Crammed together: Nine Books

My to-be-reviewed pile for 2022 is long and toppling over. Before I forget all about the books, here are just a couple of lines about nine of them. So in no particular order: Death of a Hollow Man (1987): I had enjoyed Caroline Graham's The Killings at Badger's Drift, the first in her Inspector Barnaby's …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Girl in Cabin B54 by Lucille Fletcher (1968)

Dr. Vernon Grove had once dreamt of being a doctor who makes a difference in the lives of people, now divorced from his wife and estranged from his son, he is a ship-doctor who uses the time on sea to flirt with beautiful female passengers and have a fling with them. Usually this provides fun …

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 …

Slavery and Satanism: John Dickson Carr’s Papa La-Bas (1968)

The thing that stuck me forcefully after finishing John Dickson Carr's Papa La-Bas was how politically incorrect it was: Black people are frequently sold, they are lost or won in games of poker; Women of mixed race are taken up as unacknowledged wives by the highest bidding White man; Men are free to spank their …

Friday’s Forgotten Books: Best Crime Stories Vol.3 (Ed.) John Welcome

Best Crime Stories Vol. 3, edited by John Welcome, is an anthology of 11 stories which I enjoyed a lot.The volume begins with a masterly study of terror: Max Hensing by Algernon Blackwood.  Williams, a reporter interviewing Dr. Hensing, standing trial for having poisoned his wife, is so much repulsed by the man that the …

Forgotten Books: Fuzz by Ed McBain

The first time Ed McBain really registered on my mind was when I saw a book of his at a second-hand books store. I read the brief description at the back and decided not to buy it as I am not too keen on police-procedurals. Only to return home and discover that one of his …