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Best Vintage Mystery Reprint of 2021, part one
As the ubiquitous commercialization of Christmas invades our lives let us once again turn to the end of the year tradition begun by our dear friend Kate Jackson who blogs at Cross Examining Crime and...
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Best Vintage Mystery Reprint of 2021, part two
Here's my second nomination for Best Vintage Mystery Reprint of 2021.I've chosen a male wirter for this second book, a classic writer whose books deserve wide readership, and a book that has been ought...
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Advent Ghosts 2021: "Who Comes This Night, This Wintry Night?"
There may be no snow on the ground in Chicago, but the Christmas lights are up, the wreaths are hanging on front doors and the sidewalks are bustling with frantic shoppers. It's the holiday season and...
View ArticleTake Courage, Night's Falling / And You're Not Alone
A bit of holiday music for you as we near the end of 2021. The first is an original tune from Andrew Bird, one of my favorite offbeat musicians who often plucks away on his violin like it was a ukulele...
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2021 Catch-up and Sneak Peak at 2022 Projects
Last year is a week over and I hesitate to do all the "Best Books" kinds of lists. Instead I thought I'd explain my absence from frequent blogging towards the end of last year as well as a brief...
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LEFT INSIDE: Ukrainian Politician Patronages the CPL (not!)
Usually this feature is about items I find in books from my personal collection. This one, however, was discovered in a library book in the Chicago Public Library (CPL). I thought it was so bizarre I...
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Death Awaits Thee - Maria Lang
A warning before you proceed: If you've read the work of Maria Lang, recently made available to mystery fans one more time in the three English translations of the only trio of books that have been...
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LEFT INSIDE: Review Copy Publicity Slips
Let me take you back to those days of old when people actually read books made of paper with words of printed ink. Book reviewers didn't check their email for publicity inundated with hyperlinks to...
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Upstairs and Downstairs - Carol Carnac
Though written in an era well past the heyday of the Golden Age of detective fiction Upstairs and Downstairs (1950) is redolent of books that flourished two decades earlier. So far I’ve only read this...
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Three Detective Novels by Brian Flynn
The more I read of Brian Flynn the more I realize why he was never recognized or remembered for his work. He just isn’t consistently good. First off, he is a terrible prose stylist in his early books...
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NEW STUFF: Bunny - Mona Awad
What if those stuck-up teens in Mean Girls and the snobby clique in Heathers made it to grad school in order to pursue a master’s degree in creative writing? And what if those girls then decided that...
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LEFT INSIDE: Promotional Post Card from 1938
Today for a change we have a legitimate "Left Inside" find. I was sort of cheating for the past couple of months using inscriptions and bookplates (and there are more of those to come in case you were...
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IN BRIEF: The Queen's Gate Mystery - Herbert Adams
Jimmie Haswell receives a note from his friend Capt. Gregory Bruden inquiring about the legality of finding something of value in a home in which the owner died. Is it a case of finders keepers? Or...
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Death of an Editor - Vernon Loder
The newspaper crowd has descended upon Marsh House but not without an invitation. The impromptu house party consists of a gossip columnist, an advertising man, two reporters from France, and a serial...
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The Lake of the Dead - André Bjerke (and another giveaway)
"Let's summarize: A lake that sucks people into it, an invisible phantom that screams and leaves footprints, a crazed double murderer on the loose, wandering around desperately in the dark of night....
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Winners of The Lake of the Dead giveaway
I put all the names in a hat so to speak. Using a random number generator I found on the internet I got two numbers. I matched up those numbers with where your comment fell in the order of comments...
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I Am Afraid - Emma Lobaugh
THE STORY: Dorothy marries divorced Edward, a non-fiction writer. All is well until Edward's children are sent to live with him. Caroline, Edward's ex-wife, has decided to move to California to start...
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FIRST BOOKS: The Seven Sisters - Jean Lilly
Mr. Spencer, a gemologist, visits newlywed Nancy and Stanley Kent at the famed Prentice mansion. He informs them that he is doing research on the renowned Prentice Dowry Chain, an elaborate jeweled...
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ALTERNATIVE CLASSICS: Along Came a Spider - Elizabeth Davis
I'm putting the sinister back into the Pretty Sinister Books blog this month as I tear through a pile of old horror novels and detective novels with supernatural and occult content. Today's post also...
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FIRST BOOKS: Author in Distress - Cecil M. Wills
THE STORY: Novelist Gervoise Trevellyan is an Author in Distress (1934). And first time mystery writer Cecil Wills wastes no time in getting immediately to the story. On page one Trevellyan calls the...
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