Tag: crime

Review – Seams Like Murder

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

Review – Seams Like Murder

Seams Like Murder

by Tilly Wallace

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 234
Series: Grace Designs Mysteries #1
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

There are two things that can’t talk—moving pictures and dead showgirls…

1920, Wellington, New Zealand. Grace Devine is poised to build her thriving dress design business as the twenties begin to soar. But when a fashionable client is murdered, suspicion falls on Grace as the last person to see Agatha alive.

As wary clients cancel and business begins to fail, Grace decides there’s only one way to prove her innocence and save her career…this seamstress will turn sleuth to find who really murdered the showgirl.

The more she learns, the more she uncovers of the darker side of the dead woman’s personality. Agatha liked to collect secrets and use them against people. But what target snapped that fatal night? Can Grace stitch together the clues before her life is torn apart…

These heart-warming historical mysteries will send you on a unique New Zealand adventure.

Tilly Wallace’s Seams Like Murder is a short, quick read, set in New Zealand post-WWI. Grace is trying to set up her own fashion house, starting small, and hampered by being a single mother with a “husband” who died in the war (and, the subtext suggests, because she wasn’t actually married to him at all, though I don’t think that’s confirmed in so many words in this book). She has a strong support network, though, with a mentor, a close friend who lives nearby, her father, a cousin, and her husband’s brother — and this was an aspect of the story I rather enjoyed, since they each supported her in their own way.

The mystery itself is relatively obvious, and works out in a relatively obvious way. There’s a hint that there’s potentially to be a romance with the “dishy” detective, which leaves me pretty cold: there’s some genuine chemistry between Grace and her husband’s brother, in a complicated way, and that’s what we actually see any build-up for at all. There are other books in the series, so I guess any further development with the detective happens there, but I’m not super inclined at this moment to follow.

I should note as well that there’s a fantasy element to the story, totally not discussed in the cover copy: Grace has the ability to touch someone and pick up memories that they’re thinking about at the time. The constraints of the gift are fairly undefined in this book, and I find it a bit odd that this element is played down so much in the copy. Seems like a good way to annoy one audience (the historical mystery fans) and miss another completely (the fantasy mystery fans).

In any case, as I mentioned, I’m not really inclined to read more of this series. This book was entertaining enough that I didn’t think about stopping it, and I did enjoy Grace’s family and support network, which felt genuine and warm. There’s nothing that makes me feel it’s going to go in a direction I’m particularly interested in, but I might read a second book if I run across it in a subscription service I use like Kobo Plus or something (I see the first book is available in Kobo Plus in the US at least, after all), and I want something light. It’s not that I disliked it or anything, it just didn’t click with me in the way I hoped.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Leavenworth Case

Posted March 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Leavenworth Case

The Leavenworth Case

by Anna K. Green

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 368
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

THIS DETECTIVE STORY CLUB CLASSIC is introduced by Dr John Curran, who looks at how Anna Katherine Green was a pioneer who inspired a new generation of crime writers, in particular a young woman named Agatha Christie.

When the retired merchant Horatio Leavenworth is found shot dead in his mansion library, suspicion falls on his nieces, Mary and Eleanore, who stand to inherit his vast fortune. Their lawyer, Everett Raymond, infatuated with one of the sisters, is determined that the official investigator, detective Ebenezer Gryce, widens the inquiry to less obvious suspects.

The Leavenworth Case, the first detective novel written by a woman, immortalised its author Anna Katharine Green as 'The Mother of Detective Fiction'. Admired for her careful plotting and legal accuracy, the book enjoyed enormous success both in England and America, and was widely translated. It was republished by The Detective Story Club after Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, speaking at the 1928 Thanksgiving Day dinner of the American Society in London, remarked: 'An American woman, a successor of Poe, Anna K. Green, gave us The Leavenworth Case, which I still think one of the best detective stories ever written.'

I’m glad I got round to reading Anna Katharine Green’s The Leavenworth Case, because it’s one of the early detective novels, and one of the rarer female voices that hasn’t been totally forgotten from the early years of the genre. That said… I’m glad I read it via Serial Reader, and thus in small bites, because it’s pretty tedious at times — overwrought, and of course, sexist.

