Recent Posts
Notice of Death by John Penn
John Penn is a joint pseudonym of Palma Harcourt (1917 - 1999) when she wrote with husband Jack H. Trotman. Harcourt wrote espionage thrillers under her own name. Under the Penn pseudonym she wrote more traditional detective stories. George Thorne, a...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner
The Case of the Baited Hook (Morrow, 1940) is the last appearance of Sergeant Holcomb in the Perry Mason series by Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970). Holcomb is the typical bullying cop of the 1930s pulps, more brawn than brains, and Mason ran circles around...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death Takes a Flat by Miles Burton
Death Takes a Flat (Collins Crime Club, 1940) by Miles Burton, one of the pen names of Cecil John Charles Street (1884-1964), is the 21st case of former military intelligence officer Desmond Merrion and Inspector Henry Arnold of Scotland Yard. Major Pontefract’s...
The Dust and the Heat by Michael Gilbert
The Dust and the Heat is one of Michael Gilbert’s stand-alone novels published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1967 and published by Harper in 1968 as Overdrive in the U.S. It was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award in 1968, which I am delighted to learn because I...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Eames-Erskine Case by A. Fielding / Dorothy Fielding
Some two dozen mysteries were published under the name Archibald Fielding or A. Fielding or A. E. Fielding between 1924 and 1944. They are attributed to Dorothy Feilding (sic) about whom little is known, not even her year of birth apparently, which is given as 1884...
Murder in High Provence by George Bellairs
Murder in High Provence (John Giffords, 1957) by George Bellairs, the 27th case of Inspector Thomas Littlejohn, opens with a visit to the Littlejohn home by the Minister of Commerce, Spencer Lovell. Lovell’s only brother Christopher and his wife Elise were killed...
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who still reads at every opportunity and loves to talk about what she is reading.