Last Update 3/28/24

The Saint in Pursuit by Leslie Charteris, Doubleday, 1970 

The Saint is hired to find an army officer who disappeared in Portugal during the war and whose assignment was to track down Nazi fugitives and their stolen wealth. It appears that he stole a considerable amount for himself, but he died before he could enjoy it. He did, however, send a letter to his daughter and she is in Europe to recover the treasure – it is actually a handful of very valuable letters of credit. Unfortunately other people including Russian spies, professional crooks, and amateurs all want the money for themselves. Templar befriends the girl and helps her keep part of the money, the rest being turned over to the authorities. Ghostwritten by Fleming Lee.

The Saint and the People Importers by Leslie Charteris, Doubleday, 1971

Actually ghostwritten by Fleming Lee. A man Templar knows slightly is crucified at a restaurant in the immigrant quarter of London. He is interested and soon discovers that there is gang of people who smuggle immigrants into England and then exploit them. He joins forces with a crusading reporter who believes that a well known professional wrestler is at the head of the smuggling group. The rest is predictable. They get caught, questioned, threatened, eventually escape and turn in the bad guys to the police. Templar has to kill one of them along the way. Based on a screenplay.

The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2020 (originally published in 1952) 

A new client wants Ludovic Travers to track down the man who saved his life during the war. The investigation turns up his mysterious disappearance from his home town, his relationship with an actor who has changed his name and now operates an extensive network of blackmail, conflicting descriptions of people’s characters and appearance, a sleazy private investigator, a pillar of the community who apparently has something to hide, a crooked lawyer, and various other characters. As with this author’s previous book, there is an entire gang to be brought to justice rather than one simple murderer. And unfortunately he lets slip something very early in the book that identifies the murderer and solves most of the mystery right away.  3/26/24

The Saint Abroad by Leslie Charteris, Curtis, 1969

Two more episodes of the television series, ghostwritten from the screenplays. In the first, he helps a woman whose possession of a large collection of valuable paintings has made her a target for kidnapping, and led her into a web of impostors, fake police officers, and other dangers. The second takes Templar to a mythical African country still governed by a white administration but on the verge of independence. There is a great deal of unrest and the situation worsens when the wife of the premier causes her husband to become the target of blackmailers. 3/26/24

Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah, Harper, 2016

This is a horribly inept Hercule Poirot pastiche. Poirot overlooks obvious clues and does not even remotely resemble Christie’s creation. The motives of the characters are often absurd. Some elements of the solution are not explained. The police officers investigating the case are absolute imbeciles. There are internal contradictions. The character who never tells a lie, we are told, has demonstrably told some already. The characters who have treated each other and innocent bystanders with great cruelty are, we are told, never unkind. The plot hinges on a man’s faked illness which, apparently, everyone knew was fake. A wealthy woman changes her will just to see if he will confess. A man false accuses another of murder supposedly in order to avoid being thought to accuse another because of a past interaction. But he was not involved in the case at all and could just have ignored it. Painful to read. 3/25/24

The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah, Harper, 2015

This was the first of, so far, five new adventures of Hercule Poirot. The puzzle is well presented and Poirot is recognizable and in character. But the investigation is often complete nonsense. If Scotland Yard sends someone to the village from which three murder victims have traveled to London, the detective would not confine his questions to a drunk in a bar, a random person on the street, and an elderly, reclusive widow. The detective does not even check in with the local police or consult the vicar about parish records. He hears the back story from the widow but makes no effort at all to confirm it, and she did not even live in the village when the relevant events occurred. On top of that, he promises the widow that he will not speak to anyone else in the village about the matter. And if he wanted to be incognito, which he supposedly does, then he would not have announced his job and his interest in the village to the man who checks him into the hotel. Nor would he allow Poirot to take complete charge of the case. The puzzle is reasonably well resolved although the motives are not always believable. 3/23/24

The Saint and the Fiction Makers by Leslie Charteris, Curtis, 1968

A ghostwritten novelization of an episode of The Saint tv series that reads more like a James Bond movie than a Saint adventure. Templar is attempting to protect a young woman who writes spy adventures under a pseudonym, but apparently some of the organizations she has create really exist, and they want to stop the series before more of their secrets are revealed. Rather tongue in cheek and sometimes over the top. This was the strangest novel in the Saint series, and I’m almost curious enough to try to track down a copy of the episode. 3/22/24