Even with a female author, you ask? Yes: the detective ultimately says he didn’t really suspect a woman because (drumroll) a woman would never clean a pistol after firing. All the women are beautiful angels with amazing manners (though Mary Leavenworth does show a bit of spirit and isn’t totally vilified for… well, I won’t spoiler, even at this late date).

Really, it’s just very much of its time. The culprit was fairly obvious to me, and it was a bit excruciating how long it took to gather up the evidence.

In the end, glad I read it, but glad it’s finished.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Shortest Way to Hades

Posted March 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Shortest Way to Hades

The Shortest Way to Hades

by Sarah Caudwell

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 272
Series: Hilary Tamar #2
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

It seemed the perfect way to avoid three million in taxes on a five-million-pound estate: change the trust arrangement. Everyone in the family agreed to support the heiress, the ravishing raven-haired Camilla Galloway, in her court petition—except dreary Cousin Deirdre, who suddenly demanded a small fortune for her signature.

Then Deirdre had a terrible accident. That was when the young London barristers handling the trust—Cantrip, Selena, Timothy, Ragwort, and Julia—summoned their Oxford friend Professor Hilary Tamar to Lincoln’s Inn. Julia thinks it’s murder. Hilary demurs. Why didn’t the heiress die? But when the accidents escalate and they learn of the naked lunch at Uncle Rupert’s, Hilary the Scholar embarks on the most perilous quest of all: the truth.

I enjoyed the second book in Sarah Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar series quite a bit. The Shortest Way to Hades centres once more around the same group of lawyers, this time entangled with a case that each of them find themselves representing part of. It’s not quite as reliant on letters at first but then Serena heads off on a voyage and the case seems to follow her — and trouble does, too.

I’m a bit bemused to read about how fascinated other people are with trying to figure out what gender Hilary Tamar is meant to be. It’s intentionally ambiguous, and it’s also totally irrelevant. I’m not even going to participate in the debate — or hey, I view Hilary as a non-binary protagonist, now, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Ahem. Anyway. As I said, Hilary’s gender is totally irrelevant to the story, though they do get themselves a bit more involved in the mystery this time, actually following Serena to Greece in order to help untangle the problem.

The humour of the whole thing remains a light touch: it’s there, and woven throughout the whole story, but not in a way that gets too cringy or gets in the way. I’m not normally one for humour in stories, but it’s hard to describe quite how it works here. My best effort is: this book knows it’s clever and funny, but doesn’t keep trying to demand you laugh.

I’m eager to get the next book!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Thus Was Adonis Murdered

Posted March 4, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Thus Was Adonis Murdered

Thus Was Adonis Murdered

by Sarah Caudwell

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 261
Series: Hilary Tamar #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When her personal copy of the current Finance Act is found a few metres away from a body, young barrister Julia Larwood finds herself caught up in a complex fight against the Inland Revenue. Set to have a vacation away from her home life and the tax man, Julia takes a trip with her art-loving boyfriend. However, all is not what it seems. Could he in fact be an employee of the establishment she has been trying to escape from? And how did her romantic luxurious holiday end in murder?

Sarah Caudwell’s Thus Was Adonis Murdered suddenly seemed to be everywhere for me, for a couple of months at the end of 2024. I love a good mystery (though I’m often most drawn to older mysteries), so I was curious about all the praise and decided to give it a shot, although I was a bit worried by it being characterised as funny — sometimes that means slapstick or embarrassment squick, which I wouldn’t gel very well with.

It’s not that. It’s witty and light in tone, though sometimes leans a bit too heavily on “Julia is weirdly stupid about a lot of things” to be quite comfortable for me. The cast of characters is fun, though I probably won’t remember how to tell them apart by the time I read the sequel, because somehow their names wouldn’t stick in my head. (Or rather, which name belonged with which character.) I suspect it’s the kind of book that some non-Brits would find very charming for being “British humour”.

What I found really interesting was that Hilary Tamar does almost all the mystery-solving from a distance, and the characters we follow are mostly kept up to date from a distance, receiving evidence via letters from Julia (the suspect) and reports from people who have gone to the scene of the crime. Despite it being set in Italy, it feels like the reader never leaves London, and yet it doesn’t feel like missing out on the action. Part of that is the wittiness and banter, I’d say, and the letters help with immediacy as well.

