Great Finds: Murder with Impatience by Robert Verron (1944) and The Cloze Papers by Kenneth Livingston (1936)

It is always great when a book that you pick up randomly from the library shelves without any idea of the title or even the author turns out to be a great read. Here are two such books: Renowned criminologist Kennedy Critchley is planning to spend a few weeks with his cousin in Scotland when …

Three Mysteries by Miles Burton

Miles Burton has been more miss than hit with me yet when I see his books I usually borrow them. Recently, I was lucky to find three of his lesser-known titles. Where is Barbara Prentice? When a police officer finds part of a fur coat wrapped around the buffer of an engine, he is bewildered …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Judy of Bunter’s Buildings by E. Phillips Oppenheim (1936)

Of all the sounds in this gathering darkness that was the one which she had dreaded most. Judy is a dancer at a bar called the Green Man which is frequented by sailors. When the novel opens, Judy is at her room in Bunter's Buildings when she hears another tenant making his way to the …

#1936 Club: Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque

"I pictured life so different.""We all have." Robert Lohkamp is one of those whom Gertrude Stein called the 'lost generation'. Embittered by his years in the trenches, Bob has lost faith in everything: God, the political leadership, high-sounding concepts like patriotism and nationalism. All he is sure of is the friendship of those comrades who …

The #1936 Club: Three Mysteries

1936 was a great year for books. Here are three mysteries I read for the Club: Death of Anton by Alan Melville Joseph Carey's Circus thrills the town. There is Anton cloistered in a cage with seven tigers; the clown Dodo who makes the audience scream with laughter; the daredevil trapeze act by couple, Loretta …

#1936 Club: The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler

The time is the mid-1930s. The moment when Robert Oppenheimer would declare grandiosely: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" is still a decade away. A young man writing his first novel, however, envisages the atomic bomb becoming the most coveted weapon of destruction and unscrupulous men fighting to get hold of it. …

The #1936 Club: The Poisoners by George R. Preedy

publicdomainpictures.net The year is 1678 . The Sun King Louis XIV graces the throne of France. Perhaps the greatest European king of his generation, Louis' rule epitomizes the Reign of Absolutism. But while his own people and other European nations are in awe of his court, his millitary success, his generous patronage of the Arts...scandal …

#1936 Club: A Puzzle for Fools by Patrick Quentin

"Do not worry, Mr. Duluth. And remember that, if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary, that thing is real and has its basis in fact. Do not let anyone or anything persuade you that you are suffering under a delusion." Traumatised by the death of his wife, who burnt to death in …

#1936 Club: The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay

The Melbury family is celebrating Christmas at their country-house Flaxmere. Headed by Sir Osmond Melbury, the family includes his spinster-sister, Mildred; his son George (there with his wife Patricia and their three kids); his daughters: the widowed Hilda (along with her daughter, Carol), Edith (Dittie) with her husband Sir David Evershot, the beautiful Eleanor with …

The #1936 Club: Death in the Back Seat by Dorothy Cameron Disney

Tired of living life in the fast lane, writer Lola and her artist-husband Jack Storm, decide to shift to the countryside in order to concentrate on their art. The beginning seems promising when they rent a beautiful cottage in rural Connecticut. However even as their work seems to be progressing , they slowly find that …