#1940 Club: The Great Mistake by Mary Roberts Rinehart & The Hangman’s Whip by Mignon G. Eberhart

As we approach the end of the #1940 Club, here are two American mysteries that I read for the event both of which have for their protagonist, a Miss Abbott. Pat Abbott who has seen her family fortunes plummet down and the death of her parents is happy when she is chosen as secretary by …

#1940 Club: Wilson and Some Others by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole

Wilson and Some Others is a short story collection by the husband-wife duo of G.D.H and Margaret Cole. The crime club title, erroneously referred to as a novel, consists of 13 stories, of which seven belong to the Coles' series character, Inspector Wilson. In Death in the Tankard, a man is poisoned in a crowded, …

#1940 Club: The Norths Meet Murder by Frances and Richard Lockridge and The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes

It is the second day of the #1940 Club and time to look at two debuts. The Norths husband-wife detective duo had long been on my wishlist and when I saw that their career in detection began in 1940, I immediately decided to read it for the club. Mr. North comes home one day, tired …

#1940 Club: At a House Called Hassocks by Marigold Watney

I am starting my journey of the #1940 club - jointly hosted @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings & Stuck in a Book - with a forgotten book: At a House Called Hassocks written by Marigold Watney. Annabel Lee, daughter of the famous painter, Llewhellen Lee, realises upon her father's sudden death that she has been left …

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 …

Three Black Mysteries: Black Corridors (1940), Black Thumb (1942), and Black Curl (1953)

Australian sisters, Constance and Gwenyth (or Conyth, as they were collectively called) are on the list of my favourite authors and it is always wonderful to come across their books. Earlier, this year, I read The Black Dream and here are three more of their mysteries that I read this year (in the order I …

Locked-Room: The Double Turn by Carol Carnac (1956)

Adrian Delafield, once a great-in-demand painter of the Victorian era, now lives a secluded life at Firenze at St. John's Wood, looked after by his devoted maid, Miss Trimming. Trimming who is a religious fanatic keeps him away from 'the evils of the world'; one of those evils apparently being Delafield's own daughter, Virgilia Delafield, …

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 …

Growing-Pains: The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden (1958)

Thirteen year old Cecil Grey and her siblings, sixteen year old, Joss, ten year old Hester, and the littles, Willmouse and Vicky are taken to Compiègne, France one hot summer by their mother. Mrs. Grey whose husband is a botanist and is usually busy in expeditions abroad, feels that the children are becoming unruly and …