A Night for Treason by John Jakes, Ace, 1956 

Jakes, most famous for his historical novels, wrote a substantial body of science fiction and a handful of mysteries. I think this is his only spy novel. There is a crime ring that specializes in stealing nuclear secrets and selling them to the highest bidder. The protagonist is a counterspy of sorts whose job is to find and eliminate these traitors. He infiltrates the enemy organization but finds himself in a crisis where he has to take a big chance in order to identify the person actually directing the organization. There is a beautiful woman, of course, and the usual round of low keys action sequences. Not awful. Not memorable. 3/21/24

The Case of the Burnt Bohemian by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2020 (originally published in 1953)

A reclusive painter is burned to death in his studio. Or was he? There are knife wounds in the body, so the fire was after the fact. But since his false teeth do not fit, is he really the person who worked there? Several long past events affect the murder. A woman’s daughter committed suicide after questionable treatment by a psychiatrist. A doctor fled the country after being accused of blackmailing a patient. A nurse is fired from a hospital because she also was blackmailing a patient. The fugitive doctor was supposedly executed by the Germans in France, but was the body misidentified and is he still alive? Why is the psychiatrist’s secretary/mistress strangled in their home? Who called and made an appointment for the doctor – who is missing – and then failed to show up? Ludovic Travers has to take all of these diverse threads and weave them into a comprehensible solution. 3/19/24

The Saint on TV by Leslie Charteris, Curtis, 1968

This was actually ghost written by John Kruse and Fleming Lee and adapted from two episodes of the television series. The first is a not very convincing story about a kind of assassination game that turns out to be very real when the winners of the contest are taken to a remote island and told to fight for their life. Templar happens to have been a guest at their party and is taken along. The second begins when someone tries to frame Templar for the murder of a sculptor. After much rushing around, he finds out that the sculptor was incorporating hidden television cameras in some of his creations at the behest of a blackmailer. 3/19/24

Caribbean Crisis & Voodoo Island by Michael Moorcock and Mark Hodder, Rebellion, 2023 

Moorcock’s Sexton Blake adventure – the first of these two stories - was published in 1962 and had never been reprinted. It involves a satisfying mystery. Two men go down in a bathyscape, whose tether is severed. When the wreckage is retrieved, there is only one man inside it, and he has a knife in his back. Sexton Blake is called in to investigate. Not great but pretty good. The second title appears to be mostly by Hodder and is a sequel of sorts. It involves a fairly standard murder mystery plot and revives Huxton Rumer, one of Blake’s early and most popular villainous opponents. Both stories are quite readable. I am surprised that no one had written a revival novel for many years before this one. 3/19/24

Marple, edited anonymously, Harper, 2022 

This is an anthology of twelve stories featuring Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple. Some of them have modern touches that feel anachronistic. Some take her out of the small village environment that seems her proper setting – a cruise to Hong Kong, a visit to the theater district in New York City. About half of them were, I thought, both good as stories and captured the essence of the character. In a couple of cases, I don’t think the author was comfortable with mystery formats, because they are flawed by clumsy cheating. The authors include Kate Mosse, Val McDermid, and others. The best story is by Mosse. 3/19/24

The Case of the Silken Petticoat by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2020 (originally published in 1953) 

Ludovic Travers is hired by a famous critic to discover the identity of a woman who assaulted him in a pub, apparently as a publicity stunt to help sales of a book by a former friend. The friend has subsequently drowned, apparently an accident, although naturally we eventually discover that he was cleverly murdered. It takes a while to track down the woman, and Travers finds her dead body when he does so. Someone has been a step ahead of him. This gives the case a personal element and eventually leads to the discovery of the murderer, although I thought it was fairly obvious early on, although the motive was well concealed. 3/17/24

