"The Widening Stain"

This week's podcast review on Classic Mysteries comes with the due weight, solemnity and overall gravitas one would expect to find at a prestigious Ivy League university. Or maybe not. The goings-on in Morris Bishop's "The Widening Stain" were sufficiently irreverent and offbeat for Bishop, a Cornell University professor and later the school's provost, to hide behind the unlikely pseudonym of "W. Bolingbroke Johnson," which may have been a good career move. 

The book is marked by a significant number of funny limericks, some unfortunate professorial behavior, and a couple of murders, including a quite-well-done impossible crime. The Rue Morgue Press has brought this 1942 comic mystery back from relative obscurity - which is a fine thing for classic mystery readers.

And let me put in my weekly plug: for those of you who enjoy good mysteries, come visit me at www.classicmysteries.net and let's talk about them!