reading #1457: Minor Felonies – The…
I thought I would have done a few more episodes of my increasingly-occasional podcast In GAD We Trust by now, but a couple fell through and I didn’t want to rush out something to replace them that didn’t have my heart in it. Instead, to ward off the dark nights, let’s cast our minds back … Continue reading #1456: “Perhaps They Did Not Hear,” I Said – My Ten Favourite In GAD We Trust Episodes
The twenty-fifth long form case for Inspector Joseph French, Enemy Unseen (1945) does not cover its detective or its author Freeman Wills Crofts in glory. While, given the era in which it was written and published, there’s an understandable desire to provide a positive impression of the work of the Home Guard, and for the … Continue reading #1455: Enemy Unseen (1945) by Freeman Wills Crofts
Post-2001, doesn’t a title like Attack on the Tower of London (2004), with the associated implications of terrorism, sound a little beyond the calling of a juvenile ice hockey team? Suffice to say, this, the nineteenth entry in the Screech Owls series by Roy MacGregor, is my final foray into the series, and it has … Continue reading #1454: Minor Felonies – Attack on the Tower of London (2004) by…
Featuring fifteen felonious fables from phrontistery factions, Lessons in Crime [ss] (2024) is another collection in the British Library Crime Classics range edited by the acme of appreciation of this era, Martin Edwards. Edwards’ introduction is commendably broad-ranging, looking to explore the academic mystery through the Golden Age and beyond, calling on his no-doubt-enviable book … Continue…
“Milly may have been mean and sanctimonious but she was my sister. To club her to death on her way to church was quite damnable.” So speaks Mrs. Bobbin, the elderly widow who has approached History master Carolus Deene to investigate the murder of her elder sister, Millicent Griggs having been found beaten over the … Continue reading #1452: Furious Old Women (1960) by Leo Bruce
In a pure coincidence of timing, I read the first of Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes novels, Death Cloud (2010), at about the time a series based on the books was announced by Amazon. The trailer, however, seemed to share ‘teenage Sherlock Holmes’ with the books — “teenage” in Hollywood meaning “played by someone who’s … Continue reading #1451: Minor Felonies – Young Sherlock: Red Leech,…
Earlier this year, I stumbled over The Beanstalk Murder (2024) by P.G Bell, a superb crossover mystery which imports the tenets of a well-clued mystery into the world of Jack and the Beanstalk. Bell’s second novel along this line, The Big Bad Wolf Murder (2025), followed in due course, and a few weeks ago he … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 37: Universe Building with a Light Touch via…
Seven university friends go in search of a mysterious underground facility in the hills and, arriving late in the evening, encounter a family of three who have become lost walking in the same isolated region. The ten of them see no choice but to stay underground until morning, only for an earthquake to trap everyone … Continue reading #1449: The Ark (2022) by Haruo Yuki [trans. Jim Rion 2026]
P.G. Bell’s first Fairy Tale Murder Mystery, The Beanstalk Murder (2024), was so damn entertaining and so well-plotted that you bet I was going to jump on the follow-up, The Big Bad Wolf Murder (2025), as soon as I could. Indeed, as a glimpse behind the blogging curtain: I read this second book before the … Continue reading #1448: Minor Felonies – The Big Bad Wolf Murder (2025) by P.G. Bell
When I first started looking into the work of Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace beyond The Four Just Men (1905) I was a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. This is a man who, we’re told, wrote over 170 books, so where does one begin to explore such a corpus? Jump forward six years and I’ve read … Continue reading #1447: “This is like doing things in books, and I hate the way they do things in…
Having recently looked at the debut from one legend in the annals of mystery fiction, let’s turn our attention to another: Death in High Heels (1941), the first novel from Christianna Brand, recently republished in the excellent British Library Crime Classics Range, so that, incredibly, fully seven of her novels are now readily available. And, once … Continue reading #1446: Death in High Heels…
One final visit for this month to the reading of my past, as I revisit the crime and thriller novels which paved the way into the Golden Age obsession that fills my every waking moment. The hand is quicker than the eye, but how does that work on the page? It’s… The Vanished Man (2003) … Continue reading #1445: Going Home – The Vanished Man (2003) by Jeffery Deaver
There are certain characters that it seems impossible were once not a part of popular culture: Superman, say, or James Bond, or Miss Marple. With a mystery bias to my reading, it seems incredible that most of Queen Victoria’s reign passed sans Sherlock Holmes, and, with over 80 books and countless hours of television devoted … Continue reading #1444: “I take people who are in trouble, and I try to…
It’s often the case that a line can be drawn in an author’s body of work, past which they notably change, usually for the better: John Dickson Carr after Poison in Jest (1932), say. It is, however, rare that such a line passes through one of their works, as it does for Anthony Berkeley in … Continue reading #1443: Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery, a.k.a. The Mystery at Lovers’ Cave (1927) by…