Vendetta for the Saint by Leslie Charteris, Doubleday, 1964

This was actually ghost written by Harry Harrison, and Charteris would not write any of the subsequent Saint stories either, although he reportedly edited this one very closely. Templar is vacationing in Italy when he witnesses a tourist who recognizes an old friend, who is now a member of the Mafia, and who is murdered within hours. Despite attacks, threats, bribes, and crooked police officers, Templar is determined to discover the truth and if possible avenge the tourist.  A fairly entertaining story follows, much of it consisting of a very long cross country chase. 3/17/24

The Dead and the Deadly by Louis Trimble, Ace, 1963

An insurance investigator is vacationing in Mexico, but someone thinks he is actually on the job. Then a seductive woman from his past turns up and he begins to wonder how much of this is just coincidence. She is concerned about some unsuccessful murder attempts and wants his help. You could pretty much guess the rest of the plot, which ends with a beautiful woman – not the same one – blowing her brains out to avoid being arrested. Typical semi-tough guy, quasi PI story line, competently but not exceptionally well told. 3/15/24

Homicide Handicap by Bob McKnight, Ace, 1963

A ho hum crime novel about the ex-husband who is the prime suspect in a murder because the dead woman left him a large bequest in her will and he happened to be at her house on the night when she was killed. Naturally he has to run around and find out who the real killer is in order to clear his name. He’s pretty much cardboard but a couple of the supporting characters actually have some depth. Unfortunately the plot has very little and it is more of an adventure than a mystery novel. 3/15/24

A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie, 1950 

An above average murder mystery begins with a newspaper ad forecasting a murder which does in fact take place. A gunman tries to hold up a house party and then either commits suicide or shoots himself by accident. Or does he? The focal point is an older woman who may be in line to inherit a large fortune, but only if she outlives another woman on her deathbed. There are various impostures – three separate ones, and some of the characters are lying, although for different reasons. Add in an hysterical war refugee, a dotty companion, a missing husband who might be hovering in the background, long lost relatives, some startling coincidences, and the ever insightful Miss Marple to straighten everything out at the end. One of Christie’s best. 3/13/24

The Case of the Happy Medium by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2020 (originally published in 1952)

Ludovic Travers is trapped into attending a séance that is fairly standard and dull, but the other people attending are soon caught up in a series of odd events. One of them commits suicide – or does he? – ostensibly bored with life, possibly because his criminal activities were about to be exposed. The medium has a long criminal record and she is strangled a few weeks later. Other attendees include a businessman who specializes in imports, but has connections to a network of spiritualists, a writer who might have been plagiarized by the dead man, an ex-wife who apparently has been taking drugs, and other characters savory and not so much. Lots of crooks in this one. 3/13/24

The Case of the Happy Warrior by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1950)

Aka The Case of the Frightened Mannequin. The plot in this Ludovic Travers murder mystery takes some unexpected twists and turns fairly early, and in fact there is not even a murder until after midway. There is a romantic quadrangle whose obvious happy resolution for all concerned is hampered by one person’s inexplicable reluctance. Three generations of the family are locked in an elaborate but rather secretive contest of wills. One woman has already survived three “accidents” that could have resulted in her death. There is also a mysterious fire, a disappearing writer, and a burglar whose arrival may or may not be relevant. I had a rough idea what really happened but I picked the wrong killer. 3/11/24

Crooked House by Agatha Christie, 1949 

A standalone mystery about a typically convoluted family murder. There is a nice red herring in this one but I was bothered by the clear evidence that we are supposed to admire a character who is cruel, vindictive, egotistical, and a snob. That aside, the rich businessman who heads the family is poisoned. The family has never liked his much younger second wife, who is almost certainly flirting with a tutor for the grandchildren. They are generally not a very likable group, although the narrator – who wants to marry one of the granddaughters – finds himself liking them. There is a contradiction about the feelings of the sister of the dead man’s first wife which are never resolved. I did not pick the killer in advance, because of the red herring, but I was very close to discovering the truth. 3/11/24

The Hollow by Agatha Christie, 1946 

Hercule Poirot returns in a mystery that has much the feel of an Anthony Trollope novel. There is a weekend gathering of the Angkatell family, which includes more than one eccentric. One of them is a prominent doctor with a submissive wife who is surprised by the rival of the woman he loved when he was younger. Although he realizes that he is no longer interested in her, he is murdered anyway and the obvious suspect is the wife, found standing over his body with a handgun. But the gun is not the murder weapon, so who really shot him? Christie takes some liberties with reality in this one, but the basic puzzle is quite good.

