We Danced and Swallowed the Night...
Just learned that crime writer Adrian McKinty finds inspiration in Tom Waits songs.Review of McKinty's excellent locked room mystery Rain Dogs coming soon...------------------------------This post is...
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FFB: Death in the Dark - Stacey Bishop
THE STORY: Three murders, all committed under seemingly impossible conditions, have decimated the Denny family in Death in the Dark (1930). A locked apartment building and a death by gunshot in a...
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NEGLECTED DETECTIVES: Mordecai Tremaine
If you were to tell me that you just discovered a great new series of mystery novels in which a sixty-something retired tobacconist who liked to read romantic fiction magazines was the amateur sleuth I...
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NEW STUFF: Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood
Last year Hogarth Press began their release of a series of novels inspired by Shakespeare plays. So far four books have been published with four more planned over the next five years. While some of...
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FFB: A Beastly Business - John Blackburn
THE STORY: Bill Easter, conman and rogue for hire, will do nearly anything for the right price. He’s recovered stolen goods, he’s located missing persons, he’s even committed murder. Now he’s been...
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The Reek of Red Herrings - Catriona McPherson
Today a deviation from the usual Friday's Forgotten Book and instead a review of a neglected modern mystery writer in honor of upcoming Malice Domestic Mystery Convention that I will be attending next...
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FFB: What Happened to Hammond? - John Russell Fearn
THE STORY: Shipping magnate Benson T. Hammond is being threatened with anonymous letters promising his imminent demise. As if that isn't enough to worry him his daughter announces her engagement to a...
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FFB: Hell on Friday - William Bogart
THE STORY: Johnny Saxon, once a highly popular short story writer, has given it all up to become a private eye. His latest case will take him back to his roots in the pulp magazine world when he's...
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FFB: My Bones and My Flute - Edgar Mittelholzer
THE STORY: An artist accompanies his employer on an excursion into the jungles of British Guiana. Guided by an 18th century manuscript they hope to locate the author's skeletal remains and a buried...
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FFB: The Thing in the Brook - Peter Storme
THE STORY: Biologist James Whitby's scientific studies are interrupted when he inadvertently becomes one of two men who discover the grisly body hanging from a tree above the brook in the rural village...
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VERDICT OF US ALL: The Shadow of the Wolf - R. Austin Freeman
JJ at "The Invisible Event" has revived the once somewhat regular meme on the vintage mystery blogs in which participants ramble on a particular topic. This month we talk about our favorite book by a...
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FFB: The Other Side of Green Hills - John Keir Cross
One of the serendipitous rewards of having created this blog is discovering another side to a writer I am already familiar with. Take the case of John Keir Cross, an obscure Scottish writer whose...
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The Story of Classic Crime Blog Tour
This Friday there will be no Friday's Forgotten Book. Instead I'll be one of the ten participating bloggers in a promotional web tour for the upcoming release of Martin Edwards'The Story of Classic...
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GUEST POST: Martin Edwards, The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books
In lieu of Friday's Forgotten Books this week I have a guest post by blogger, mystery novelist, genre historian and friend, Martin Edwards. This is part of the blog tour to help promote his crime...
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NEW STUFF: A Talent for Murder - Andrew Wilson
A Talent for Murder by Andrew WilsonAtria Books/Simon & SchusterISBN: 978-1-5001-4506-3 310 pp. $26Publication date: July 11, 2017Back in 1978 I remember reading (and later seeing the movie) Agatha...
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FFB: Something about Midnight - D. B. Olsen
THE STORY: By day she's Ernestine Hollister, dedicated English literature student at Clarendon College, but at night she transforms herself into Ernestine Hall, sultry dance hall girl flirting with...
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FFB: Dead Reckoning - Bruce Hamilton
"Well written, but most unpleasant tale" -- penciled remark by a Previous Owner left in my copy of Dead ReckoningTHE STORY:Tim Kennedy is a successful dentist and happily married to Esther. Until one...
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Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books: An Additional Guide for the Curious
My copy of Martin Edward's Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books arrived yesterday and I was rather excited that I've already read and reviewed many of the books listed. As an additional guide to those...
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FFB: The Thing at Their Heels - Harrington Hext
THE STORY: The Templer family has been targeted by a mad killer. It appears that a crazed German soldier, someone they call the Man in Black, is killing the heirs in order of their succession according...
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FFB: The Arrow Points to Murder - Frederica de Laguna
THE STORY: All is not well at the New York Academy of Natural Sciences. The Hall of Mammals is closed for rehabbing and redesign, the sea otter exhibit is moth eaten and in need of a taxidermy repair,...
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