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.
We're in the dog days of late August, and I''m relaxing and unwinding at Walt Disney World, despite (a) a broken foot and (b) Tropical Storm Fay, which appears to think I want enough water to create a new beach in central Florida. No matter. Blogging will be light for the next several days. There WILL be a new podcast next Monday.
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!
Blogging may be a bit light for the next couple of days - getting ready to head out to the New Media Expo in Las Vegas, which starts Thursday. I'll be there from Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning - if any of you will be there, please let me know!
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.
There's a fascinating column in today's edition of the Bulldog Reporter's "Daily Dog" newsletter by Kim Perez, a freelance writer and PR consultant. She explains why she writes: because she loves writing. Yes, it's how she makes a living, and it's unbelievably hard work. But she loves it, and that's her main motivation.
As another professional writer, I understand what she's saying, and I agree with her completely. I too am fascinated and occasionally frustrated by people who seem to think that writing isn't really "work." Surely we must do something else as well.
Wrong on all counts. See what Kim Perez says, because she is saying it extremely well. And I would echo her advice to those who think they can just sit down and start writing: if you don't love it, and aren't willing to work at it - please don't bother.
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!
