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#1183: “I have little faith in the analytical powers of the feminine brain…” – The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime [ss] (2011) ed. Michael Sims
Serendipity brought the superb Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime [ss] (2009) edited by Michael Sims to my awareness, and highlighted Sims’...
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#1182: Midsummer Murder (1956) by Cecil M. Wills
I’d previously read just one book by Cecil M. Wills, the Ramble House edition of Fatal Accident (1936), about which I remember nothing...
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#1181: I Read in the Papers There Are Robbers – Ranking the Five Find-Outer Novels (1943-61) by Enid Blyton
Last weekend, it was my distinct honour to present for a fourth time at the Bodies from the Library conference, in this instance on the topic of...
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#1180: The Devil’s Flute Murders (1953) by Seishi Yokomizo [trans. Jim Rion 2023]
After what felt like a run of fairly light reading, I found myself in the mood for something a little denser, and boy does The Devil’s Flute...
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#1179: “Surely he was wise to be seeking out fresh stories?” – The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes [ss] (2014) by Martin Edwards
Years ago, as a younger and callower man, I swore that the only Sherlock Holmes stories I would read were those written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Then...
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#1178: The Mystery of Angelina Frood (1924) by R. Austin Freeman
Late one night, Dr. John Strangeways is summoned to tend to a woman who has clearly been strangled. Deeply unsettled by the odd encounter, he has...
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#1177: Minor Felonies – The Mystery of Banshee Towers (1961) by Enid Blyton
One final mystery for Fatty, Bets, Daisy, Larry and Pip as, nearly seven years after first discovering them myself, and after a literary life...
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#1176: Nothing is Very Much Fun Any More – An Objectively Chronological Discussion of Monk Season 5 (2006-07)
And so we reach season 5 of Monk, in which Tony Shalhoub plays the eponymous OCD-afflicted former detective, brought in to consult on a range of...
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#1175: Minor Felonies – Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse (2022) by Marthe Jocelyn
A fourth and — the blurb tells us — final go around for precocious young Aggie Morton and her Belgian friend Hector Perot…but,...
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#1174: Case for Three Detectives (1936) by Leo Bruce
Case for Three Detectives (1936) by Leo Bruce was perhaps the first impossible crime novel I read after becoming aware that the subgenre...
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#1173: Minor Felonies – Tyrannosaurus Wrecks (2020) by Stuart Gibbs
It was after finishing Stuart Gibbs’ Moon Base Alpha trilogy that I turned my eye upon his FunJungle novels, wondering if he brought the same...
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#1172: “Sometimes you almost persuade me that you have reasoning powers.” – The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont [ss] (1906) by Robert Barr
I first encountered the work of Robert Barr in the superb Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime [ss] (2009), and when Countdown John offered to lend me...
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#1171: Minor Felonies – The Mystery of the Strange Messages (1957) by Enid Blyton
Another case for Fatty, Bets, Daisy, Larry, and Pip, albeit one that rings a few minor changes… The established pattern of the Five...
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#1170: The Big Midget Murders (1942) by Craig Rice
Though Jay Otto is “less than three feet high…his proportions were almost exactly the same as those of a full-sized man; his head was...
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#1169: A Little Help for My Friends – Finding a Modern Locked Room Mystery for TomCat Attempt #22: Murder by Candlelight (2024) by Faith Martin
I really rather enjoyed Faith Martin’s impossible crime novel The Castle Mystery (2019) when I read it back in 2019, so stumbling over a new...
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#1168: Patrick Butler for the Defence (1956) by John Dickson Carr
It is perhaps fitting — though, I assure you, completely accidental — that a locked room murder in a novel by John Dickson Carr, doyen...
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#1167: Adventures in Self-Publishing – Monkey See, Monkey Murder (2023) by James Scott Byrnside
It’s incredible to think that Monkey See, Monkey Murder (2023) is James Scott Byrnside’s fifth novel, and wonderful to report that it...
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#1166: And Birds of Foreign Tongue! – My Ten Favourite Locked Room International Titles
I was saddened to learn of the recent death of John Pugmire who, for the best part of the last 20 years, has been instrumental in bringing the...
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#1165: Cats Prowl at Night (1943) by A.A. Fair
Look, I can’t swear to it, but I have a suspicion that Cats Prowl at Night (1943), the eighth published book in Erle Stanley Gardner’s...
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#1164: The Traces of Merrilee (1966) by Herbert Brean
Merrilee Moore, the latest star to bewitch millions from the silver screen, is rumoured to be making a movie about Helen of Troy in Greece after...
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#1164: The Traces of Merrliee (1966) by Herbert Brean
Merrilee Moore, the latest star to bewitch millions from the silver screen, is rumoured to be making a movie about Helen of Troy in Greece after...
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#1163: Golden Ashes (1940) by Freeman Wills Crofts
Rendered a widow and penniless at a young age — well, she is a Freeman Wills Crofts protagonist — Betty Stanton is fortunate in finding...
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#1162: “Front door locked on the inside, Johnny…” – The Art of the Impossible, a.k.a. Murder Impossible [ss] (1990) ed. Jack Adrian and Robert Adey, Part 2 of 2
Having previously looked at the first ten stories in this collection of impossible crime tales selected by Jack Adrian and Robert Adey, let’s...
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#1161: “Who was murdered? When? How? Why?” – The Art of the Impossible, a.k.a. Murder Impossible [ss] (1990) ed. Jack Adrian and Robert Adey, Part 1 of 2
In a bizarre turn of events, I have no memory of acquiring the much-sought-after anthology The Art of the Impossible, a.k.a. Murder Impossible...
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#1160: The Siren’s Call (1998) by Paul Halter [trans. John Pugmire 2023]
Returning to the Devon setting which proved home to one of the best impossible crimes in fiction, The Siren’s Call (1998, tr. 2023) finds...