Genre: Mystery

Review – Unravelled Knots

Posted May 30, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Unravelled Knots

Unravelled Knots

by Emmuska Orczy

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 288
Series: The Old Man in the Corner #3
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Unravelled Knots, created by Baroness Orczy, author of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel series, contains thirteen short stories about Bill Owen, aka The Old Man in the Corner, Orzy's armchair detective who solves crimes for his own entertainment.

His listener and protégé is the attractive young journalist Polly Burton. Polly brings him details of obscure crimes baffling the police, which he helps her to solve. She is fascinated by the unlikely unravelings she hears, but despite her sarcasm and pride in her own investigative talents she remains the learner, impressed in spite of herself.

This is the last of three books of short stories featuring the detective and follows on from those in The Old Man In the Corner and The Case of Miss Elliot.

Emmuska Orczy’s “Old Man in the Corner” stories have an interesting format, whereby the Old Man sits in a teashop and explains various criminal cases that have puzzled the police to a young female journalist. Unravelled Knots contains the last of the stories, with the final one ending on a curious note — it’s not common for the detective in mysteries of this period to be potentially the actual criminal, though there are other examples (Agatha Christie having famously done it, too).

I’m not a huge fan of the Old Man in the Corner and the “solving cases by logic” method he uses, which I’d encountered several times before in various anthologies in the British Library Crime Classics series. There’s not much of a continuous story, and the narrator is mostly a non-entity, so it’s probably better encountered in that bitesize way if you’re not really a fan of that format.

The most interesting thing about reading it like this for me was that ending and the note of ambiguity there. Definitely an interesting way to end things.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Advocate

Posted May 29, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Advocate

Advocate

by Daniel M. Ford

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery
Pages: 496
Series: The Warden #3
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Aelis de Lenti is back on her home turf, but it's not quite as welcoming as she remembered....

Recalled from Lone Pine to investigate claims of murder by magic against her mentor—legendary Warden Bardun Jacques—Aelis takes to the streets of the grand city of Lascenise, and plumbs the deepest secrets of the Lyceum to clear his name. Certain of her success, she doesn't count on thieves, subterranean labyrinths, or the assassins that dog her steps from the moment she leaves her tower.

Behind all of it lurks a ring of unknown wizards who can seemingly reach anyone with their magic. Without knowing who she can trust, Aelis must gather what allies she can to unravel the web of intrigue, murder, smuggling, and theft originating in the halls of magic power. With an old friend from her college days, a war-haunted gnome thief-catcher, and the advice of her imprisoned advisor, Aelis races to save lives and expose a conspiracy that seeks to change the face of the world.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

In some ways, Daniel M. Ford’s Advocate was enfuriating. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still enjoying the story and the world, but everything Aelis’ friends and allies point out to her about not planning ahead, being a bull in a china shop, trampling on other people on her way up — it’s all true, and Aelis hears it and is hurt by it and claims to take it on board… and then keeps doing it!

If she could plan ahead just a little, use her allegedly amazing brain just a bit, she could see so much of this coming, including each of the obvious-as-heck twists at the end.

want Aelis to be brilliant, once-in-a-generation, able to kick anyone’s ass, but I do want her to earn it. She keeps saying that she has, but then she gets by on vibes, large amounts of money spread around, and what seems like frankly unearned loyalty from her friends and family. She is a good healer, and I mean both technically skilled and driven to help people regardless of their status, station or feelings toward her — even when they’ve wronged her. She’s also loyal to Bardun Jacques, her teacher, but unfortunately to the point of stepping on everyone else’s faces to help him (including people she also owes loyalty). She doesn’t deserve Miralla’s friendship, in particular. And she sees literally nothing coming until way too late.

Sometimes Ford does lampshade this by having her friends say so, but they remain her friends and support her cause and forgive her, no matter what happens, so it doesn’t have much bite.

The more I think about it, the more annoying I found this in Advocate. Aelis just isn’t learning, and we’re three books in. I’d read the next book, because the magic systems of this world are cool, and Aelis’ passion for being a warden and serving people is enjoyable to read about… but in the next book I need to see Aelis face some actual consequences or grow up, or I might have to be done with the series.

It was cool to see the Lyceum, learn more about some of the Archmagisters, and see a bit of the world outside of Lone Pine, though.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Banquet Ceases

Posted May 25, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Banquet Ceases

The Banquet Ceases

by Mary Fitt

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 247
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

It is 1947 and a sumptuous banquet at Fairfield Manor is underway to celebrate Bernard Smith-William's recovery from a serious illness. Among the guests are Bernard's childhood friend Rupert Lavering and his wife Louise. A war veteran and recipient of the Victoria Cross, Rupert has had trouble adjusting to peacetime, and was given a loan by Bernard to get started as a stockbroker six months previously. The wealthy Bernard is obsessed with Louise and uses the evening to separate the couple, threatening to ruin Lavering's new business unless she agrees to divorce Rupert and marry him. Louise refuses and Bernard takes action, but the next morning he is found poisoned in his study. Circumstances initially point to Rupert, but it turns out several of the guests at Fairfield Manor have grievances against Bernard Smith-Williams, and that anyone in the house could have accessed the atropine that killed him.

