Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Lying Voices by Elizabeth Ferrars (1954)

"I'd hoped you wouldn't have changed. I'd hoped we'd be able to pick up the past just as it was. That's what we've always been able to do before. That's to say - well, I don't know. But I don't seem to have the energy for new things now." Facsimile Dust Jackets LLC. Collins The …

#1954 Club: The Desperate Hours by Joseph Hayes

While looking around for a book to read for The 1954 Book Club jointly hosted by Karen @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings and Simon @ Stuck in a Book , I came across this little-known book by Joseph Hayes. A look at the blurb and I knew that it was the source of a taut Hindi …

Three Novels by Jean Potts

American author, Jean Potts (1910-1999), won an Edgar award for her first novel, Go, Lovely Rose (1954), but still fell into obscurity. Then sometime in 2018, John F. Norris reviewed a few of her books at his blog, Pretty Sinister Books. John’s admiration for the books so impressed a publishing house that they brought back …

Two Post-War Novels by E.C.R. Lorac: Shroud of Darkness (1954) and The Last Escape (1959)

Shroud of Darkness, my favourite of Lorac read so far, begins with a train journey on a foggy night. Five strangers in a compartment reach London when one of them is coshed on the head and left for dead. As he has no identification-papers on him and his luggage etc has been stolen, Macdonald has …

Forgotten Book: The Third Bullet and Other Stories by J.D. Carr

Since my new-found admiration for John Dickson Carr, I have been trying to read as many of his books as possible. Unfortunately, the library that I frequent has only a few of his books. Recently, I borrowed Carr's short story collection The Third Bullet and Other Stories.The title story is actually a novella. Justice Mortlake …

Short Reviews: Prison and Chocolate Cake, and Forty Years of Test Cricket: India-England

Recently, I completed two books related to India (and England).The first one, Prison and Chocolate Cake, is a memoir by Nayantara Sahgal, chronicling her young days growing up during the Raj. As niece of independent India's first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru and daughter of India's first ambassador to the U.N., Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nayantara …

Forgotten Books: Natural Causes and According to the Evidence by Henry Cecil

"What man said what to you yesterday?" asked the judge, in a somewhat stern voice."It was all perfectly friendly, my Lord. I hope I haven't said anything I shouldn't."'What man said what to you yesterday?' repeated the judge."I was in the garden having a nap, my Lord, as a matter of fact,' said the colonel."I …