First Read of 2022: Shahid Sukh Dev by Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich (2016)

Of the three young men who were hanged by the British Colonial Government on 23rd March 1931, a lot is known about Bhagat Singh (1907-1931) with many books written and films produced on him. The same however cannot be said of his two comrades, Rajguru (1908-1931) and Sukhdev (1907-1931) who died alongside him. https://mobile.twitter.com/sauravk1890/status/1128521900383096832 Professor …

New Books

I am in love with old, dusty books but sometimes am seduced by shiny new books. Here are brief notes on such books, all barring one read this year: Asylum by Madeleine Roux (2013) I must admit that this novel is not meant for somebody of my age. Had I been a young teenager, I'd …

Friday’s Forgotten Books: And Call it Accident and The Injured Lover by Marie Belloc Lowndes (1936)

Ruth Starling a young American girl finds herself a multi-millionaire when a distant relative dies leaving her half his fortune. Ruth who has always dreamt of becoming an actress now moves to England willing to make a career on stage, undeterred by the miserable flopping of her debut play in the States. Her lawyer puts …

Friday’s Forgotten Books: Bury Him Darkly (1936) and The High Sheriff (1937) by Henry Wade

According to Wikipedia, Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 6th Baronet KStJ CVO DSO (10 September 1887 – 30 May 1969), also known by his pen name Henry Wade, was Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire from 1954 to 1961. He was also one of the leading authors during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It is his …

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 …

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, …

Forgotten Books: Two Novels by Miles Burton

MR. WESTERBY MISSING (1940) Has it ever happened that you have wanted to shake the police-man sleuth in a novel, asking him to wake up? He is one of the finest, an officer of Scotland Yard, and yet why is he so clueless? It happened to me in John Rhode’s The Murders in Praed Street …