If I’d described this to myself beforehand, I’m not sure I’d have picked it up just based on a description of how the story is told, the wittiness, etc — but as it is, I did pick it up, and loved it, and I’m eager for the second book.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Murder as a Fine Art

Posted February 24, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Murder as a Fine Art

Murder as a Fine Art

by Carol Carnac, E.C.R. Lorac

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 236
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When a civil servant at the newly formed Ministry of Fine Arts is found crushed beneath a monstrous marble bust after dark, it appears to be the third instance in a string of fatal accidents at the department. Already disturbed by rumours of forgeries and irregularities in the Ministry’s dealings, Minister Humphry David is soon faced with the possibility that among his colleagues is a murderer – though how the bust could have been made an instrument of death is a masterstroke of criminal devilment. Taking charge of the case, Inspector Julian Rivers of Scotland Yard enters a caustic world of fine art and civil service grievances to unveil a killer hiding in plain sight.

Murder as a Fine Art is one of E.C.R. Lorac’s books under the “Carol Carnac” pen-name, and features Rivers and Lancing rather than Macdonald. I do prefer the books which feature Macdonald, because he seems a bit more human and sympathetic than Rivers or Lancing: my sense is that the puzzle of it is more important than the human element in the books featuring them.

Which is not to say that Lorac’s usual attention to character and place is absent: the story is set within a building called Medici House, in a post-war government Ministry, and the Minister himself is a sympathetic character, one you find yourself hoping isn’t entangled in the crime. There’s definitely still a good eye to what people are like: for example, the two detectives agree that the deceased was probably not hated by his subordinates, as there’s a sort of affectionate nickname for him suggesting toleration of his foibles. And Medici House is very carefully evoked, its splendours and inconveniences all at once.

But overall there’s a lot of time spent on the howdunit, on procedure, and my impression is that there’d be a bit less of that with Macdonald — or perhaps it’d feel more hands on? Personal? I’m not sure exactly; maybe it’s just that I don’t feel I “know” Rivers and Lancing and what they’ll do or care about.

Anyway, it’s still an enjoyable puzzle. Not a favourite, but absorbing and worthwhile.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Lessons in Crime

Posted February 17, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Lessons in Crime

Lessons in Crime: Academic Mysteries

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 336
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

An Oxford Master slain on campus during Pentecost. A pupil and teacher face off with a conniving uncle suspected of murder. A sociology student turns the tables on the lies and fictions of an English undergraduate.

In the hush of the college library and the cacophonies of school halls, tensions run higher than is healthy and academic achievement can be to die for. Delving into the stacks and tomes of the British Library collections, Martin Edwards invites you to a course on the darker side of scholarly ambition with an essential reading list of masterful short stories.

With a teaching cohort including esteemed writers such as Dorothy L Sayers, Celia Fremlin, Michael Innes and the commanding Arthur Conan Doyle, this new anthology offers an education in the beguiling art of mystery writing.

Lessons in Crime is a pretty recent collection from the British Library Crime Classics series, edited as usual by Martin Edwards. Unsurprisingly, this one focuses on mystery stories set in academic settings — schools, weekend courses, and of course, universities.

There are some big names here — Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle — and some lesser-known ones, along with ones that are familiar to me from these anthologies, such as E.W. Hornung. As ever, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: I’m not a huge fan of Reggie Fortune and A.J. Raffles as characters, but in a collection like this, it all adds up to a feel for how writers viewed and used these settings, the trends in the stories, etc.

I was a little surprised by the heavy anti-Welsh sentiment in one of the stories: it’s been a while since I met that kind of thing so openly. (The Welsh character mutates ps and bs in English, lies habitually, etc, etc; we’re in “Taffy was a Welshman” territory.) I know the British Library Crime Classics series typically doesn’t edit this sort of thing out, and they do say so in a preface — they present the stories as part of their historical context, as well as for entertainment. But it was a little surprising, all the same.

A nicer surprise was a story by Jacqueline Wilson — yes, that one! Her earliest works were crime stories, and one of her short stories is included here to round out the volume with a recent story.

