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: 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 …

Great Finds: Murder with Impatience by Robert Verron (1944) and The Cloze Papers by Kenneth Livingston (1936)

It is always great when a book that you pick up randomly from the library shelves without any idea of the title or even the author turns out to be a great read. Here are two such books: Renowned criminologist Kennedy Critchley is planning to spend a few weeks with his cousin in Scotland when …

Post-War: The Writing on the Wall by Herbert Adams (1945)

Sir James Norland, who has risen from a reporter to his present powerful position of a newspaper baron who owns various newspapers and has been knighted for his services is yet not content. What he wants is a title. His grandson would become Marquis of Mellowfont if his son Peter marries Diana who would become …

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. …

Boston Brahmins: The House that Died by Josephine Gill (1956)

The Bellamy family is the upper crust of Boston. When Grand Aunt Elizabeth's secretary-companion, Anne Chisholm, loses her footing on the rear-staircase and comes crashing down, the family rings up the hospital to send an ambulance. However, the line being busy, a police ambulance is rather sent to the house. With the ambulance comes the …

Two Books by Clifford Witting : Measure for Murder by (1941) and Subject-Murder (1945)

For years, I had been searching for books by British writer, Clifford Witting. This year finally I was able to read two of his books. I suppose, he said over his shoulder, we all have our own particular hell. Measure for Murder can be called a theatrical mystery because Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is being …

Classics Club #A1: Dasa Kumara Charitam by Dandin

Sanskrit is one of the most ancient languages of the world. I am in awe of the power of its words as manifested in the innumerable mantrs, strotas, and raags. It is a matter of regret for me that in school I never tried to learn the language properly and now can only rely on …

#1929 Club: The Barrakee Mystery by Arthur Upfield and The Patient in Room 18 by Mignon G. Eberhart

Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte, born to a White father and an Australian Aboriginal woman, had been on my wishlist for a long time. I was curious to read a 'mixed-race' protagonist when the detectives were, for the most part, propah British gentlemen. So when the 1929 club approached and I saw that Bony's debut was in …

#1929 Club: The Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne

British author, Molly Thynne had long been on my reading radar but it was a compelling review by my blogging friend, Rekha [Check out her wonderful blog @ The Book Decoder] that finally pushed me into reading her. When the novel begins, we are aboard The Enriqueta, a luxury-liner, on its way from Buenos Aires …