I’d never heard of Mary Fitt, a queer mystery writer (and scholar) who grew up and lived in Wales (though she was born in Birmingham). It seems kinda weird, having read The Banquet Ceases, that the British Library Crime Classics haven’t republished anything of hers, because it seems right in line with their usual stuff — but fortunately Moonstone Press have, which gave me a chance to try this out.

It’s very Golden/Silver Age in setup, but I felt it had slightly more interest in the psychology of the characters than some. I felt like I got to know Rupert and Louise, and the victim’s mother, in a way I hadn’t expected to — and it was very much from their point of view, not the detectives. I believe the police officer Mallett is Fitt’s recurring detective, but we get very little from his point of view.

The way it works out is a bit odd/atypical, too; we don’t get a real final answer to the crime until after the mystery has wrapped up with the suicide of the suspect, which looks like an admission of guilt.

Overall I found it an engaging mystery, and interesting as someone who’s studied crime fiction as well. I’ll definitely look for more of Fitt’s work; several of them are (like The Banquet Ceases) on Kobo Plus, so there’s plenty of scope for me to explore!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Metropolitan Mysteries

Posted May 20, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Metropolitan Mysteries

Metropolitan Mysteries: A Casebook of London's Detectives

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 316
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Lord Peter Wimsey reads murder in the minutiae of a Bloomsbury kitchen. Dr. Gideon Fell unravels a locked-room mystery from a flat in Chelsea. Superintendent Aldgate cracks the case of the body atop Nelson’s Column.

The streets of London have been home to many great detectives since the days of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, with some of the best authors in the genre taking to the short story form to pit their sleuths against crimes ranging from murders on the Tube to heists from the capital’s finest jewellers.

Featuring a roster of Scotland Yard’s meticulous best, a cohort of daring doctors and a cadre of characterful private investigators, this new selection by Martin Edwards includes eighteen vintage mystery stories from a period between 1908 and 1963 to showcase the city’s most compelling classic cases.

With contributions by Margery Allingham, John Dickson Carr and Dorothy L. Sayers along with rare finds by Raymond Postgate, J. Jefferson Farjeon and many more, this anthology invites you to join some of the greatest detectives ever written on their perilous trail through London’s darker underside.

Metropolitan Mysteries is another anthology edited by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics series, this time themed around London’s fictional detectives. Some of the famous ones are here, of course — Wimsey, Holmes — but some more obscure ones as well. As usual with this series’ anthologies, it’s an interesting survey of the “classic” crime fiction (though I think “classic” is a bit tired and ill-defined when it comes to this series: Golden/Silver Age would be a better descriptor, perhaps).

Also as usual with these anthologies, I think it’s greater than the sum of its parts. I’d read some of the stories before, but some of the others are of surprising interest, and altogether it’s a bit like a series of taster dishes for different authors and slightly different phases of crime fiction.

There are some stories that are better than others (I thought the Allingham one was pretty weakly related, just included just to shoehorn Campion into it, just barely), but as a whole it’s fun.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Scandalize My Name

Posted May 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Scandalize My Name

Scandalize My Name

by Fiona Sinclair

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 240
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

One the eve of Elaine Southey's 21st birthday, Ivan Sweet has been found dead in his flat in the basement of the Southeys' historic north London home. A slick charmer to some of the tenants and a loathsome young scoundrel to others his death doesn't draw out many tears among the house's residents and neighbours. And yet the sordid truth starts to seep into the heart of their small community a murder is living among them, and who's to say when they might strike again? The shrewd Oxford man Superintendent Paul Grainger finds himself faced with a small circle of suspects whose connections and hidden motives heap complexity upon complexity in this tightly wrought mystery, shot through with a chilling touch of the macabre.

Fiona Sinclair’s Scandalize My Name feels very much on the cusp between “Golden Age” styles of mystery fiction and the more modern gritty crime. There’s a detailed and explicit autopsy scene, which is definitely not something I expected from something in this series, but there’s still a sense of an individual police officer going about the normal beat. Grainger’s not a world away from Lorac’s Macdonald at all, they’re very much in the same mode, even if the story has a lot more gruesome detail.

Overall, I think this one didn’t give enough clues to tie the solution of the mystery in with the rest. There was a rather sudden and very dramatic denouement which revealed the killer, but it didn’t really feel like the plot had got there yet — the denouement revealed the killer, rather than the detective.

