Genre: Mystery

Review – A Case of Mice and Murder

Posted June 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – A Case of Mice and Murder

A Case of Mice and Murder

by Sally Smith

Genres: Crime, Historical Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 352
Series: The Trials of Gabriel Ward #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

The first in a delightful new mystery series set in the hidden heart of London's legal world, introducing a wonderfully unwilling sleuth, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Nita Prose.

When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case-the disputed authorship of bestselling children's book Millie the Temple Church Mouse-that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep.

But even he cannot fail to notice the judge's dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor the silver carving knife sticking out of his chest. In the shaded courtyards and ancient buildings of the Inner Temple, the hidden heart of London's legal world, murder has spent centuries confined firmly to the casebooks. Until now.

The police can enter the Temple only by consent, so who better to investigate this tragic breach of law and order than a man who prizes both above all things? But murder doesn't answer to logic or reasoned argument, and Gabriel soon discovers that the Temple's heavy oak doors are hiding more surprising secrets than he'd ever imagined...

When I started Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder, I was not really expecting to like Gabriel Ward. He seems at first blush like he’s going to be a persnickety old guy. But he quickly won me over with his love of routine, his little rituals, his love of books, and most especially, his kind and gentlemanly manner to everyone, of all classes, no matter his opinion of them.

The book is set in 1901, and steeped in the traditions of the Inner Temple (which is, to be clear, one of the four “Inns of Court” in London). Gabriel lives almost entirely within the Inner Temple, works there, and is deeply content and happy — until he’s confronted one day by a dead body lying on the steps of his chambers.

I guessed the resolution of both the murder and the other case Gabriel works on, but in a good way where it all made sense and hung together. There was no “oh it’ll be the most unlikely person, so the murder is XXX”; it all makes a good amount of sense. I missed a couple of minor details along the way, but figured out the main thrust of it. I don’t require a fair play mystery, but I can very much appreciate one, and this was fun.

I felt like knowing a bit about law from the Secret Barrister’s writing, and being primed for a legal mystery by Sarah Caudwell’s work, helped quite a bit with settling into the context of the mystery… But mostly it was a surprisingly warm story, and that captured my interest and my heart. There’s a deep affection for the setting and for the traditions of the Inner Temple, the rituals of lawyers, and for the justice lawyers can stand for. I can’t wait to spend more time with Gabriel, and will be getting the second book posthaste, once it’s out!

[Edited to add: And I’ve been approved for the ARC, in fact, and will be plunging straight in!]

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Cat and Mouse

Posted June 6, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Cat and Mouse

Cat and Mouse

by Christianna Brand

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 255
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Girls Together magazine agony-aunt 'Mrs Friendly-wise', aka Katinka Jones, finds herself at a loose end in Swansea, and decides to pay a surprise visit to one of the magazine's regular correspondents, 'Amista'. But reaching the address a strange house perched atop a mountain which matches all of the descriptions in the letters nobody has even heard of 'Amista'. As Katinka begins to fall for the dashing master of the house, Carleon, more weird mysteries emerge and the plucky Detective Inspector Chucky joins the search for the truth in this self-consciously lurid mystery-melodrama; a rollicking cavalcade of Brand's signature twists and turns.

The first of Brand’s non-Cockrill stories to join the Crime Classics, and the sixth Brand novel in total, a series bestseller. A playful and experimental novel in which Brand sets out to combine Gothic melodrama with her signature style of mystery complete with astonishing twists and bombshell clues hiding in plain sight.

I’m not a great lover of Christianna Brand’s work, generally, and I’ve liked her books less as I’ve read more of them, somehow. So perhaps it’s not too surprising that I actively loathed the latest reissue of her work by the British Library Crime Classics series, Cat and Mouse.

As far as I can tell, it’s less intended as one of her straight-out mystery novels, and more written as a parody of dramatic gothic mysteries; it reminds me a little of Ethel Lina White’s work. And it’s excruciatingly awful to read. The main character is humiliated at every turn, and makes multiple wild accusations while acting — sorry, but this is the best word I can come up with — hysterically, there’s a romance that makes absolutely no sense… arrghhh, it just drove me nuts. I hated it.

The one good thing I can say for it is that it did genuinely feel like it was set in Wales, and evoked that perfectly.

Rating: 1/5

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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.

I 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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