Reviews

‘This is splendidly written fare from the reliable Poulson, written with keen psychological insight.’ [Invisible]

- CRIMETIME

GA crime fiction and Martin Edwards

The last year or two have been somewhat turbulent for me with a lot of challenges, not least the house move which I have written about in earlier posts. For comfort reading I have turned to Golden Age crime fiction and have read vast amounts of writers like Freeman Wills Crofts and George Bellairs. They […]

A Weekend to Remember

I have been a member of the London Library for almost forty years, and have often mentioned it on my blog as one of my favourite places in the world. And Cambridge University Library has a special place in my heart too. All in all, I love libraries. It was Borges who wrote, ‘I have […]

A Splendid Read: Martin Edwards Sepulchre Street

‘I want you to solve my murder,’ said the woman in white. Rachel Savernake gave a sardonic smile. ‘Quite a challenge. ‘Rumour has it you seldom refuse a dare.’ Sepulchre Street is the fourth in the Rachel Savernake series and I think it is the best so far. It grips from the start. It is […]

Golden Age Treats

This Deadly Ilse: A Golden Age Mystery Map is a perfect gift for the GA fan in your life – or for yourself. It is attractively designed and the captions are written by Martin Edwards – need I say more? Some of the locations and the books associated with them were familiar to me – […]

The Life of Crime by Martin Edwards: a splendid read

This book is the result of a lifetime of reading a vast range of crime fiction. Martin Edwards claims that despite its length – running as it does (with exhaustive indexes) to 724 pages – The Life of Crime is a miracle of concision and that is hardly an exaggeration. Chronologically it spans the late […]

Cassandra returns

This week sees the publication of the new CWA short story anthology, Music of the Night. It is edited by Martin Edwards and contains twenty-five stories, some by doyens of the crime-writing world, such as Peter Lovesey, Andrew Taylor, Kate Ellis, including four Diamond Dagger winners, and others by writers who haven’t had a story […]

Martin Edwards The Crooked Shore

The Crooked Shore got off to a splendid start. I always enjoy a cold case enquiry. Twenty-one years ago, Ramona Smith left the bar in Bowness where she worked and was never seen again. No body was ever found, but there was plenty of circumstantiai evidence and it all pointed to Gerry Lace as her […]

Favourite books on how to write

I’ve got far more books on writing than I can care to admit to. There’s some justification. Some of them have been essential tools in learning how to write. And then too writing is a solitary occupation and it’s good to have a few old friends to turn to when I grind to a halt. […]

How does she do it?

In my last post, I wrote about the pleasure of getting my reading mojo back when I embarked on Martin Edwards’s new novel, Mortmain Hall. I loved the book, romped through it, thoroughly enjoying it, but the relief was only temporary and  when I’d finished it, I was back in my state of reading apathy. […]

Losing my reading mojo

A couple of evenings ago I found myself roaming around the house, looking for something to read. Nothing tempted me. I would pick up a book, flick through it, put it down again. It is not as if there isn’t plenty of choice for goodness sake. I have lots of books that I haven’t read […]