Overall, a collection I enjoyed!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight

Posted February 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight

Mr. Pottermack's Oversight

by R. Austin Freeman

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 302
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

On a sultry afternoon in July, a man stumbles through thick foliage and rough ground, making for the coast. He wears prisoner’s garb and the guards are hot on his heels. Happening upon a bather’s clothes – the bather nowhere in sight – the escapee takes the risk, changes and leaves the scene looking the part of the average beachcomber.

But it can be hard to stay hidden forever. When a blackmailer intrudes for the last time upon the promising life of the man who now calls himself Mr. Pottermack, a violent fate befalls him, and the stakes are set: Pottermack must avoid discovery at all costs to escape the hangman’s noose for murder.

When Pottermack’s attempts to fabricate evidence arouse the suspicions of the fiercely forensic Dr. Thorndyke, a nerve-racking game is afoot as we follow both detective and suspect in their contest to root out – or bury – the damning truth in this inverted-mystery classic, first published in 1930.

I was looking forward to Mr Pottermack’s Oversight, because I’d read one of R. Austin Freeman’s earlier books and really liked it. It was slow and methodical, but in a way that was interesting. This one had the same style, but it was maybe a bit too slow and methodical, and Freeman’s interest in writing a sort of inverted mystery (the mystery is more how the detective works out what happened, since we see the crime committed directly, and spend most of the book with the killer) went maybe a bit toooo in depth. There’s a certain amount of detail that lends verisimilitude, and then there’s getting overly into detail about (for example) casting a copy of a shoe sole from a footprint…

That said, somewhere partway through I entered into the spirit of the thing a bit more and found myself reading as eagerly as I’d expected. I don’t know whether the pace just improved a bit there (probable) or maybe I just got used to the new expectations. For a killer, Pottermack is pretty likeable, though the sense that he’s justified is set up very very deliberately and transparently (the victim is a blackmailer who originally framed him for the crime he’s blackmailing him about).

I really wonder whether the lady in the case has realised that of course it is her lost love… but we’re never told that explicitly.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed it, but it felt like a bit of a book of two halves — though I couldn’t put my finger on a specific dividing point. Hard to rate, as a consequence, but ultimately I’ll go with my final assessment: a fascinating “inverted mystery”, if a little slow at times.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Tea on Sunday

Posted February 1, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Tea on Sunday

Tea on Sunday

by Lettice Cooper

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

On a cold winter's afternoon, Alberta Mansbridge waits at a table set with teacups for eight, musing over her guests. The ex-jailbird Barry, the nephew and his ghastly new flibbertijibbet of a wife, the Italian playboy, the old friend with whom she had so recently fallen out... Alberta returns upstairs to get herself ready. When the guests arrive, the door is locked and there is no response to their knocking. Alberta has been murdered, and with no sign of robbery or break in, the killer must have been somebody she let into the house herself - somebody who was due for tea on Sunday. Inspector Corby is soon on the case, faced with eight suspects without a concrete alibi between them - and a raft of motives steeped in mystery which will take him from London back to Alberta's roots in Hithamroyd, Yorkshire in search of the truth. First published in 1973 but written in the vintage mystery mode, Lettice Cooper uses her literary sensibilities to deliver a strong detective story with a well-brewed psychological depth.

Lettice Cooper’s Tea on Sunday is only from the ’70s, but the introduction is right: it certainly feels like it fits within the British Library Crime Classics series, and that might well because of the author’s generation. There are hints here and there of a slightly more modern world than the one the likes of Lorac, Sayers and Christie were writing about, but for the most part, it’s of a piece with them. I did find it fascinating to learn about Lettice Cooper and, for example, her work toward establishing the Public Lending Right (which pays authors for their work when borrowed from libraries in the UK).

As a story, we have a closed circle of suspects: eight visitors who were invited for tea with the victim, the only ones she was likely to have let in (due to her suspicious nature). A former friend, a young Italian she was patronising, a former convict, her nephew and his wife, her doctor, a man who worked for her father, and a solicitor who helped manage her affairs. Few of them stand to benefit from her death, leaving the motive feeling tangled — but Corby, the police detective, methodically works away at it.

