Posted August 9, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Trent's Last Case
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 224
Series: Philip Trent #1 Rating: 
Synopsis: Written in reaction to what Bentley perceived as the sterility and artificiality of the detective fiction of his day, Trent's Last Case features Philip Trent, an all-too-human detective who not only falls in love with the chief suspect but reaches a brilliant conclusion that is totally wrong.
Trentās Last Case begins when millionaire American financier Sigsbee Manderson is murdered while on holiday in England. A London newspaper sends Trent to investigate, and he is soon matching wits with Scotland Yard's Inspector Murth as they probe ever deeper in search of a solution to a mystery filled with odd, mysterious twists and turns.
Called by Agatha Christie "one of the best detective stories ever written," Trent's Last Case delights with its flesh-and-blood characters, its naturalness and easy humor, and its style, which, as Dorothy Sayers has noted, "ranges from a vividly coloured rhetoric to a delicate and ironical literary fancy."
I was very curious to read E.C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case, knowing that Dorothy L. Sayers greatly admired it. It’s definitely more in Sayers’ line than, say, Christie’s or Marsh’s, with a detective character who shares some DNA with Sayers’ Wimsey. He’s not quite as clearly characterised as Peter begins to be, and his piffle isn’t quite as outrageous, but he’s a definite precursor.
That said, the pacing feels really slow, and I found Trent a mite less charming. It’s always uncomfortable when a private detective character withholds information from the police, and that thread of the story (Trent’s interactions with Murch) swiftly disappeared in a way that felt outright odd, even if Trent decided not to share his info. The police are just letting you run around all over the place, are they? And you’re the only one who thought about fingerprints? And you’re going to keep quiet when you’re fairly certain about a murderer? Hmmm.
The other way in which this is like Sayers’ work is that the detective has a love story, and as in Strong Poison, it’s pretty intimately tied up with the mystery plot. It’s resolved within the book, though, rather than being something that develops well over time.
Overall, I did enjoy reading this; there are some bits of scene-setting and characterisation that feel really vivid, and the mystery is fun once we get somewhere with it. I’d read more of Bentley’s work.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, E.C. Bentley, mystery
Posted July 29, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Tour de Force
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 272
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: 
Synopsis: Inspector Cockrillās dull vacation is jolted by a Mediterranean murder. From the moment he steps on the plane, Inspector Cockrill loathes his fellow travelers. They are typical tour group bores: the dullards of England whom he had hoped to escape by going to Italy. He gives up on the trip immediately, burying his nose in a mystery novel to ensure that no one tries to become his friend. But not long after the group makes landfall at the craggy isle of San Juan el Pirata, a murder demands his attention. The body of a woman is found laid out carefully on her bed, blood pooled around her and fingers wrapped around the dagger that took her life. The corrupt local police force, impatient to find a killer, names Cockrill chief suspect. To escape the Italian hangman, the detective must find out who would go on vacation to kill a stranger.
Christianna Brand’sĀ Tour de Force was her final novel featuring Inspector Cockrill, and it features Cockie on an actual holiday! Naturally, it’s going to turn into a busman’s holiday, and you know that from the start: you’re just left to guess at exactly how the tensions are going to rupture and who exactly will die. It’s a fairly typical collection of characters: someone’s in love with someone’s husband, someone’s a fortune hunter, someone’s an old spinster, someone’s a detective…
I think my problem with Christianna Brand is that there’s something so deeply cynical about her writing. I always compare her with E.C.R. Lorac, where I think sometimes Lorac tends the other way too much (but that’s much more pleasant to read). It feels like everyone in Brand’s work has ulterior motives, and she doesn’t seem to have liked other women very much. Leo Rodd’s a cheat and deeply bitter due to his disability, but it’s Vanda Lane, Helen Rodd, Miss Trapp and Louvaine Barker that have their weaknesses and foibles truly exposed. Not that Brand had a great deal of sympathy for the men either, but the nature of their flaws feel different, and the spotlight less cruel.
In the end, as well, Cockrill’s simply not that great a detective here, and his blindness is just frustrating — and because of a pretty face? Meh.
