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The Deeds of Dr. Deadcert - Joan Fleming
"You couldn't ever expose Dr Dysert. [...] He's been too clever for too long. They believe in him, probably with a good deal more conviction than they believe in the Holy Ghost, though they declare it...
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FFB: Norman Pink - Neglected Detective
Norman Pink is not your average private detective. He's not chasing after shapely women clients, sneaking pulls on a whiskey bottle hidden in his desk drawer or stumbling into a fistfight every ten...
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FFB: The Fetish Murders - Avon Curry
And now for something completely different....I've been reading a lot of early transgressive fiction as research for an essay to be included in a book slated for 2016. This has led me into a strange...
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Madmen Die Alone - Josiah E. Greene
There's another lunatic on the lam in the opening chapters of Madmen Die Alone (1938) and Dr. Richards doesn't want any bad publicity for his institution. Of course it's Joseph Parisi who's gone...
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FFB: The Corpse on the White House Lawn - "Diplomat"
"Call in the others and we'll see if we can't figure out some way to pin this [murder] on some outsider -- preferably a Democrat"--Dennis Tyler in The Corpse on the White House LawnDennis Tyler, head...
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COOL FLICKS: The Two Faces of January (2014)
I'll never pass on a Patricia Highsmith movie. This is one that I was completely unfamiliar with. I have read quite a few of her books, and reviewed one on this blog, but not only have I not read The...
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FFB: The Late Mrs. D - Hillary Waugh
Let's get a few things out the of the way first. 1. Hillary is not a woman. 2. He is not related to that other androgynously named author who wrote Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, The Loved...
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I Found Him Dead - Gale Gallagher
Radio actress Dawn Ferris wants to hire Gale Gallagher to find out if a recently kidnapped girl is the daughter she gave up for adoption in 1933, fourteen years prior to the action of I Found Him Dead...
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FFB: Lonelyheart 4122 - Colin Watson
Two plot lines unfold simultaneously in Lonelyheart 4122 (1967), a combination detective novel and sophisticated con artist caper involving a couple of missing women and the dating service they both...
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Charity Ends at Home - Colin Watson
Once again two stories unfold at once in Charity Ends at Home (1968), Colin Watson's fifth satiric exploration of life in the less than idyllic village of Flaxborough. Mortimer Hive is a private...
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FFB: Knock, Murderer, Knock! - Harriet Rutland
There is nothing more satisfying to a mystery novel addict like me than to chose a book fairly at random and from the first amazing sentence to the final paragraph be thoroughly entertained. I wanted...
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IN BRIEF: Coffin, Scarcely Used - Colin Watson
Coffin, Scarcely Used (1958) is the first of Colin Watson’s Flaxborough comic crime novels and sets the tone for all that followed in the series. It may not be the most successful of his books but I...
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FFB: Duck Season Death - June Wright
Sometimes when someone unearths a forgotten writer and attracts the attention of eager publishers looking for unique material to reprint we as readers not only get new easy to obtain editions of out of...
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FFB: A House Possessed - Charity Blackstock
A House Possessed (1961) was published in England under the title The Exorcism. Both titles are apt but I prefer the US title for its multi-layered metaphoric possibilities. An exorcism does take place...
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FFB: A Clue for Mr. Fortune - H. C. Bailey
Reggie Fortune reminds me so much of a British version of Philo Vance. They both have an eccentric way of speaking, they both have quaint expressions ("Oh, my aunt!" and Oh, my hat!") they resort to...
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In Celebration of the Golden Age: Guest Blog Post by Martin Edwards
As part of Martin Edwards' blog tour promoting his new book on the history of the Detection Club and the Golden Age of detective fiction I am happy to hand over the steering wheel to the author...
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IN BRIEF: Murder Fantastical – Patricia Moyes
This was a delight! Whip smart, devilishly plotted, and funny as can be with a range of jolly moods from outlandish farce to wry wit. Reduced to its bare essence it's a country house murder mystery,...
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IN BRIEF: The Eighth Mrs. Bluebeard – Hillary Waugh
The Eighth Mrs. Bluebeard (1958) is a crime novel that mixes a suspense novel with a caper novel. Basically it tells of a sting operation set up to trap a murderer defrauding a company out of thousands...
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FFB: Body Charge - Hunter Davies
Franko Baxter is sort of lost in life. Drifting in and out of a humdrum life as a cab driver with no real friends, living with his Gran with whom he ends each night with a ritual cup of cocoa, he finds...
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The House that Kills - Noel Vindry
I am beginning to sympathize with Julian Symons’ complaints about what he called the humdrum school of detective fiction. At least the French version of the humdrums. I’m certainly encountering a slew...
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