Reviews

‘I opened this book with high expectations. They have been admirably fulfilled.  Here we have a stand alone thriller about two lonely people who pursue a relationship of monthly weekends together in remote spots.  Suddenly one of these two fails to get to the rendezvous-vous and the other realises how very limited her knowledge of her  companion is . . . Gradually the reader pieces together some of the facts as an atmosphere of rising tension envelops everything. The intelligent way Jay, Lisa and others plan their actions is enjoyable and the suspense of the tale is palpable.’

- MYSTERY PEOPLE

Thrilled!

Posted on Jan 31, 2020 in Barry Forshaw, Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide, Deep Water | 6 Comments

I was in Waterstone’s Piccadilly on Tuesday and Barry Forshaw’s Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide caught my eye. I’d been meaning to buy a copy since it came out towards the end of last year. It’s the kind of book I love: short reviews of hundreds of books, accounts of different trends in crime fiction, […]

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We seek him here . . .

Posted on Jan 24, 2020 in Baroness Orczy, Scarlet Pimpernel | 8 Comments

. . . We seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere . . .’ My blog friend, Moira at the excellent Clothes in Books, also now my friend in real life, has sent me a copy of a splendid book, Bestseller by Claud Cockburn, subtitled ‘The Books Everyone Read 1900-1939,’ which discusses novels like Beau […]

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Murder in Mind

Posted on Jan 16, 2020 in Basil Willing, Bodies From the Library, Dance of Death, Helen McCloy, The Deadly Truth, Through a Glass Darkly | 6 Comments

I didn’t get round to posting my talk on Helen McCloy, which I gave at Bodies from the Library last year. So here it is now. The title is ‘Murder in Mind: The Crime Novels of Helen McCloy.’ My attention was first drawn to Helen McCloy when her novel, Mr Splitfoot, was listed by H. […]

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Goodbye, Inspector Morse. Hello, Lewis.

Posted on Jan 8, 2020 in Inspector Morse, John Thaw, Lewis | 12 Comments

Rather fittingly, I watched the last episode of Inspector Morse on New Year’s Eve. The first had aired in 1987 and this final one in 2000. I’d worked my way through all thirty-three in four or five months. By the end, the power-dressing of the 1980s was long gone and mobile phones were no longer […]

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The glory that was Greece

Posted on Jan 1, 2020 in British Museum, Homer, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Troy: Myth and Reality | 10 Comments

For me one of the stand-out exhibitions of last year was Troy: Myth and Reality, which I saw at the British Museum a couple of weeks ago. There are some stunning objects – the vases in particular – and it was wonderful to revisit the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I had a grammar […]

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