From somewhere in Cyberspace, the winners of this year's Agatha Awards for mystery writing were announced this evening at a virtual convention of mystery writers and readers put together by the organizers of the Malice Domestic conference. As Malice Domestic wasn't able to hold its annual convention in person during the Spring, the organizers put together three days of a virtual videoconference Malice convention called "More than Malice." The event, described by organizers as "a unique virtual crime fiction festival," featured some excellent and provocative presentations, interviews,  an ..read more

Despite having written only a handful of fine mysteries in the course of her life, Josephine Tey remains an author with a substantial following of admirers. She's best known for The Daughter of Time, in which Tey's detective Alan Grant used standard detective work to solve the mystery of a dual murder hundreds of years before his time. But all of her books are quite strikingly original. Take, for example, her 1946 novel, Miss Pym Disposes. It's a very traditional mystery, one that is likely to mystify you several times over on its way to a brilliant conclusion. I reviewed Miss Pym Dispos ..read more

Sir Eustace Vernon had earned the respect and gratitude of his neighbors in and around Mapleton by rescuing a dozen trapped children from a burning house when the local fire brigade couldn't even get to the fire. It also brought him his knighthood. Certainly he was no coward. But at a Christmas party the next year at his home, something frightened Sir Eustace - frightened him so badly that he left his own party, telling his guests that he had just had some very bad news. And that was the last time anyone saw Sir Eustace alive. And the reasons...well, according to our narrator: "Thus was the ..read more

To those of you friends who have been waiting for me to re-emerge in this blog as one of your guides to classic mysteries - well, here I am sort of. So before moving ahead, let me explain a bit: For more than a decade, I have relied on two increasingly aged computers when I write and publish Classic Mysteries. Without warning, both decided to take final leaps into the unknown, stubbornly refusing to do anything useful. OK, sez I, it's time to bite the bullet and get one replacement machine for both computers, sez I. Should be simple, sez I. Uh huh. That roaring sound you may hear is the gods ..read more

Okay, okay. I said I'd be back here at Classic Mysteries a couple of weeks ago. Then life intervened. Priorities. Or, to put it in terms that my tech friends will understand, at least two of the computers I use to maintain my podcast, my blog, and (to a far lesser extent) my sanity decided this was the time to quit. This, in turn, led to a couple of highly interesting and fairly expensive telephone conversations on the subject of how best to replace these not-overly-hard-working computers. I mean, we're talking conversations like the one with a tech person who breathed "you got your computer ..read more

I will be taking off the next couple of weeks from both this blog and the Classic Mysteries podcast as a brief pause to smell the roses. This may not be completely wise, given my usual reaction to spring pollens, but this short break is a necessary one. I promise that I'll return, probably around May 20th, after a refreshing tour of Grandparent Duty. In the meantime, please play nicely, and I'll see you all in a couple of weeks ..read more

Speaking as a fan of Rex Stout's mysteries about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, I am delighted to find that every time I write about one of those mysteries in the Classic Mysteries vault, I get a good response from my visitors. That being the case, let me call your attention to the fourth of those mysteries which appeared in book format in 1937. It's called The Red Box, and I recorded an audio review several for the Classic Mysteries podcast years ago. I thought you'd be interested - and, if you haven't read The Red Box, or read it some time ago, I think you may enjoy the review; you'll certa ..read more

Start with the murder of a suspected witch in England three centuries ago. Add a family curse that still seems to be terribly effective. Now bring in a group of British film makers, who see in that story a possibly great (if horrifying) movie. That is what rising movie director Stephen Latimer and his trusted friend and assistant director, Evan Hughes, were looking to find for their next project. As Latimer described it : “I want drama with a touch of the macabre…to get back to what some directors were trying to do when talkies came in and shifted the interest…I’m going down to Somerset to-m ..read more

Okay. Admittedly, I have a strange sense of humor. But when I discovered a book called The Shrieking Pit, written in 1919 by Arthur John Rees, I simply couldn't resist that title(especially when you consider that Rees also wrote a book the next year called The Hand in the Dark) - well, I had to share it. Actually, I gave this book an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast about five years ago. As usual today, I offer you the transcipt below, slightly edited, and I hope you'll read it - title notwithstanding, it's surprisingly good for an early Golden Age book. Enjoy: - 0 - There seemed ..read more

A ..read more