If you select at random any one of the eighty-two novels featuring Perry Mason, you stand a good chance of finding an opening in Mason’s office with secretary Della Street looking over the black-eyed blondes, dangerous dowagers, and haunted husbands looking pacing the reception area, selecting one and then escorting them into Mason’s inner sanctum … Continue reading PERRY WALKS THE PLANK: The Case of the Substitute Face
THE PLAY’S THE THING: Patricia McGerr’s Murder Is Absurd
One of my friend Kate Jackson’s most recent reviews at Cross Examining Crime was Death in a Million Living Rooms by Patricia McGerr. It reminded me that I have a couple of books by McGerr that have been languishing on my shelf, including Murder Is Absurd (1967), which seems to be the one book by this author that Kate … Continue reading THE PLAY’S THE THING: Patricia McGerr’s Murder Is Absurd
MANSION W/7BD, 6B, 4CORPSES, & VIEW: The Mill House Murders
We are only a couple weeks shy of the seventh anniversary of the first time I posted about shin honkaku on this site. Since then, those of us who are extremely grateful for the Japanese obsession with the Golden Age of Detection have reveled in one release after another of both classic honkaku novels from the likes of Soji … Continue reading MANSION W/7BD, 6B, 4CORPSES, & VIEW: The Mill House Murders
COZY IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: The Cat Saw Murder
It looks like we’re going to have a little run of Dolores Hitchens over at Chez Ah Sweet Mystery this year. Having been introduced to the lady with the dark, fine The Watcher, I found out at Book Club last week that we would be covering The Alarm of the Black Cat in July. This is the second in … Continue reading COZY IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: The Cat Saw Murder
ACDC, PART ELEVEN: And So To Murder, or The Hollywood Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda
My Book Club decided to read John Dickson Carr last month – one of his best, I must say – but since I had just re-read it a mere – oh, wait, has it been six years already?!? – I decided to return to my long-standing series, A Carter Dickson Celebration. Since it has been almost … Continue reading ACDC, PART ELEVEN: And So To Murder, or The Hollywood Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda
CAN’T SEE MY, CAN’T SEE MY . . . POKER FACE
There are no two ways about it: when it comes to watching TV these days, we are being ripped off. I say this as a curmudgeon who is old enough to remember when entertainment came in twelve channels that cost nothing more than the electricity. Nowadays, this Californian pays Comcast $265/month for my basic cable. This … Continue reading CAN’T SEE MY, CAN’T SEE MY . . . POKER FACE
THIS CONSCIENCE INCARNATE: The Watcher
“He was watching. He passed judgment on me. He condemned me to some sort of hell. I sensed that, walking by. I’ve never felt so . . . so unclean, as just then!” Her name was Julia Clara Catherine Maria Dolores Robins Norton Birk Olsen Hitchens. She was born in Texas on Christmas Day, 1907, … Continue reading THIS CONSCIENCE INCARNATE: The Watcher
RANKING MARPLE #5: A Murder Is Announced
Toward the end of Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, biographer Laura Thompson writes: “It is a paradox, although, perhaps, not a surprise, but Agatha’s popularity should have increased as her powers declined. After 1950 she wrote a handful of brilliant and unusual books – Destination Unknown, Ordeal by Innocence, The Pale Horse, Endless Night, and Passenger to Frankfurt – but she produced her … Continue reading RANKING MARPLE #5: A Murder Is Announced
A CRIMINAL GAME FOR CHRISTIE FANS
Perhaps you have had a chance to see the trailer for Kenneth Branagh’s third (and possibly final?) Hercule Poirot film, A Haunting in Venice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrKNPMG6Dk Perhaps it . . . confused you in a way that his previous films, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile did not. For despite the fact that Branagh’s Poirot sports a … Continue reading A CRIMINAL GAME FOR CHRISTIE FANS
“The most unkindest cut of all”: On Re-editing Christie
Fasten your seat belts: let’s talk about censorship. In March, the Guardian reported that Agatha Christie’s publisher, Harper Collins, would be scrubbing some of the more problematic language out of her books in future reissues: “The updates follow edits made to books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to remove offensive references to gender and race in … Continue reading “The most unkindest cut of all”: On Re-editing Christie
Ah Sweet Mystery! 