This week's "Classic Mysteries" podcast is a review of Norbert Davis's "Sally's in the Alley," a book which manages to combine the hard-boiled Private Eye school with screwball humor. It features Doan and his Great Dane sidekick, Carstairs - or, to be more accurate, Carstairs and his somewhat inept human partner, Doan. If they are new to you - listen to the podcast for details. Carstairs in particular is worth meeting.
John Dickson Carr was the undisputed master of the locked room/impossible crime puzzle, and "The Crooked Hinge" is one of his best. It's the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, which you can listen to here.
More details on this marvelous story of intrigue, questionable identity, the sinking of the Titanic, and an impossible murder may be found on the Classic Mysteries blog. Please visit!
That's "Appleby" as in Detective Inspector John Appleby, the creation of author Michael Innes. Appleby's End is a very funny book - in a very dry, sophisticated, witty fashion. Sir John finds himself on a train journey with a group of very strange people. He - and they - wind up getting off the train at a station called "Appleby's End." Sound prophetic? In a way, I suppose, it is - but it takes a great deal of insight on Appleby's part to figure out exactly what is going on, in the midst of an increasingly bizarre adventure.
A full review is on this week's podcast, available here. It's great fun - and the unravelling of this complicated mystery is truly delightful.
As always, more information may be had at the Classic Mysteries blog and podcast site.
The review on this week's "Classic Mysteries" podcast is of a classic indeed - Edgar Wallace's "The Four Just Men." It's a thriller written more than a century ago which still packs a surprising amount of punch into its story about a group seeking to impose its own standards of justice on a government they view as corrupt.
More details, as always, over at the Classic Mysteries blog and podcast. Please come visit!
This week's podcast is a review of the anthology "Detection by Gaslight," edited by Douglas G. Greene. Subtitled "14 Victorian Detective Stories," it's an anthology of short stories, featuring both well-known detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and The Man in the Corner and far more obscure ones.
Full details about the book and the podcast may be found over at the Classic Mysteries blog.
Our review this week on the podcast is of the 1999 anthology called "Classic Mystery Stories," edited by Douglas G. Greene. It's a Baker's Dozen of stories, starting with Edgar Allan Poe and coming up (down?) through H. C. Bailey in 1920.
Some of the authors will be very familiar to the mystery reader - Poe, obviously, and Wilkie Collins and Baroness Orczy. But there are others as well, such as Charles Dickens and Jack London, whom we may forget when we list mystery authors. It's a a good collection of highly enjoyable stories. You can listen to the podcast here.
(Cross-posted at www.classicmysteries.net )
The Classic Mystery podcasts (which are linked individually from the right-hand column of this blog) now have a matching blog to go with them, where - I hope - we can continue the conversations started by our weekly Monday podcasts.
The blog is at www.classicmysteries.net - note that this is a .net, not a .com . Think of detectives casting out their nets and you'll remember it. Anyway, I encourage you to visit there and join in the conversation. I'd love to see suggestions for other authors in the classic mold.
I'll still keep posting a brief announcement here each Monday - but will take most of the mystery discussion over to the new blog. Please visit early and often!
A prosperous and self-satisfied suburb of Amsterdam turns out to be the home base for a vicious gang of teenagers. Why are these children carrying out their increasingly violent crimes? Because of the cats - the title of Nicolas Freeling's police procedural mystery, set in the Netherlands and featuring Freeling's Inspector Piet Van Der Valk. It's the featured book this week on my Classic Mysteries podcast.
As a general rule, I'm not a huge fan of police procedurals, but "Because of the Cats" goes well beyond the usual restrictions of that genre. It is entertaining and chilling and a fine study of the personalities involved - and there's a degree of fair play in the mystery as well, so that the reader accompanies the inspector as he tries to solve the mystery. For a full review, please check out the podcast.
"Clutch of Constables" is one of Ngaio Marsh's best mysteries - and that is saying a great deal. While it does feature the work of her detective, Roderick Alleyn, the star of this book is Alleyn's wife, painter Agatha Troy.
Troy finds herself on a cruise boat, steaming along an English river - a trip she joins on impulse. As might be expected in a mystery, things begin to go wrong. Some of her fellow passengers may not be what they seem, and they appear to have very curious reactions to some of the remarks Troy makes. Soon, there is a murder. And Alleyn finds himself racing to his wife's rescue from a most peculiar voyage.
As I say, it's vintage Marsh. You can find a full review here on the "Classic Mysteries" podcast - to which, as always, I invite you to subscribe.
Murder in an expensive pleasure palace of sorts: a beauty salon, dealing in expensive facials, mud treatments and hair styles. "Painted for the Kill," by Lucy Cores, is reviewed this week on my Classic Mysteries podcast.
Set in World War II - era New York City, it's a story of murder under a mudpack. It's funny, interesting, features a female detective working with a sidekick and a pretty smart New York City cop, and it's a fun read. For details, of course, check out the podcast. As always, you're welcome to subscribe (for free) by pasting http://classicmysteries.podbus.com/index.xml into your iTunes or other favorite podcatcher/RSS program.