A good chunk of the book is spent introducing the suspects and their view of the crime through his interviews with them, with some glimpses into Corby’s methods, attitudes and home life: it felt like a glimpse of a series detective who could have been pretty solid, somewhat in the Inspector Macdonald line (E.C.R. Lorac’s detective).

As with many classic stories, there are some… questionable attitudes, with the victim’s nephew and his wife having what looks pretty much like an abusive relationship (and characters seeming to feel that if the nephew would just beat her properly he might do better). That part is a bit unpleasant, though it’s not enormously prominent.

In the end, the solution doesn’t come as a surprise, because you’re honestly shown all the clues as you go, and they point clearly at one of two people. It feels less like a puzzle and more a bunch of character sketches wrapped around a mystery story. I quite enjoyed it for what it was, but those looking for a tricky mystery with a twist might be disappointed.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses

Posted January 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses

by Malka Older

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Science Fiction
Pages: 256
Series: The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #3
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When a former classmate begs Pleiti for help on behalf of her cousin—who’s up for a prestigious academic position at a rival Jovian university but has been accused of plagiarism on the eve of her defense—Pleiti agrees to investigate the matter.

Even if she has to do it without Mossa, her partner in more ways than one. Even if she’s still reeling from Mossa’s sudden isolation and bewildering rejection.

Yet what appears to be a case of an attempted reputational smearing devolves into something decidedly more dangerous—and possibly deadly.

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.

The third book in Malka Older’s Mossa and Pleiti series, The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses sticks to the basic formula: an intro where Mossa appears (which gives us something of her situation and thoughts), followed by narration by Pleiti of the main plot.

For a good chunk of this one, Mossa and Pleiti are apart, and feeling more mismatched from each other in the previous book, due to a fit of depression on Mossa’s part. Given that the chemistry between them is part of what I’m attracted to in these books (not just in relationship terms, but as two people playing off each other), it’s not surprising that things picked up in pace once Mossa arrived in the story, though she and Pleiti continue to be out of step with each other. It feels like there’s a reckoning still to come there — or a constant, ever-shifting dance of adaptation and compromise, which might in the end be more realistic.

One thing I noticed a lot in this installment was the use of language. There were a lot of borrowed words I didn’t immediately know the meaning of, which I don’t remember happening in the previous two books. Mostly it’s clear by context (or similarity to an English word), but once or twice I was stymied enough to try to look up a translation, which I definitely didn’t have to do with the previous books. I wonder if I was just flowing with it better, in the past? But it definitely struck me very strongly this time.

My overall impression was that this book was a bit longer than the other two, and the pace didn’t quite work for me — but that should be taken with a pinch of salt since I still read it in half a day, in just four reading sessions! It might not be my favourite of the series, but I enjoyed it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – No. 17

Posted January 24, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – No. 17

No. 17

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 224
Series: Ben the Tramp #1
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

The first book featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can't help running into trouble.

Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body - and scarpers. Running into a detective, Gilbert Fordyce, the reluctant Ben is persuaded to return to the house and investigate the mystery of the corpse - which promptly disappears The vacant No.17 is the rendezvous for a gang of villains, and the cowardly Ben finds himself in the thick of thieves with no way of escape.

Ben's first adventure, No.17, began life in the 1920s as an internationally successful stage play and was immortalised on film by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. Its author, J. Jefferson Farjeon, wrote more than 60 crime thrillers, eight featuring Ben the tramp, his most popular character.

I was really not a fan of Joseph Jefferson Farjeon’s No. 17, alas. I read it via Serial Reader, and that’s pretty much the only reason I was able to stick with it, because it came in bitesize chunks, one section a day. The reason for this is… the main character, Ben the Tramp, a former sailor down on his luck who is an absolute total coward whose dialogue is rendered phonetically.

The book would be a quarter of the length if Ben didn’t spend every scene making no sense to anyone, trying to run away, interrupting, etc, etc. Even once Fordyce arrives, giving another steady character to drive the story, he spends so much time getting Ben to explain things, arguing with Ben, and being interrupted by Ben, that it takes forever to get anywhere.

Add that to a bit of insta-love as a minor sideplot, and it’s just unbearable. I did enjoy some of Farjeon’s other work (the books republished by the British Library Crime Classics series), but Ben the Tramp is definitely not for me.

Rating: 1/5

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