There were some interesting character portraits, but I think it mostly felt a bit thin — maybe, as the introduction by Martin Edwards says, because there’s too many characters introduced and used as POV characters, and too much swapping around between them. That said, that doesn’t feel too unusual for a mystery story.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Not To Be Taken

Posted May 10, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Not To Be Taken

Not To Be Taken

by Anthony Berkeley

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 256
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A classic case of the apparent suicide that proves to be murder. John Waterhouse's death certificate gives cause of death as gastric ulcers, but when his brother insists on the body being exhumed so that a post mortem can be carried out, it proves the case that poison has been at work. Will Douglas Sewell, who watched his good friend die, be able to use his knowledge of those concerned to unravel the clues and uncover the murderer?

Anthony Berkeley’s books can be a bit hit or miss for me, apparently: there’s one I quickly gave up on for bizarre misogynistic shenanigans, and others that I really liked. Not to be Taken is one of the latter: it’s a slow-moving, contemplative one, a fair-play mystery very deliberately set up for the audience to guess, because it was originally a competition!

The female characters are mostly handled with respect, except the hypochondriac Angela, but I think that’s mostly because she’s a hypochondriac, and it’s basically about two microns away from being “hysteria”. (Or you could view her as deliberately manipulative, and not really a hypochondriac — which is a mental illness which deserves sympathy and treatment — but I’m not sure she’s meant to be doing it deliberately.)

The main character, the accidental detective, isn’t an amazing detective, but nor is he a completely dim “Watson” type, which I found interesting as well. For Berkeley’s purposes in writing a solveable mystery, he has to have enough intelligence to be observant, and it’s clear he’s rather underestimated by the culprit — while not really being on their intellectual level, perhaps.

The edition from British Library Crime Classic includes the final chapter (presumably not originally published with it, since it contains the solution) and a report by Anthony Berkeley on the submissions for the contest. It’s interesting to me that nobody understood the full solution (and I wouldn’t have either), considering that people so often complain about mysteries being totally predictable.

It was a playful time for mystery fiction, and that’s always really fascinating to read.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – A Drop of Corruption

Posted May 9, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – A Drop of Corruption

A Drop of Corruption

by Robert Jackson Bennett

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery
Pages: 454
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan #2
Rating: five-stars
Synopsis:

An impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air – abducted from his quarters in a building whose entrances and exits are all sealed.

The brilliant and mercurial investigator, Ana Dolabra, and her assistant Dinios Kol have been called in to crack the case.

Before long, Ana discovers that they’re actually investigating a murder. Worse, the adversary seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Ana’s solved impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and the investigators seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, has Ana finally met an enemy she can’t defeat?

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A Drop of Corruption is a wonderful follow-up to the first book, The Tainted Cup. I’ve had the same experience with all of Robert Jackson Bennett’s books that I’ve read so far: I sink right into them and want to gobble them up, and this was no exception. To be very reductive, you might say it’s basically Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy world, but I think you’d be doing it a disservice: it’s imagining a whole fantasy world in which someone manufactured to be like Sherlock Holmes has a place and function. It’s not a retelling, not even close.

The world it’s set in is fascinating, and it expands a bit more in this installment, as we explore a kingdom not yet absorbed into the Empire but on the cusp of being so, and also get a step closer to the leviathans that haunt the edges of both books and threaten Din and Ana’s world. Din’s had a bit longer to settle into the work now, so we also follow his struggle with accepting that this is all he can do, that he and Ana will come in after the fact, and cannot prevent murders, only explain them, maybe avert some of the consequences of them and further tragedies.

In this one, Ana has an opponent a bit more worthy of her, as well. I think the only thing that didn’t quite work for me is that I could also make the leap that Ana does in figuring out the culprit and (to be euphemistic about the solution) what Thelenai needs to do, and I don’t think the reader should be able to when it’s described the way it is here. Ana is something else, and if anything the Sherlock Holmes thing also falls apart here, because she’s capable of not just connecting patterns and making logical inferences like anyone can, she’s capable of connecting the tiniest stray facts, seeing patterns that require her to tiptoe right up to total madness.

But overall I was fixated, really loved it. It’s not perfect, perhaps (nothing is), but it was a wonderful experience that exactly matched what I wanted to read right now.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Rocket to the Morgue

Posted May 5, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Rocket to the Morgue

Rocket to the Morgue

by Anthony Boucher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 264
Series: Sister Ursula #2
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Legendary science fiction author Fowler Faulkes may be dead, but his creation, the iconic Dr. Derringer, lives on in popular culture. Or, at least, the character would live on if not for Faulkes's predatory and greedy heir Hilary, who, during his time as the inflexible guardian of the estate, has created countless enemies in the relatively small community of writers of the genre. So when he is stabbed nearly to death in a room with only one door, which nobody was seen entering or exiting, Foulkes suspects a writer. Fearing that the assailant will return, he asks for police protection, and when more potentially-fatal encounters follow, it becomes clear to Detective Terry Marshall and his assistant, the inquisitive nun, Sister Ursula, that death awaits Mr. Foulkes around every corner. Now, they'll have to work overtime to thwart the would-be murderer--a task that requires a deep dive into the strange, idiosyncratic world of science fiction in its early days.

