I have just come off reading Noel Vindry’s The Howling Beast: very French, very chauvinistic, and very 1934 puzzle-beats-all. That means that the characters were basically cardboard cutouts, and there’s no good bemoaning this fact, it’s the way things are with most Golden Age detective fiction. If you want more focus on character, you need … Continue reading PUBLISH OR PERISH: Helen McCloy’s Two Thirds of a Ghost

Introduction I’ve been singing the praises of Helen McCloy ever since I discovered her novels last year. I’ve read and reviewed four or five of them and am excited that she wrote 28 novels and a number of short stories, about half of them featuring her series sleuth, New York psychiatrist Dr. Basil Willing. So … Continue reading A Meeting of the Criminal Minds: A Joint Review of Alias Basil Willing (1951)

The year is 1941, and the shadow of war encroaches on our nation from both sides. Paris has fallen, and in a few short months the Japanese will bomb Pearl Harbor. You wouldn’t know this, however, if you peeked into the windows at Blessingbourne, the Long Island estate where society hostess Claudia Bethune and her … Continue reading DO YOU SWEAR TO TELL . . . ?:Helen McCloy’s The Deadly Truth

Thanks to a sale on Kindle, I snatched up about a half dozen titles by Helen McCloy and have been enjoying them like literary bonbons ever since. I previously reviewed two of her titles, Through a Glass, Darkly and Mr. Splitfoot, here. Both of these novels feature her sleuth, Dr. Basil Willing, a psychologist, allowing … Continue reading THE DARKER REACHES: Helen McCloy’s The Slayer and the Slain