Archives
Friday’s Forgotten Book: A Matter of Iodine by David Keith
Francis Steegmuller (1906–1994) was an American author of biographies, fiction, travel, and short articles for periodicals. He also translated a number of Gustave Flaubert’s writings, for which he is chiefly known. He won two National Book Awards—one in 1971...
Treasure Up in Smoke by David Williams
I am enamored of the Mark Treasure series by David Williams (1926-2003), 17 mysteries published between 1976 and 1993. Mark Treasure is Vice-Chairman of Grenwood Phipps & Co., merchant bankers of London. His actress wife Molly often accompanies him on his...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Crime in Kensington by Christopher St John Sprigg
Christopher St John Sprigg (1907-1937) was a versatile English writer of poetry, plays, short stories, detective novels, and aeronautics textbooks. In his mid-20s he became fascinated by Marxism and his writing from then on reflected this new interest. When the...
Carnaby and the Hijackers by Peter N. Walker
Peter Norman Walker (1936-2017) was a lifelong resident of North Yorkshire. He served as a police officer in the North Riding force for 30 years, upon which he based his crime fiction writing. In addition to publishing under his name, he also released books under...
Taking Detective Stories Seriously: The Collected Crime Reviews of Dorothy L. Sayers
Among her many talents Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) was a crime fiction critic, reading and evaluating books weekly for the Sunday Times from 1933 into 1935. Seeking to make Sayers’ insights and observations available to the wider reading public, the Dorothy L....
Scoundrel by Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell is familiar to me as a fine writer of historical adventure. I have read nearly all of his Saxon Chronicles set from 866 A.D. to 937 A. D. His stories about the Napoleonic Wars are told through the eyes of British soldier Richard Sharpe. I was not...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Body Behind the Bar by Cecil Freeman Gregg
British author Cecil Freeman Gregg (1898-1960) was a chartered secretary and accountant like fellow Golden Age author and contemporary Richard Henry Sampson (1896-1973) who wrote under the name Richard Hull. Gregg published 42 mysteries between 1928 and 1960, with...
The Spoils of Time by June Thomson
June Thomson (1930-2022) was an English author who wrote 20 traditional detective mysteries about Inspector Jack Finch and Sergeant Tom Boyce, then focused on writing Sherlock Holmes adventures, producing six volumes of short stories, a novel, and a book of...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Accident by Design by E. C. R. Lorac
Accident by Design (Collins, 1950) by E. C. R. Lorac is the 34th appearance of Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald. Even with more than 45 books to her credit by this time, Lorac (real name Edith Rivett) demonstrates she’s not out of ideas. What’s left...
Copper Gold by Pauline Glen Winslow
The backs of dust jackets on older books are often filled with blurbs about the book in hand or the author’s earlier works but sometimes, especially the dust jackets of first editions or debut works, advertise the publisher’s other authors in that genre. It’s a...
