Murder in a Women’s Club: Death in the Dovecot by Q. Patrick (1932)

"She was one of those women who go through life demanding to see the manager, and it would be quite easy to imagine her uttering her useful formula to St. Peter before the gates of Heaven, should any of her papers prove to be out of order" (187) This humour is the best thing about …

Love in Mysteries: Trent’s Last Case & Before the Fact

Recently Curt Evans @ The Passing Tramp wrote a very interesting post where he discussed certain rules laid down by writers Kurt Steel and S.S. Van Dine as regards the writing of mysteries. One rule that struck a chord with me was this one laid down by Van Dine:#There must be no love interest in …

The House of Hapsburg: The Radetzky March, and Beware of Pity

"During the Serbian Campaign, when, after Potiorek's disastrous defeat, exactly forty-nine men out of our whole regiment, the Colonel's pride, retreated safely across the Save, he stayed behind to the last on the opposite bank; then, feeling that the panic-stricken retreat was a slur on the honour of the army, he did something that only …

Forgotten Book: Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White

It was sometime in 2010 that I discovered Ethel Lina White. One day bored and restless, I browsed Manybooks and found her book Some Must Watch available for free download. The mystery was so gripping that I read it through the night and then was afraid to switch-off the light. Subsequently, I read a couple …

Forgotten Books: The Body on the Beam by Anthony Gilbert

Halfway through Anthony Gilbert's The Body on the Beam, I thought that the law of averages had finally caught up with me. After two brilliant books and one pretty good, it was inevitable that the next one fail to live up to its expectations.Unlike the earlier three, in this book the emphasis is more on …