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 goes 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 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’s 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: "… and what a motive! Murder to save one's artistic soul… 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 – and perhaps their murderer.
A novel pairing dark humour and intelligent detection work, this 1932 ‘whowasdunin?’ mystery is an example of a celebrated Golden Age author’s most inventive work.
Anthony Berkeley was a 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 once like a woman and portray one positively!
Rating: 4/5
Tags: Anthony Berkeley, book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, mystery
Posted May 20, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
London Particular
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 256
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: 
Synopsis: Night falls in the capital, and a “London particular” pea-souper fog envelops the city. In Maida Vale, Rose and her family doctor Tedwards struggle through the dark after a man has telephoned from Rose’s house, claiming to have been attacked. By the time they arrive the victim, Raoul Vernet, is dead. The news he brought from Switzerland for Rose’s mother has died with him.
Arriving to the scene, Inspector Cockrill faces a fiendish case with seven suspects who could have murdered their guest – family members and friends with alibis muddled by the suffocating fog and motives wrapped in mystery. Now, the race is on to find the truth before the killer strikes again.
First published in 1952, London Particular was Brand’s favourite among her own books, and it remains a fast-paced and witty masterpiece of the genre, showing off the author’s signature flair for the ruthless twist.
Christianna Brand’s mysteries aren’t entirely my thing, and London Particular is perhaps the not-my-thingest. One of the major characters, Rosie, has been sleeping around and got pregnant, and much of the narrative revolves around tearing her down for it — exposing her petty lies without sympathy, and to put it baldly, slut-shaming her all the way. Some of the other characters pity her, and yet it’s not a kind sort of pity.
Of course, the book and its judgements are a product of their time, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to read. Rosie’s a careless girl, true enough, and her actions make her a little unlikeable at times, but none of that is helped by the fact that the narrative doesn’t like her. Oddly enough, she reminds me of Thea Gilmore’s song “Rosie“, not just in name.
Anyway, the mystery itself is alright. It avoids some of the trends I’ve seen in Brand’s other books, so it surprised me a little in that sense, and there’s some genuine tension in the court scenes, and in the way some of the characters try to shield each other, stand up for one another. But… mostly Brand’s work isn’t quite my thing. I don’t think she had much sympathy for other women who didn’t fit her mould, and it shows.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, Christianna Brand, crime, mystery
Posted April 18, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Corpse in the Waxworks
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: "The purpose, the illusion, the spirit of a waxworks. It is an atmosphere of death. It is soundless and motionless... Do you see?"
Last night Mademoiselle Duchêne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musée Augustin waxworks, alive. Today she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his figures, claims that he saw one of them following the victim into the dark—a lead that Henri Bencolin, head of the Paris police and expert of 'impossible' crimes, cannot possibly resist.
Surrounded by the eerie noises of the night, Bencolin prepares to enter the ill-fated waxworks, his associate Jeff Marle and the victim's fiancé in tow. Waiting within, beneath the glass-eyed gaze of a leering waxen satyr, is a gruesome discovery and the first clues of a twisted and ingenious mystery.
John Dickson Carr’s The Corpse in the Waxworks was surprisingly in the middle for me — usually I quite dislike John Dickson Carr’s earlier work and books involving Henri Bencolin, though I’ve later come to enjoy some of his Gideon Fell stories.
This one’s not one of his more famous, and isn’t a locked room mystery, meaning it actually felt less contrived than some of them. And Bencolin wasn’t quite as annoying as I usually find him, though I wasn’t a huge fan either; his sidekick (Marle) is just kind of vanilla, really, though he gets his own little action sequence (predictable as it is).
In the end, it felt relatively straightforward as Carr’s mysteries go, and without any femmes being too fatale, and it did have an intriguing sense of atmosphere around the masked club and the waxworks — a little bit creepy, a little bit high-strung.
Not a new favourite by any means, but more enjoyable than I expected.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, John Dickson Carr, mystery
Posted April 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A Telegram from Le Touquet
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: With some trepidation Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests’ interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife fight, a disgruntled aunt Gwenny departs for Europe. Receiving a telegram from Le Touquet inviting him to join Gwenny in the south of France, Nigel finds himself on a vacation cut short by murder as a cold shadow of suspicion eclipses the sunny beauty of the Côte d’Azur.
Enter Inspector Blampignon of the Sûreté Nationale, whose problems abound as the case suggests that the crime may have occurred hundreds of miles away from where the victim was discovered. Undeterred, the formidable French detective embarks on a thrilling race to discover the truth in this rare and spirited mystery novel, first published in 1956.
A Telegram from Le Touquet is pretty much what one expects of John Bude: a mostly competent mystery without flair, with a few thumbnail sketches of characters but not great psychological depth. It starts with a section from the point of view of someone who eventually becomes a suspect, Nigel, allowing Bude to set the scene for Gwenny and her web of jealousies and secrets. After that, we turn to the mystery proper, with the scene set with a few unpleasant people and a few nondescript generic character types.
Certain aspects of it I had worked out pretty quickly, but the pieces didn’t all fit together right away, which kept me occupied for a while, but mostly I didn’t get super interested in the cast and who might be the killer, and I kind of suspected the alibi thing pretty early on. Inspector Meredith makes a tiny cameo, but it’s mostly Blampignon (who also appeared in Death on the Riviera). Meh either way, really.
