I don’t think any mystery writer drives me half so crazy as Paul Halter! If you do a search on this blog of the author’s name, you’ll come up with a series of reviews where the reactions range from delight to sheer exasperation. Every other year or so when Santosh Ayer, who is kind enough … Continue reading TROP DE CHOSES: The Siren’s Call
Paul Halter
PAT ON THE BACK: Meeting (Some of) My 2022 Goals
“There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away . . . “ These words by Emily Dickenson were emblazoned on the bookplates my grandparents gave me when, at an early age, I declared my love for reading. I pasted them into every volume I owned and used up my stock long ago. … Continue reading PAT ON THE BACK: Meeting (Some of) My 2022 Goals
ABRA-CADAVER: Death and the Conjuror
Let’s face it: life these days has not been just a bowl of cherries. You might wonder, then, why I seem to only read books about violent death. The answer, for any fan of classic crime stories at least, is obvious: we read mysteries for the same reason that millions of souls gobbled them up between 1920 … Continue reading ABRA-CADAVER: Death and the Conjuror
A HALTER WITH BITE: The Mask of the Vampire
Let us consider the vampire. What other monster is simultaneously so alluring and so repellent? Immortal, eternally youthful, a creature whose method of attack has been compared in centuries of fiction as something akin to kinky sex! And yet it dwells in darkness, sleeps in a coffin, subsists on human blood, and is a close friend … Continue reading A HALTER WITH BITE: The Mask of the Vampire
BRAD’S BEST READS OF 2021
As book bloggers go, in sheer number of reads I’m a dismal failure. Don’t even try and compare me, say, to my friend Kate over at Cross Examining Crime who, even in a bad month (May, when she had to tend to the birth of five baby goats), reviewed thirteen books, ten more than my monthly average … Continue reading BRAD’S BEST READS OF 2021
PAUL HALTER AND THE LITTLE GREEN MEN
As so often happens in times of great stress, we have turned for relief to outer space. A slew of recent stories suggested that unidentified flying objects were more than likely alien and nature and more frequently spotted by lucid folks than one might imagine. And of course, the BRTS (Billionaire Race to Space) continues … Continue reading PAUL HALTER AND THE LITTLE GREEN MEN
DONE IN? DONE GOOD: Why It Has to Be Murder
In a recent post at The Invisible Event, one of JJ’s readers ended his response, full of interesting observations, with this: “Finally, a point that’s been bugging me for years. Why does so much detective fiction, especially the novels, focus on murder? Detective short stories, at least, tend to be a bit more diverse and focus … Continue reading DONE IN? DONE GOOD: Why It Has to Be Murder
THE EENSY WEENSY SPIDER MURDER MYSTERY: Penelope’s Web
It’s always a cause for excitement when Locked Room International’s very own John Pugmire translates another Paul Halter novel. What sort of impossible crime or locked room will the French heir to John Dickson Carr give us this time? Will he take us to the Golden Age world of his Gideon Fell stand-in, Dr. Alan … Continue reading THE EENSY WEENSY SPIDER MURDER MYSTERY: Penelope’s Web
DAY-OLD BLANCMANGE: Paul Halter’s The White Lady
It turns out that if you Google “white lady,” it’s an actual thing. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the legend of a woman in white pervades the folklore of multiple countries. She tends to be the ghost of a woman who died by violence, committed suicide or, in the scarier versions, killed her husband and/or … Continue reading DAY-OLD BLANCMANGE: Paul Halter’s The White Lady
MAY I SUGGEST YOU READ A MURDER MYSTERY?
I have to admit I’ve been stressed for about . . . three and a half years. Bernie Sanders said recently that the current health crisis is “on the scale of major war,” but I’ve felt battle-scarred, mostly by tweet, for some time now. And now, thanks to COVID-19, I’m in exile: our schools have … Continue reading MAY I SUGGEST YOU READ A MURDER MYSTERY?
Ah Sweet Mystery! 