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Guest Post on John Irving's Work
I have a guest post this week. I am part of the Best & Worst Series at the At Home with Books blog. Believe it or not, I do read lots of other kinds of books beside mysteries, supernatural novels,...
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FFB: The Dark Light - Bart Spicer
"The uneasy breath of a nasty idea kept pace with me." -- Carney Wilde in The Dark LightFor anyone who has read all the Philip Marlowe books and all the Paul Pine novels and still craves a private eye...
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Murders in Volume 2 - Elizabeth Daly
Murders in Volume 2 (1941) was the sole Henry Gamadge book to remain out of print for decades. In the late 1970s when Bantam reprinted Daly's books in order to capitalize on Agatha Christie's admission...
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FFB: The Avenging Saint - Leslie Charteris
Here's another well known character who is most assuredly not completely forgotten, but I think the novels are at least overlooked these days. No doubt many people are familiar with Simon Templar in...
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LEFT INSIDE: A Bright Idea
Below you will see a Commonwealth Edison utility receipt found inside my treasured 1st edition of Raise the Titanic! I bought it for $2 at a library sale in Glen Ellyn, Illinois several years ago. I...
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The Terrible Two
This blog now officially enters its third year. I missed posting about the second anniversary for this blog's birth which occurred Jan 26. It wasn't too terrible this second year of the blog. Less...
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IN BRIEF: Case of the Village Tramp - Jonathan Craig
Another Jonathan Craig book and you know what that means -- sex and crime. The victim in this sixth book about cops of the 6th precinct is found wearing nothing but a chastity belt and tiara. A genuine...
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FFB: The Desert Moon Mystery - Kay Cleaver Strahan
This was a real discovery and I have to thank Diane Plumley over at the Bookshop Blog for including it in her eccentric Best 100 Mysteries List. Apart from The Desert Moon Mystery (1928) having the...
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Drawing on the Past #10: GILBERT JAMES
Work: The Five Jars by M.R. James(Edward Arnold & Co., 1922)Artist: Gilbert JamesThe Five Jars is subtitled "Being More or Less of a Fairy Tale Contained in a Letter to a Young Person." Its author...
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Ellery Queen Revival
As part of a promotion for a series of Ellery Queen eBooks newly released the publicity people at Open Road Media and Mysterious Press have announced the following:We have created an original...
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Greenmask! - Elizabeth Linington
"This is Number One - Greenmask!" proclaims the hastily scrawled note attached to the corpse found in Walt's Malt Shop. On top of the violently beaten body is a book neatly tied with a green ribbon....
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NEW BOOKS: Sailor Twain - Mark Siegel
I read this book the beginning of last month having only learned of its existence around Christmas when it was named one of the Best Books of 2012. Sailor Twain was published in October last year and...
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FFB: The Black Camel - Earl Derr Biggers
Charlie Chan is on the case!Strange that though he is a member of the Honolulu Police Department there are only two books in the Chan series that take place in Hawaii. One of those (The House Without a...
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LEFT INSIDE: Ann's Library Card
I was very good about keeping track of my library card when I was growing up. Losing it would've been a very big deal and I'm sure I would've been extremely upset. When I moved to Chicago getting a...
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NEW STUFF: The Invisible Code - Christopher Fowler
Each new Bryant & May crime novel brings with it the anticipatory thrill of discovering more arcana of London that Christopher Fowler loves to share with his readers. (There should be a word for...
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FFB: Coffins for Three - Frederick C. Davis
INT: Club GrottoCharacters: "Joan Doe", Cyrus Hatch, Danny Delevan"Joan" enters and approaches table with Cyrus and Delevan. Tells them she's waiting for some who she plans on killing. Wants to appear...
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JACKET REQUIRED: A Few Scarlet Threads
Something a little different for this month's Jacket Required feature is the "Scarlet Thread" mystery imprint published by Robert M. McBride & Company from 1930 to 1931. The books did not have dust...
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COOL FLICKS: The Black Camel (1931)
Tarneverro & Chan discover Shelah Fane dead in the pavilionThe Black Camel (1931) is a good case of a screenwriter's sticking too closely to his source material and falling into a trap of his own...
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FFB: President Fu Manchu - Sax Rohmer
What do South American spiders, neurotoxic drugs, booby-trapped sewers and Huey Long have in common? Why President Fu Manchu (1936), of course. Fu Manchu turns 100 years old this month. I know it's...
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Murder from the Grave - Will Levinrew
Professor Herman Brierley, chemist and amateur criminologist, is one of the most obscure of the American scientific detectives. He made his debut in The Poison Plague in 1922 when the story was...
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