Friday’s Forgotten Book: Footsteps Behind Me by Anthony Gilbert (1953)

By https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31018054941′, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69792289 Edward Lane - once almost awarded the Military Cross, for his valour during the first world war - has fallen so low in the aftermath of the second one, that he now blackmails people and both consumes and peddles drugs. When the novel opens, Ted is thinking of blackmailing four …

Literature of India: Stories from Tagore (1918)

Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore is one of the foremost poets and philosophers of India. However, he was an excellent author of prose too. This collection of his contains ten stories, and virtually all of them showcase his genius. The collection begins with his most famous and anthologized story, Cabuliwallah, where an Afghan seller of dryfruits …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: School for Murder by Harry Carmichael (1953)

John Piper, is attending the wedding of Adele Vincent, the daughter of a business client, Stuart Vincent, to Kenneth Bradley, when he becomes aware of an undercurrent of tension in the room as the bride and the groom prepare to depart for their honeymoon. Adele who had gone to her room to change her dress …

Favourite Pastime: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (2018)

A.J. Finn's debut novel follows the trajectory of a lot of modern novels. A woman (or middle-aged 'girl') suffering from some sort of trauma, alienated from family and friends, turning into an alcoholic, popping in a lot of pills, passes time by involving herself in the lives of others: snooping on them, stalking them, gathering …

Fizzyatry: The Black Dream by Conyth Little (1953)

Agatha Bunson is a woman troubled. A cleanliness freak (or suffering from OCD as the new stuff of fizzyatry would diagnose it), she just can't stand her sloppy, dirty cook, Em. The only thing is that she can't throw Em or the general handyman Fred out as her father's will stipulates that she has to …

From the Back Pages: How many have you read? [Part I]

Recently, I read J.M. Walsh's The Hand of Doom. The author was new to me and the book proved to be no great shakes but the book had a list of other novels on its back pages. The books listed, except for those of Brian Flynn, were absolutely new to me. I hadn't even heard …

Black Magic: The Hand of Doom by J.M. Walsh (1927)

Grennel and Crammond (I think they have first names too but they never registered and I am too bored to look them up) are two collectors but while Crammond is someone who is generally interested in the antique artifacts that come his way as a way of increasing his knowledge, Grennel is a fence who …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Mouse who wouldn’t play Ball by Anthony Gilbert (1943)

"One of them did it, of course," he told himself, "but we shall never know which, so what the hell?" A tense figure waits near a staircase, in anticipation. Suddenly there is a cry of fire and panicked figures come running out of the dark, converging near the staircase. A candle is lighted but before …

Debut: Murder in Bostall by Paul McGuire (1931)

He seemed like a grim facade that half hides and half reveals the ruin behind. The Modstone detective agency receives an unusual caller. Lord Barbury wants to enter into politics but fears that his wife is having an affair with Stephen Crawley, a labour MP. He wants the agency (which is known for its integrity …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Treason in My Breast by Anthony Gilbert (1938)

Have you ever noticed in murder cases how often it's some trivial detail that tips the scale? Some flower-seller or some old woman running out to the post or a dog getting run over at a moment when you couldn't allow for any of those things happening... Janet Scott, wife of a young solicitor, Gerald …