Friday’s Forgotten Book: Evil Intent by John Wainwright (1966)

British author John Wainwright (1921-1995) was a rear-gunner during the second world war. Subsequent to that he joined the police constabulary. In 1965, he published his first crime novel. In all, he published around eighty novels, all of which unfortunately seem to have fallen through the crevices of time. The novel begins with a police …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Family Man by Anne Meredith (1942)

God's a good playwright... just when you think the curtain's coming down the plot takes a freash twist, and you find that, in spite of death and disappointment, life still goes on. Anthony Gilbert is one of my favourite authors of all time. However, Anthony Gilbert was not the solo pseudonym of Lucy Beatrice Malleson. …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Four-Ply Yarn by Miles Burton (1944)

The British navy is worried. Their ships sailing from Penmouth are being torpedoed at regular frequency especially if they happen to be carrying important cargo. Desmond Merrion of Naval Intelligence is asked to find the spy operating in that area. As Merrion himself cannot go over there, he dispatches one of his men. Meanwhile, Valetta …

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 …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: A Policeman at the Door by Carol Carnac (1953)

Edith Caroline Rivett is better known by her pseudonym of E.C.R. Lorac. However, Rivett also wrote under other names. Today's Friday Forgotten book is the one she wrote under the pseudonym of Carol Carnac and features two of her three series characters: Chief Inspector Rivers and Inspector Lancing. Solicitor William Thorpe, married to his, job …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Footsteps Behind Me by Anthony Gilbert (1953)

By https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31018054941′, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69792289 Edward Lane - once almost awarded the Military Cross, for his valour during the first world war - has fallen so low in the aftermath of the second one, that he now blackmails people and both consumes and peddles drugs. When the novel opens, Ted is thinking of blackmailing four …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: School for Murder by Harry Carmichael (1953)

John Piper, is attending the wedding of Adele Vincent, the daughter of a business client, Stuart Vincent, to Kenneth Bradley, when he becomes aware of an undercurrent of tension in the room as the bride and the groom prepare to depart for their honeymoon. Adele who had gone to her room to change her dress …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Mouse who wouldn’t play Ball by Anthony Gilbert (1943)

"One of them did it, of course," he told himself, "but we shall never know which, so what the hell?" A tense figure waits near a staircase, in anticipation. Suddenly there is a cry of fire and panicked figures come running out of the dark, converging near the staircase. A candle is lighted but before …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Treason in My Breast by Anthony Gilbert (1938)

Have you ever noticed in murder cases how often it's some trivial detail that tips the scale? Some flower-seller or some old woman running out to the post or a dog getting run over at a moment when you couldn't allow for any of those things happening... Janet Scott, wife of a young solicitor, Gerald …

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Religious Body by Catherine Aird (1966)

I have recently joined a reading group @ Goodreads that is into reading detective fiction of a vintage hue. One of the books selected for January was Catherine Aird's The Religious Body. Since Aird had been on my reading radar for long and this is the first of her Sloan & Crosby series, I jumped …