The Awful Truth

Willard Huntington Wright, slightly better known nowadays as S.S. Van Dine, is a prime example of a writer going from riches to rags. While his first detective novel, The Benson Murder Case, sold by the thousands and was followed by several other best sellers, he died broke and near forgotten. Even worse, later critics and …

Chained to the Sleuth

The news of Lee Child "bequeathing" Jack Reacher to his brother so that he can be free at last to write what he wants the way he wants has come as a surprise and a shock to many in the crime fiction community even though it demonstrates once again that a series character, while a …

Sunday Thoughts – the Puzzle Edition

Nothing I think illustrates better the evolution of both "Patrick Quentin" and their most popular character than the opening of the penultimate entry in the Puzzle series, Run to Death: I saw her hand fist. It settled close to my shoulder on the window frame of the car. It was slender, rather beautiful, unexpectedly white …

The Good, The Bad and the Bland

The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid …

The Mystery of the Mysterious Mystery

You're really missing on something if you're not a member of the Golden Age of Detection Facebook group - first because I'm a very active poster there and second because the ratio of great posts and interesting discussions is extremely high. We even have some  controversy sometimes, though never escalating into outright flame wars - …

Sunday Thoughts – The Return

(Perhaps you thought - you hoped - that two weeks without my Sunday ramblings meant the feature had been discontinued. Let me reassure - or disappoint - you that it is not the case. I'm now back with more unrequired and preferably controversial opinion stated as fact but still open to reasonable discussion. Okay? So …

The Ten, 2019 Edition

So 2019 is ending and I'm back once again with my Top 10 reads of the year. Same old, same old, you probably think - and you are wrong. The exercise this year was unusually trying and difficult for me first because of the number of candidates (2019 was a great year overall with very …