I always want to like Brand’s work a lot more than I do, but here we are.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, Christianna Brand, crime, mystery
Posted July 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Summers End
Genres: Crime,
Fantasy,
Mystery Pages: 265
Series: Shady Hollow #5 Rating: 
Synopsis: A unique take on dark academia, featuring everyoneās favorite vulpine sleuth, Vera Vixen.
Itās late August in Shady Hollow, and the heat has intrepid reporter Vera Vixen eager to get away. She agrees to chaperone the annual field trip to Summers End, an ancient tomb built by an early woodland culture, along with her good friend Lenore Lee to come with her.
But when the two enter the tomb, they find bones that are distinctly moreā¦modern. Digging a little deeper, Vera and Lenore discover that the deceased was involved in a recent excavation at the site, and very unpopular with their colleagues. Now the fox and raven have to delve into the dark world of academia and archaeology to determine which creature thought they were clever enough to get away with the perfect murder.
Summers End is the latest in Juneau Black’s Shady Hollow series, and it takes the story out of the immediate environs of Shady Hollow, to a nearby archaeological site which has obvious analogues with sites like Stonehenge and Newgrange: it’s both a tomb and a calendar, surrounded by ritual and stories. Vera and Lenore are there to chaperone some kids to see the site and learn about it, and have a little bit of a holiday.
And of course there’s a murder, and of course Vera Vixen has to be in on it — not least because, predictably, someone important to her is involved (if only by proxy). We learn a little more about Lenore, and about her sister, who ends up accused of the murder. It’s a neat way of taking us out of Shady Hollow and ensuring that it doesn’t feel too much like the supposedly friendly little town is rife with crime (same with the previous book, which turned out to be a very different sort of crime).
I enjoyed the setting, though the dramatic denouement started pushing into being a little too much. I was surprised that we didn’t see more of Orville, but on reflection it’s actually quite nice to still see Vera operating separately — she’s an independent fox, and while she enjoys partnering up with Orville (inasfar as that’s appropriate given she’s aĀ reporter, not part of the police), it’s nice to see her going solo. Or, as in this case, with her own sidekick.
If the other books in the series leave you cold, I doubt this’ll change things, but I found it a fun installment.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Juneau Black, mystery, SF/F
Posted July 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Curiosity Killed The Cat
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 276
Series: Inspector Cam #1 Rating: Synopsis: Little Biggling: a village that had been taken over by The Ministry of Scientific Research during the Second World War ... and after the War the Ministry had stayed on, much to the annoyance of several of the residents. However, being annoyed was one thing, being murdered quite another. It seemed that one of the members of the Civil Service who billeted in the village had been a little too curious about everybody and everything in Little Biggling, and there was a terrible price to pay. Inspector Cam found that he wasn't getting much help in finding the person who had most to hide...
Joan Cockin’sĀ Curiosity Killed the Cat was pretty good: set in the aftermath of WWII, but still echoing with it, as many of the characters are part of a scientific unit doing research related to the war/recovery from the war, and living with a lot of secrets and inconvenience. That made for an interesting setting.
The characters were enjoyable enough too: Inspector Cam isn’t too fond of working hard, and would rather stay an Inspector and avoid working on such big cases as murder — but he does his duty and works hard at figuring out the mystery, which makes him perhaps a little more real than detectives who just enter the stage as police officers without much real life around them. I wouldn’t say that the characters are all really fleshed out, but there’s enough there to be enjoyable, and to care about Charity and Robarts and Ratcliffe.
It’s hard sometimes to say what counts as a three-star or a four-star book, and to compare between books to figure out what to rate them. In the end, though, I kept wanting to read more, “just a little bit more”, and figure out the mystery, and I do want to read Cockin’s other books — so four stars it is.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Joan Cockin, mystery
Posted July 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Foreign Bodies
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: Today, translated crime fiction is in vogue - but this was not always the case. A century before Scandi noir, writers across Europe and beyond were publishing detective stories of high quality. Often these did not appear in English and they have been known only by a small number of experts. This is the first ever collection of classic crime in translation from the golden age of the genre in the 20th century. Many of these stories are exceptionally rare, and several have been translated for the first time to appear in this volume. Martin Edwards has selected gems of classic crime from Denmark to Japan and many points in between. Fascinating stories give an insight into the cosmopolitan cultures (and crime-writing traditions) of diverse places including Mexico, France, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands.