With characters based heavily on Anthony Boucher's friends at the Manana Literary Society, including Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and Jack Parsons, Rocket to the Morgue is both a classic locked room mystery and an enduring portrait of a real-life writing community. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, the book is a must-read for fans of mysteries and science fiction alike.

Rocket to the Morgue is the first book by Anthony Boucher that I’ve read, though there’s a previous book in this series that I think provides a bit more context for some of the characters. It’s mostly readable as a standalone, though, and makes fascinating use of Boucher’s involvement in SF/F pulps: some of the characters are pretty clearly very closely related to people like Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard, and there’s a lively knowledge of how the market worked in those days that shapes the mystery and the characters.

That does add a large amount of the interest, though, and I wonder how it feels for those who have absolutely no interest in the genre, or no interest in that era of the genre (which I’m sure means more to my mother than it does to me).

I did enjoy some of the characters, though; the detective’s relationship with his wife and children are a surprisingly tender touch, from the start right through the story. It’s especially rare in a mystery novel, where often the wife and children are just waiting at home at the end of the day — but here the detective gets involved with bathing, changing and feeding the baby. It was rather sweet, and seemed to be written by an experienced father.

The mystery itself is a locked room mystery, but the explanation wasn’t too contrived and it all hung together well enough for me. I’m not wildly enthusiastic, but I would be curious to read the first book and any follow-ups, or at least give a couple of them a try.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Scarhaven Keep

Posted April 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Scarhaven Keep

Scarhaven Keep

by J.S. Fletcher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 243
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

When the great actor, Bassett Oliver, who was a martinet for punctuality, failed to turn up to a rehearsal which he himself had called, his business manager guessed that something had happened. It had. But it took more than one set of brains to discover the truth, and another set of very curious circumstances was mixed up in it. Copplestone, the young dramatist, helping to solve the mystery, found himself suddenly in love; and the solution and his happiness were discovered together.

J.S. Fletcher’s Scarhaven Keep is a fairly standard classic mystery, with the expected sort of elements: a mysterious disappearance, a picturesque site for a mystery, issues of inheritance, mistaken identity/impersonation, amateur detectives, and even a damsel in distress and a touch of romance.

It does all of those things perfectly competently for the period, without really standing out. I did appreciate that the female character who ends up in distress is actually not super distressed about it, probably more level-headed than the guys, and certainly there was no swooning. I appreciated that quite a bit.

Overall, it’s not one that stands out for me, but it was enjoyable in the way I find many classic mysteries: it did mostly what was expected of it, and there’s a happy ending for the “goodies” (except, of course, in that someone has been killed). I wouldn’t turn down reading something else by Fletcher.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Strange Pictures

Posted April 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Strange Pictures

Strange Pictures

by Uketsu

Genres: Crime, Horror, Mystery
Pages: 240
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance...

A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbithole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the internationally bestselling debut from mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.

Uketsu’s Strange Pictures really is an odd one. If you think a weird mystery based around interpreting drawings made by characters sounds like your thing, I think I’d recommend experiencing it without reading any further than the end of this paragraph. I’m not going to give outright spoilers, but I went in only knowing that it was supposed to be weird, that it was based around weird/creepy drawings, and that it was a mystery. I normally like spoilers, but actually I think it’s worth coming to it with an open mind in this case. I will say that you might want a physical copy, though, rather than reading it on an ereader (though I did).

So, for those who’ve stuck around to keep reading, what to say? First, the translation: it feels like a pretty plain, bare-bones translation, nothing flowery, nothing extraneous added. It’s hard to say whether that’s true since I can’t read the original, but it’s certainly the impression I get. The drawings aren’t particularly beautiful or astounding either, in part because they’re not meant to be drawn by super great artists — they’re drawn by characters who are part of the mysteries.

The reason I suggested you might want a physical copy is that it can benefit to be able to turn the pictures around, if you’re trying to join in on solving the mystery. You can read it and just wait for the solutions, it doesn’t do anything gimmicky like leave you without answers, but if you want to join in then a physical copy might give you a bit more convenience in doing so, potentially tracing the images out, etc.

The format is an interesting one, too. At first it seems like a collection of unconnected short stories, but the stories actually connect into a greater mystery — and each answer might change your mind about the outcome of a previous story, too.

I found it a fascinating read, and I’m interested to read Uketsu’s Strange Houses, which is coming out later in the year.

Rating: 4/5

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