Last Read of 2022: The Twisted Tree by Frank Baker (1935)

Oh, my dear Lord! thought Tansy. What are we all here for at all, if it's nothing but a long walk from cradle to grave? I had wanted to read more of British author Frank Baker since the time I read his intriguing Miss Hargreaves. Finally, I was able to get a copy of his …

Last Read of 2021: In Andamans: The Indian Bastille by Bejoy Kumar Sinha (1939)

2021 is not ending on a good note and my last read of the year too was pretty grim in places. The Andamans are a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal off the eastern coast of India. Separated from mainland India, they are still home to the indigenous people who have been here …

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 …

Last Read of 2017: Clockwork or All Wound Up by Philip Pullman

"And once you've wound up a clock, there's something frightful in the way it keeps on going at its own relentless pace. Its hands move steadily round the dial as if they had a mind of their own. Tick, tock, tick, tock!"A Very Happy 2018 to all.Oh and the book: Deliciously creepy.*First Line: In the …

Short Notes: Great Detective Stories

While I love reading mystery novels, the short-story in the same genre doesn't excite me that much. However, I did like this Watermill Classic which has five stories in which either a burglary or murder is investigated by a detective (and his faithful side-kick).In Arthur Conan Doyle' s The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Sherlock Holmes and …

The Secret is within the Subconscious

A few years back, Rhonda Byrne's book The Secret was the rage. Everybody (but Everybody) was raving about the book. All the dreams of yours, it was said, will come true if only you'll read the book. Finally, I too  had to read it and it was in that spirit that I bought the book …

Review: The Survivor by Sean Slater

For the briefest of moments, there was only silence. No gun fire. No explosions. No screaming. Just nothing. And everything felt oddly surreal. Previous nightmare incidents flooded him - the Active Shooter situations everyone had seen on their TV screens a million times:Dunblane.Virginia Tech.Columbine.But St. Patrick's High?I love Cozies. Murders yes, but little violence, bloodshed, …