Poor Old Tiddy: I Don’t Like Cats by Lindsay Anson (1940)

"And what are you doing on Major Thirkell's estate at this time of night? After birds?""Birds? Oh, yess. I sought I heard a nightingale.""A nightingale in November?""Yess. it is very late, isn't it?""Late? It is impossible.""Impossible. Yess. You see, I sought I heard one, and I knew it wass impossible you see. So I sought …

Short Notes: The Death Coins by Walter S. Masterman (1940)

When the telephone rings at the police station, Sergeant Grant, picks it up in a bored manner but when he hears the message - of a man claiming that he is about to be murdered and asking the police to hurry up to an address and bring along a locksmith too - his whole attitude …

Last Read of 2020: The Man Who Could Not Shudder by John Dickson Carr (1940)

But most of all you were conscious of the atmosphere you breathed: an odor peculiar to such houses. The story begins, as they often do, in a bar. The story is about a haunted house, up for sale. More than a decade back, an octogenarian butler had leapt up at a chandelier, which fell off …

Five Mysteries of 1940

AUNT BEARDIE by JOSEPH SHEARING Joseph Shearing is one of the pseudonyms of prolific author, Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long, more popularly known by another pseudonym of hers, Marjorie Bowen. Last year, I read her gothic mystery, The Crime of Laura Sarelle, and was blown away. Determined to read more of her, I selected this novel …

But a Thought: Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker (1940)

“Tis to create, and in creating liveA being more intense, that we endowWith form our fancy, gaining as we giveThe life we image, even as I do now.What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,Soul of my thought!" Lord Byron: Childe Harold: Canto III It was through John's blog Pretty Sinister Books that I …

In Translation: Three Novels

This year, I read only three books in translation. THE DOGS AND THE WOLVES (LES CHIENS ET LES LOUPS) by IRENE NEMIROVSKY (1940) Ada Sinner, from the wrong side of the fence, has a glimpse of her wealthy cousin, Harry and falls in love with him. This is no childhood infatuation because even in her …

Short Notes: Deadly Nightshade by Elizabeth Daly (1940)

I wasn't too impressed by my first Henry Gamadge: Unexpected Night but also not put-off by the author. I am glad that the second one which again involved wills, children, impersonation, natural and unnatural parents, gypsies, poisoned berries read better than the first one. Rather boldly, I thought, the author also disregarded a literary/ social …

Short Notes: Unexpected Night by Elizabeth Daly (1940)

I had heard about Henry Gamadge series by Elizabeth Daly and decided to begin reading them now. Unfortunately, this first one involving wills and impersonations, actors with marvellous skills, suffering heroines (who are actually insufferable), and a hero who the author is at pains to present as an insignificant normal bloke, didn't impress me much. …

Books of 1940: The 24th Horse, and They Don’t Dance Much

One of the Reading Challenges that I greatly enjoy participating in is the Birth Year Reading Challenge hosted by Jane @ Hotchpot Cafe. For this year's challenge, I've selected the year 1940 and for this purpose read two books recently. "If you don't know anything at all about jumping, we take you through a series …

Forgotten Books: Two Novels by Miles Burton

MR. WESTERBY MISSING (1940) Has it ever happened that you have wanted to shake the police-man sleuth in a novel, asking him to wake up? He is one of the finest, an officer of Scotland Yard, and yet why is he so clueless? It happened to me in John Rhode’s The Murders in Praed Street …