Today’s review is for a mystery from a new-to-me author who I decided to take a punt on, as the premise sounded like it had some interesting metafictional potential. Others reading this post may be familiar with this writer already as Finn previously published The Woman in the Window back in 2018. Synopsis ‘“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.” This is the chilling invitation from Sebastian Trapp, renowned mystery novelist, to his long-time correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. Welcomed into his lavish San Francisco mansion, Nicky begins to unravel Trapp’s ..read more

This book operates as the second half of a pair, with the previous book in the series, Mr Monk Goes to Germany (2008), which I read earlier this month. Due to this link between them I decided to read them close together. Mr Monk is Miserable is predominantly set in Paris, and I was curious to see what Adrian Monk gets up to. Given what I know of his personality, I was therefore surprised when the author mentions in the acknowledgements that he found Paris Sewers and Sewermen by Donald Reid ‘extremely helpful in’ his ‘research’! I wondered what perils awaited poor Mr Monk! Synopsis ‘Adrian Mo ..read more

I was lured into picking this one up, due to the misleading Green Penguin tagline: ‘A Cat accused of murder?’ The answer to that one is alas no, (which in fairness the blurb on the back does point out) although Perry Mason does sort of take on a Persian cat as a client, which makes for some amusing conversation. Anyway let’s see what I made of it… Synopsis ‘Peter Laxter’s will provides a lifetime job for Charles Ashton, his faithful caretaker. Ashton owns a big Persian cat named Clinker. When the Laxter heirs threaten to poison his cat, Ashton seeks Perry Mason’s help. Perry, suspicious of t ..read more

Anne Wedgwood is a new-to-me author who I first came across on Instagram. I enjoy inverted classic crime mysteries from authors such as Francis Iles, Charlotte Armstrong, Nicholas Blake, Donald Henderson, Richard Hull, Edna Sherry, and Bernice Carey. So, I thought it would be interesting to see how the subgenre was faring in modern times. Synopsis ‘Retired doctor Lilian Templeton has a dead body in her garden and there is nothing she can do to stop the gas men digging it up. DI Ronnie Twist and her sergeant, Luke Carter, are not fooled by Lilian’s apparent innocence, and a game of cat and mo ..read more

The Mr Monk series is definitely a go-to for me when I am in need of a comfort read. Happily, I am at a good point in the series where I have read quite a few but I also still have many more to come. I have bought the remaining three titles that I needed to complete the series written by Lee Goldberg (there were four more written by Hy Conrad). My husband was pleased to hear about this purchase, as he has read all of the Mr Monk books we currently own. Synopsis ‘Adrian Monk is on a roll solving murders as fast as they come, and not counting his Wheat Chex until they’re in the bowl. But when ..read more

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am a fan of Ferrars’ work (having reviewed 13 of her books to date), but it has actually been nearly four years since I have read a book from her Virginia and Felix Freer series. This eight-book series ran from 1978 (so today’s review is for the first story) to 1992. Synopsis ‘As soon as Virginia Freer opened her front door and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke, she knew who was in the house: Felix, the charming, lying, light-fingered con-man husband whom she never mentioned. They had lived apart for five years. He had come, as usual, for money, bu ..read more

Now if you’re sitting there thinking, “Ranking 37 mysteries from 1937” would be a much catchier blog post title, then firstly you are correct, it would be, but secondly join the queue, as my husband already made that suggestion. If I was a luckier blogger I would have had 37 mysteries, but I’m not and my TBR pile is sadly lacking 6 more. So, 31 it is. However, I probably need to do a little explaining. This month between the 15th and 21st of April Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Stuck in a Book are hosting a reading event in which anyone can take part. The requirements are simple: Read a book ..read more

‘The detective in literature is […] already […] passing into decay. He has enjoyed extraordinary popularity […] His old achievements enthral as ever. But he makes no new conquests […] It was inevitable, perhaps, that the prestige of the detective should fade in proportion as the business of detecting crime assumed a more specialised character. For alas! modern scientific methods have overtaken him, and he has fallen hopelessly behind the times. He who was accustomed to issue terse commands to muddled members of the force is now ignorant of the very A B C of criminal investigation […] hencefor ..read more

I am fond of a ranked list. Putting one together really helps you to look back at an author’s work as a whole and it is always fun seeing how wildly divergent everyone else’s views are on which books are the best or worst reads. To date I have published ranked lists for Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley, Leo Bruce (Sergeant Beef series only), Alice Tilton, Clifford Witting and Delano Ames (Jane and Dagobert Brown series only) as well as an epic ranking of Christmas mysteries, which I updated last year. Today it is the turn of Edmund Crispin who penned nine mysteries featuring academic amate ..read more

We’re a quarter of the way through the year and is it just me or has time gone really quickly? I was surprised to note that so far this year, including this one, I have produced 53 posts for the blog. Looking at the books I have read this year I found that the most common starting letter for an author’s surname was M. However, the majority of my reads this year have so far come from authors with surnames starting with a letter between A and H. Moreover, a quick scan of bookshelves shows that there are substantially more books by authors from the first half of the alphabet than the second. Are ..read more