This all sounds like damning with very faint praise, but it was reasonably well paced, it sowed clues and didn’t spend too much time belaboring them, and sometimes in the very predictableness of mysteries of this era there’s a sort of comfort.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, John Bude, mystery
Posted March 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Big Ben Strikes Eleven
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 333
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface’s body on the floor of his blue limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June.
The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, had been shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health alongside London’s Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now- missing romantic artist Matt Caldwell. As it hurtles towards its feverish denouement under the bells of the capital’s most famous clock, this closely observed and stylish study of both character and motive transports the reader from the Stock Exchange to Scotland Yard. It asks the question of what it means to be crooked and how immense power corrupts.
I found David Magarshack’s Big Ben Strikes Eleven a bit disappointing vs the way it was described (as being for grownups, and apparently earning Dorothy L. Sayers’ praise). It sounded like it was maybe going to be a bit more literary, but it felt fairly by-the-numbers police procedural ish, with each clue and hint dragged out of the supporting cast.
It felt like the basic facts got recapitulated — along with needless baroque levels of speculation — every chapter or so, without getting much further forward, while there was a strangely laissez-faire attitude to getting the various witnesses to explain themselves. He won’t explain where he was? Oh well. She won’t give information because she says it’s a privacy thing? Fine, that’s fine. What?!
There are some interesting bits, like unpicking a certain alibi, though there’s a certain reliance on coincidence and a whole bizarre interlude with a love story that feels self-destructive and not at all appealing. Sure, one of the suspects is involved, but it added relatively little (just a slight potential explanation of a clue we already had), and just felt weird.
So… not what I hoped for, alas.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, David Magarshack, mystery
Posted February 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Impact of Evidence
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 221
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: Synopsis: Near St Brynneys in the Welsh border country, isolated by heavy snow and flooding from the thaw, a calamity has occurred. Old Dr Robinson, a known 'menace o the roads', has met his end in a collision with a jeep at a hazardous junction. But when police arrive at the scene, a burning question hints at something murkier than mere accident: why was there a second body - a man not recognised any locals - in the back of Robinson's car?
As the local inspectors dive into the muddy waters of this strange crime, Chief Inspector Julian Rivers and Inspector Lancing are summoned from Scotland Yard to the windswept wilds, where danger and deceit lie in wait.
Puzzling and atmospheric, this exceedingly rare mystery from one of the masters of crime fiction's Golden Age returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1954.
It’s always exciting when the British Library Crime Classics series bring out another of E.C.R. Lorac’s books, especially the rare and out of print ones. I’m slightly less fond of Lorac’s work under the Carol Carnac pseudonym, perhaps because I’m not as fond of the detective — though Lorac’s McDonald doesn’t show us a lot of his personal life, he does show a constant decency and patience, and that impression has been cumulative through the books in which he’s featured. Lancing and Rivers don’t really compare (and don’t really stand out to me, either, though nor did McDonald at first).
In any case, Impact of Evidence is the latest, a book which is out of print and almost unattainable until now. The setup is intriguing: details are drawn from Lorac’s own experience of Lunesdale, but transplanted to the Welsh borders, and she depicts farm life with her usual care for what’s needed and how those communities worked. As usual, she’s idealised the working farmer a little here, with her usual “salt of the earth” rock-solid decent characters — but having read more of her work, one’s always aware of the tension there, and when those people might do wrong.
I admit I was onto what happened fairly early on just because of certain details that were drawn to the reader’s attention multiple times, but it was still interesting to see how it worked out, and how some things were subverted (like the Derings matter-of-fact behaviour about the accusations of them).
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, E.C.R. Lorac, mystery
Posted February 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Someone from the Past
Genres: Crime,
Mystery Pages: 256
Series: British Library Crime Classics Rating: 
Synopsis: Sarah has been receiving threatening anonymous letters, seemingly from a former lover. Just one day after revealing this information to her co-worker Nancy, Sarah is found shot in her bedroom by one of her past flames, Donald. Hearing the news and desperate to clear any evidence of Donald’s presence at the scene due to her own infatuations, Nancy finds herself as the key suspect when she is discovered in the apartment.
As the real killer uses the situation to their advantage, Bennett crafts a tense and nuanced story through flashbacks to Sarah’s life and loves in this Gold-Dagger-award-winning, Hitchcockian story of deceit and murder.
It’s rare that I give a British Library Crime Classic a really low rating, but Margot Bennett is one of those writers I don’t really get on with… and Someone from the Past got on my last nerve. The introduction is all about what a fine book it was thought and how amazing it is, but I found it really tiresome.
The main reason was that the main character does some completely daft stuff, lies badly, tries to be witty and fails, and then tries to run away to Ireland like the police don’t know all the tricks and all the ways you might try to skip the country. She has these long dialogues with people that Martin Edwards (the editor of the British Library Crime Classics series) thinks are great, and which to me just end up being set pieces for the sake of showing off how oh-so-wittily Bennett thinks she writes dialogue.
One or two scenes like that might be okay, but I just don’t believe this character has a braincell in her head, and I’m not interested in her sparring with people. And then the book goes and ends with a get together where the man in question literally spends the whole book manipulating her “for her own good”, and sometimes being physically threatening to the point of terror for her. And I’m supposed to believe that’s a happy end?
Maybe not: maybe the point is to look at Nancy getting back on the merry-go-round of stupid and think “oh boy”. But it felt more like an attempt to tidy up loose ends, to let the reader feel like things are going to be okay now — and either way, I just didn’t enjoy it.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, Margot Bennett, mystery
