CHRISTINE POULSON Locked-Room Mysteries Archives

Bingeing on short stories

Posted on Sep 8, 2017 in British Library Crime Classics, Dante, Dante's Inferno, Diagnosis Impossible, Edward D Hoch, Locked-Room Mysteries, Martin Edwards, The Long Arm of the Law | 4 Comments

I’d like to blame it all on Martin Edwards. Those anthologies in the British Library Classic Crime series that Martin edits are just too tempting: those delectable covers! And yes, I have been snapping them up as they come out and enjoying them hugely. However the truth is that the current short story binge was […]

Whistle Up the Devil

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 in Derek Smith, John Dickson Carr, Locked-Room Mysteries, Whistle Up the Devil | 4 Comments

I do like a locked room mystery and I can heartily recommend Derek Smith’s Whistle Up the Devil (1953) and newly republished. It’s a fairly short novel, which for me is in its favour, and I read most of it over the course of a train journey. It is a familiar set-up – family curse, eldest […]

Books I wouldn’t buy for myself …

Posted on Jan 7, 2015 in Locked-Room Mysteries, Otto Penzler | 2 Comments

. . . but am very happy to receive as presents. I’ll begin by saying that I do buy a lot of books. But there are certain categories I tend to avoid. I already pay a hefty subscription to the London Library, so I try not to buy books that I can borrow: biographies, non-fiction […]