LB's Rambles

"Who Killed the Curate?"

Now THERE's a good, old-fashioned, English-Golden-Age style title for you. And it's a Christmas mystery to boot - the murder takes place on Christmas Eve. But there's more in "Who Killed the Curate?," by Joan Coggin, our book reviewed this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast - you can hear the full review here.

The added factor in Coggin's book is the heroine (and detective figure), Lady Lupin Lorrimer Hastings, known as "Loops" to her friend and perhaps the most scatterbrained detective character you'll ever meet. Her mental processes, as expressed through the book's hilarious dialogue, are stunning, to say the least - and quite funny. It's a good Golden Age mystery (dating from 1944) for the holiday season.

In season or out, if you enjoy classic mysteries, please join me at www.classicmysteries.net to continue discussing them!

Beautiful Libraries

Maybe it's because I'm married to a librarian, but these photos of beautiful libraries, courtesy of oddee, are really impressive. Not sure why my own personal library isn't in the group, though...

Hat tip: Instapundit.

"The Journeying Boy"

Sometimes a mystery reader can't make up his/her mind between a classic puzzle mystery or a good thriller. So here's a good compromise, containing both kinds of mystery in a single novel: "The Journeying Boy," by Michael Innes. It's our book reviewed this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the review here.

The two threads of the story: first, there's a young man hired as a tutor, to accompany the teenaged son of a prominent scientist as he goes on holiday to distant relatives in Ireland; the second concerns a Scotland Yard investigation into the peculiar murder of an unknown man in a London movie theater. Innes carefully provides clues that often keep the reader ahead of the characters in the novel, but there are more than enough puzzles, surprises, twists and a great deal of humor, including some slapstick, to satisfy any reader. If you enjoy mysteries, this is a fine one.

And, if you enjoy mysteries, have you visited www.classicmysteries.net yet? You should...

Google and Your Privacy

We've all seen sorry examples of what can happen when somebody tries to use Google to look up your name. How do you maintain your privacy when you can so easily be Googled? Orin Kerr, at the Volokh Conspiracy, has a modest proposal which sounds like it might work for some people, anyway...

Hat tip: Instapundit

"13 to the Gallows"

The subject of this week's podcast review on our "Classic Mysteries" podcast is a collection of four plays written by John Dickson Carr, the acknowledged master of the impossible crime story. The plays collected in "13 to the Gallows" surely must have baffled and pleased theater audiences when originally produced in the 1940s, and I am delighted to find that they have now been reprinted and made available to today's mystery readers. You can listen to a full review here.

The plays all feature impossible crimes or locked room murders. In all, Carr is scrupulous about providing playgoers with clues to the correct solution, even as he carefully misdirects their attention away from those clues. Two of the plays were co-authored with British radio producer Val Gielgud, but all are quite clearly the product of Carr's ingenious plotting and masterful atmospherics. Add an introduction and afterword essays by Tony Medawar and you have a fine gift for any classic mystery lover.

If that last description fits you, by the way, please join me at www.classicmysteries.net where we can discuss this and many other books and mystery writing in general. I hope to see you there.

Cyber Monday

Today is "Cyber Monday," the day when online shoppers traditionally are supposed to be out there ordering gifts online for family, friends and themselves. If you're planning to order anything from Amazon.com, let me again ask you to use the box on the upper right corner of the page, which will give me a small commission. If you want to see some of Amazon's Cyber Monday specials, click here. It's not just books - DVDs, electronics, cameras, clothing - you name it. And thank you.

Black Friday

I'm still not sure I know the etymology behind calling what is traditionally one of the year's businest shopping day "Black Friday." But the day after Thanksgiving certainly has become a major day for retailers, at least in the US. So let me put in a plug for myself:

As I've said before, I get a small amount (really small!) of money from Amazon whenever somebody uses my link to their site to buy anything. It doesn't have to be books (and I'd just as soon you get your books from a favorite local bookstore and mystery dealer) - anything Amazon sells qualifies: electronics, music, cameras, Swiss Army knives, Kindles - anything. If you go to their site through my search box - at the top of the right hand column on this page - I will get credit for anything you may buy.

This week, Amazon is running specials leading up to Black Friday - if you use this link, you will see their offers. Anything you buy that way, again, I'll get a small percentage. It ain't much, but it can help pay for the blog costs, anyway. Thank you for your consideration - it is much appreciated.

Cross-posted to Classic Mysteries.

"The Continental Op"

On our Classic Mysteries podcast this week, you'll find a review of a series of short stories by Dashiell Hammett, featuring his detective, "The Continental Op." This detective without a name prowls the streets of San Francisco in the 1920s. The op - short for operative - is the epitome of a Hammett private eye - tough, but fair; preferring to use his brain, but quite willing to use his fists or a gun. You can hear the entire review here.

Given his enormous influence on detective fiction in the U. S., it is amazing how few novels and stories he actually wrote. The Continental Op was featured in a number of short stories, and this collection from Vintage collects seven of the best. They're not so much puzzle-type mysteries; rather they're excellent, fairly hard-boiled private eye pieces. It's a collection that ought to be on your mystery bookshelf.

For more discussion of this book and other mysteries, please visit www.classicmysteries.net - and join the conversations there.

Sony Gets Back in the eGame

What with Amazon's Kindle eReader and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, Sony must be feeling a pretty fair amount of pressure on its eBlook product. I posted an entry last year complaining that Sony's proprietary format for eBooks was making it hard for me to get much value from their product.

Sony apparently has seen the light. I received an email from them this week advising me that they are updating their older eReaders - including mine - with new firmware. Free. They're doing this because they are dropping their proprietary format in favor of what has become the industry standard ePub format. If I don't want the free update (it does require sending the reader to Sony), I can buy one of their new models at a fairly significant rake-off.

Good for Sony. I think this keeps them alive in the eBook competition - and it's the right thing to do for those of us who have their older readers and had been wondering what to do with them. Now...where did I put mine...

(Cross=posted to Classic Mysteries and LBs Rambles)

"The Labors of Hercules"

The mythical Graeco-Roman demigod, Hercules, had to perform a dozen seemingly impossible tasks. His modern detective counterpart, Hercule Poirot, also found himself investigating twelve quite distinctive mysteries, each with a parallel to one of the original labors, in "The Labors of Hercules," by Agatha Christie. This excellent collection of short stories is reviewed on today's Classic Mysteries podcast, which you can listen to here.

Christie's stories are excellent. Not all deal with murders, but all prove to be very much worth M. Poirot's time - and yours as well. While it appears that Amazon.com isn't shipping new copies at the moment, the link above will take you to a page with a great many different editions available through Amazon's dealer network. I find also that Barnes & Noble does have copies of a mass market paperback version. And, of course, your own favorite mystery bookdealer should be able to locate a copy for you quite easily. It really is one of Christie's best collections.