Foreign Bodies, edited as usual by Martin Edwards, is an interesting addition to the British Library Crime Classics series. The series normally focuses on British work or at least work published in English, but this series of short stories is from the same era but in translation, by a range of writers that are much less familiar.
It was an interesting choice, and it was fascinating to see some familiar tropes and themes from a slightly different angle. I was horrified at the punctuation of two of the stories, and I don’t understand why it wasn’t edited — when you’re writing dialogue, the punctuation goesĀ inside the quotation marks. It was really jarring to read. I don’t mean to be prescriptivist, but it jumps out because it’s so far out of the ordinary.
A fascinating collection, though to those who are purists about what should be included in the British Library Crime Classics series, undoubtedly an annoying aberration.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, mystery
Posted June 24, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Death Came Softly
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 251
Rating: Synopsis: This crime puzzle features Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald, who is a āLondon Scotā and an avowed bachelor with a love for walking in the English countryside. But what will he make of the body found dead in a cave?
Death Comes Softly has a lot to recommend it; if it weren’t an E.C.R. Lorac book, it’d unquestionably be four stars, whereas as it is I’m weighing in the balance with her other books and wondering if four stars is quite fair. Sometimes when I’m reading classic crime, I’m just looking for a mystery with all the traditional bells and whistles, and that’ll be satisfying in and of itself. It feels like with E.C.R. Lorac’s work, I look for a little more.
Still, with her usual skill she summons up a landscape that feels beautiful, peaceful and real — and a group of characters who also feel like humans. Macdonald is, as ever, a fundamentally decent person, and Lorac’s usual ability to make her characters feel memorable and worth knowing is present too.
I tumbled to the why of the mystery quicker than the how, and feel like maybe it could’ve used a little more hinting. Mind you, maybe when it was written this kind of thing would’ve been more obvious. I’ve never handled a charcoal brazier at all, after all.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, E.C.R. Lorac, mystery
Posted June 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Lost Gallows
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: John Dickson Carr lays on the macabre atmosphere again in this follow up to It Walks by Night in which Inspector Bencolin attempts to piece together a puzzle involving a disappearing street, a set of gallows which mysteriously reveals itself to a number of figures traipsing through the London fog, and the bizarre suggestion that a kind of fictional bogeyman, Jack Ketch, may be afoot and in the business of wanton execution. An early gem from one of the great writers of the genre. Also includes the rare Bencolin short story "The Ends of Justice."
The Lost Gallows is, I think, one of John Dickson Carr’s earlier novels, so I went in with fairly low expectations — the melodrama and bombast of his other Bencolin books isn’t entirely for me, but he’s still a plotter of ingenious mysteries. I don’t know if it was because I went in fully prepared for that, or maybe I’ve learned more sympathy through enjoying his later books, but this one wasn’t so bad.
It is of course very colourful and highly dramatic, with some surprisingly prosaic explanations; it’s full of atmosphere, using the London fog as a device in a similar way (though a very different tone) to Christianna Brand’sĀ London Particular. It’s funny thinking about how ubiquitous that fog was, and yet I can barely imagine fog being so thick, so awful.
If you like a bit of adventure in your mystery novels, this one has that as well — the narrator puts himself in the thick of things, and there are a couple of very breathless scenes.
It all ends up feeling almost too prosaic for the fantastic atmosphere, but it works out interestingly enough.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, John Dickson Carr, mystery
Posted June 9, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Final Acts: Theatrical Mysteries
Genres: Crime,
Mystery,
Short Stories Pages: 347
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: "ā¦ and what a motive! Murder to save one's artistic soulā¦ who'd believe that?"
Behind the stage lights and word-perfect soliloquies, sinister secrets are lurking in the wings. The mysteries in this collection reveal the dark side to theatre and performing arts: a world of backstage dealings, where unscrupulous actors risk everything to land a starring role, costumed figures lead to mistaken identities, and on-stage deaths begin to look a little too convincing...
