Dare to Dream: In the Red by Joan Fleming (1961)

My last three reads of Joan Fleming were more or less a disaster and I was in no mood to read another book by her. However, I needed to read just one more book of hers, to partially complete Rick Mills' Six-Shooter Mystery Challenge (if you want to join for the 2021 edition of this …

Two Novels by Joan Fleming: A Daisy Chain for Satan (1950) and Maiden’s Prayer (1957)

British author, Joan Fleming, is one of the authors I am reading for Rick Mill's Six-Shooter Challenge. Over the past couple of weeks, I read two of her novels. In A Daisy Chain for Satan, Tom Ravensden returns from France to his village in England at the insistence of his nephew, Silas. Once in love …

Short Notes: Death of a Sardine by Joan Fleming (1963)

Having taken his final exams at Oxford, Tom Warrington leaves for Portugal where his father, Brigadier Warrington, has set-up an opulent villa. Accompanying him is Oxford-mate, Meeth, a rather shabby and down-at-heels young man who arouses Tom's pity. Tom and his father share an uncomfortable relationship which is further accentuated when Tom reaches Portugal and …

Two books by Joan Fleming: Miss Bones (1959) & The Chill and the Kill (1964)

I read Joan Fleming for the first time last year because the cover of her book, The Chill and the Kill, had me intrigued when I first read about the book at John Norris' iconic Pretty Sinister Books. The cover with its serpentine female figure reminded me of the Indian legend of the shape-shifting Nagins, …