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FFB: Angel Loves Nobody - Richard Miles
THE STORY: You think Holden Caulfield was a problem child? Take a look at Angel Martine, the sullen, smirking, reticent leader of an army of teen-age misanthropes at Betsy Ross Junior High somewhere...
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FFB: Murder Cancels All Debts - M. V. Heberden
Those who know the many novels of M.V. Heberden are probably more acquainted with Desmond "Des" Shannon, her tough private eye modeled very much on the 1940s movie version of a typical private eye. But...
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FFB: To Catch a Thief - Daphne Sanders
Let's get one thing out of the way. This is not the book on which the Alfred Hitchcock movie was based. That novel was written by David Dodge who created two very interesting series characters, one of...
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FFB: Reservation for Murder - June Wright
THE STORY: As if the plague of anonymous notes being sent to the young women at Kilcomoden hostel were not enough now a dead body turns up in the garden -- the body of a strange man no one has ever...
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NEW STUFF: Ten Dead Comedians - Fred Van Lente
Ten Dead Comediansby Fred Van LenteQuirk PublicationsHardcover ISBN: 9781594749742e-Book ISBN: 9781594749759288 pagesRelease Date: July 11, 2017The blurb on the back cover of Ten Dead Comedians tells...
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FFB: Murder under Construction - Sue MacVeigh
THE STORY: Enter the exciting world of railway construction in the pre World War 2 era. No really. Come on along. It's not as boring as you might think. At least not in the hands of Sue MacVeigh,...
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FFB: Comets Have Long Tails - Madeleine Johnston
I've read a lot of "Yellow Peril" thrillers in my day with the Fu Manchu saga leading the list but I don't think I've come across a more humanistically offensive murder mystery than Comets Have Long...
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FFB: Flashpoint - John Russell Fearn
THE STORY: Oscar Bilkin, grocer and fishmonger in the village of Halingford, receives an anonymous letter warning he and his family to "GET OUT BEFORE TOMORROW. YOU ARE ALL IN DANGER". He has no idea...
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Calling All Johnny Fedora Fans!
A few days ago I received an email from Desmond Cory's son Richard McCarthy announcing the latest eBook release in the Johnny Fedora series. Here's the publicity for it:A British secret agent in a...
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NEW STUFF: The Other Passenger reprint coming soon!
Valancourt Books tells me that their exciting reprint of The Other Passenger by John Keir Cross will be released on December 12.Exciting for at least two reasons:1. It's the first time this landmark...
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FFB: 30 Days to Live - Anthony Gilbert
THE STORY: A shout of "Fire!" in Everard Hope's home The Brakes. Panic ensues as the occupants rush out of their rooms armed only with candles to find their way. A ripped carpet leads to a fatal tumble...
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FFB: Dead on the Island - Bill Crider
Truman Smith is not so successful private eye living in Texas. He spent a long time searching for his missing sister, never finding a trace of her, and his failure still haunts him. In his retirement...
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FFB: The Clock in the Hatbox - Anthony Gilbert
THE STORY: Viola Ross is awaiting the verdict from the jury who are deliberating on her fate in the trial of her husband's murder. Novelist Richard Arnold is the only person convinced of her innocence...
View ArticleSleigh Bells Ring, Are You Listening?
MerryChristmas, HappyHolidays, BlessedSolstice ...and all that jazz!Every year the CTA, Chicago's bus and train service, decorates one bus and one train for the Christmas season. In the past I've...
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FFB: Merridrew Follows the Trail - John Russell Fearn
THE STORY: A series of gruesome murders in which the victims are mutilated and bodies disposed of in quicklime are plaguing the denizens of Double Peak, Arizona. Mayor Jenkinson Talbot Merridrew joins...
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FFB: Tragedy at Beechcroft - A. Fielding
THE STORY: Oliver Santley, portrait painter, is asked to travel to Beechcroft to make observations on Major Moncrieff who may be intent on harming his wife, Lavinia. He arrives a few days before a...
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FFB: Inspector Bill "Ironsides" Cromwell, another Neglected Detective
When last I looked at the work of prolific crime and adventure writer Edwy Searles Brooks I sampled the Norman Conquest thrillers he wrote under his "Berkeley Gray" pseudonym. As many crime fiction...
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It's Alive! - Celebrating 200 Years of Frankenstein
The Creature by Nino Carbe (Illustrated Editions, 1932)I've been receiving lot of publicity from various publishers reminding me that Mary Shelley's landmark novel Frankenstein will be celebrating its...
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FFB: Heart to Heart - Boileau & Narcejac
THE STORY: One evening a singer and her piano playing lover have an argument with the singer's composer husband ending in the piano player killing the composer. The two lovers cover up the murder by...
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Murder in the Closet Nominated for Edgar!
"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"I was so excited to read this afternoon that Murder in the Closet: Essays on Queer Clues in Crime Fiction before Stonewall (McFarland, 2016) has been nominated for an...
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