This expertly curated thespian anthology features fourteen stories from giants of the classic crime genre such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Julian Symons and Ngaio Marsh, as well as firm favourites from the British Library Crime Classics series: Anthony Wynne, Christianna Brand, Bernard J. Farmer and many more.
Mysteries abound when a player's fate hangs on a single performance, and opening night may very well be their last.
Final Acts is another collection from the British Library Crime Classics series, edited as always by Martin Edwards, and this time all themed around the theatre and acting. It’s a fun spread of stories, not all using the theatre in quite the same way, and as usual demonstrating a bit of a spread across time as well.
The one thing to note is that there’s a repeat story in here, by Christianna Brand. I’m not sure which other anthology it appeared in, or whether it was maybe included with one of her novels, and I’m also not sure (because of that) whether this is the repeat or the other is the repeat. Still, bit disappointing.
Still, as usual, a fun handful of stories.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, short stories
Posted June 3, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Murder in the Basement
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 224
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: When two newlyweds discover that a corpse has been buried in the basement of their new home, a gruelling case begins to trace the identity of the victim. With all avenues of investigation approaching exhaustion, a tenuous piece of evidence offers a chance for Chief Inspector Moresby and leads him to the amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham, who has recently been providing cover work in a school south of London.
Desperate for evidence of any kind on the basement case, Moresby begins to sift through the manuscript of a satirical novel Sheringham has been writing about his colleagues at the school, convinced that amongst the colourful cast of teachers hides the victim ā and perhaps their murderer.
A novel pairing dark humour and intelligent detection work, this 1932 āwhowasdunin?ā mystery is an example of a celebrated Golden Age authorās most inventive work.
Anthony Berkeley was aĀ clever writer, and never one to rest on his laurels. I’m not a fan of his detectives, nor particularly the way he wrote female characters, but Murder in the Basement was structured really interestingly, and it’s not the first book by him that played around with structure which I’ve read. In this case, the middle section of the book is a fictionalisation of the chief suspects, written by Roger Sheringham before the crime was committed, and which allows us to begin to guess at the motives — and identity — of both murderer and victim.
I found it a little frustrating to go so long without being able to guess even who the victim was, and I’m not certain that part was really fair-play. But perhaps it’d have made it too obvious too soon to reveal it earlier…
Anyway, the story itself is fascinating, and Berkeley’s playing around with the rules of the genre as well, so it’s not the cosy and neatly contained package that some classic mysteries are. I definitely admired it, even as I wished he could just onceĀ like a woman and portray one positively!
Rating: 4/5
Tags: Anthony Berkeley, book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, mystery
Posted May 31, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
We Only Kill Each Other
Genres: Crime,
Graphic Novels,
Historical Fiction Pages: 136
Rating: Synopsis: With World War II on the horizon, Nazi sympathizers and fascists have taken root on American soil in alarming numbers, intending to push the U.S. towards and alliance with Germany.
When the lone hope of stopping the American Nazi movement falls to Jewish-American gangsters currently entrenched in a violent turf war, the gangsters find that thereās only one thing they hate more than each other: Nazis.
We Only Kill Each Other is set during the run-up to World War II, featuring two Jewish characters who are asked to use their skills (beating people up, intimidation and other forms of violence) to defuse the Nazi presence in their city in the US. They’re at loggerheads, however, and make unlikely allies.
It’s not a period I read much about, and as the narrative makes clear, there are no heroes here — these guys are not upstanding normal citizens, but a thug and a gang boss who happen to be Jewish. I read it more because it was there and I could read it for free than out of interest in the story based on the summary, so it’s worth keeping in mind that I’m not exactly the target audience.
And indeed, I found it mostly just… alright? The characters bonded in the end (because of course), and they did indeed manage to beat the Nazis (good) at least in this limited way (thwarting an assassination that would’ve been great for them). The art and writing were okay, but nothing that stood out. I admit to very little knowledge about the quality of the representation of the Jewish characters and whether it plays into any stereotyping.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, crime, graphic novels, historical fiction