There Is a Tide by Agatha Christie, 1948 

Aka Taken at the Flood. This is a very convoluted mystery in which a woman who inherited from her rich husband when he was killed in an air raid, much to the consternation of his family. Then a stranger shows up claiming to have proof that her first husband, assumed dead, is still alive. The stranger is murdered which leaves the widow and her rapacious brother as the two chief suspects, particularly when the body is identified as her first husband. But then the person who so testified is found dead. And it turns out that his death was actually an accident and that he was definitely not the man he pretended to be. And then the one who identified him commits suicide.  One of her best. 3/9/24

Constable Country by Catherine Aird, Alison & Busby, 2023 

Crosby and Sloan are back for another case. A professional printer is stunned when his business partner absconds with all of the company’s money, leaving him with insurmountable debts. The police assume that it was a clearcut case of embezzlement, but the situation seems more personal than that. The victimized man and his wife are subjected to further indignities that suggest someone has it in for them personally, and these efforts finally result in murder. Not quite as lively as earlier books in the series, but the puzzle is pretty good and the writing is impeccable. 3/7/24

The Saint in the Sun by Leslie Charteris, 1963

Seven short and generally unmemorable adventures of Simon Templar. This was the last Saint book Charteris wrote himself, and it is possible that even these were ghostwritten. There was little pretense of it going forward. The stories are the usual – turning the tables on a confidence man, solving a murder mystery, saving a woman from her murderous husband, avoiding being framed for crimes he did not commit, and other capers.  3/7/24

The Case of the Corner Cottage by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1951)

Ludovic Travers investigates the murder of a fellow detective in this uncharacteristic Bush mystery inspired by Dashiell Hammett. The dead man had been working on his own time during his vacation to recover some stolen diamonds. Someone shot him to death – and the circumstances mirror The Maltese Falcon. There is a gangster with an ugly thug, impersonations, a vicar who seems very interested in an abandoned house, a madman who does not speak, the murder of a jeweler and his killer’s execution, people who have changed their names, a seductive actress, an uncooperative police detective, and so on. Some nice twists in this one. 3/6/24

Remembered Death by Agatha Christie, 1945 

Aka Sparkling Cyanide. Colonel Race is the recurring detective in this mystery. A not very bright young woman is murdered at her birthday party at a restaurant, although it is made to appear like suicide. She had just broken up with her lover, whom her husband knew about, affronted her husband’s secretary, who was in love with her boss, had inherited the entire fortune for an uncle leaving her sister destitute and dependent, and her lover’s wife knew about the affair. There are plenty of suspects. A year later the widower reunites the participants and this time he is the one who is poisoned. A pretty good mystery with a clever solution, but there are a couple of questions raised that the author never addresses, like how did the killer know that the husband had hired an actress, and why did he bother to ensure she didn’t attend? 3/6/24

The Case of the Fourth Detective by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1951) 

There are some too easy clues in this one, plus some cheating. At both murder scenes, there are remarks that the heat is turned up too high, which would retard the deterioration of the body, and the medical examiner is fooled by this – both times. This means that the alibis are invalid. The story involves the murder of the head of a chain of grocery stores. He is separated from his wife, has a secret mistress, and may or may not be interested in a deal to sell the company. He does not get along with his senior staff, one of whom is killed in the same manner a few days later. There is also a mysterious man no one can find – who is rather obviously one of the other characters in disguise. A bit below the author’s usual. 3/5/24

The Harlequin Tea Set by Agatha Christie, Berkley, 1997

This is a collection of previous unreprinted stories. Most of them do not involve her recurring detectives although one has Poirot and another has Harley Quin. Some of them are not mysteries at all but psychological profiles. One of them is merely a slight variant version of “The Mystery of the Bagdad Chest.” Fans looking for more of her better short mystery stories are likely to be disappointed.  3/5/24

Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand, IPL, 1985 (originally published in 1950) 

The protagonist writes answers for an Advice to the Lovelorn column. One of our regular correspondents claims to be a young Welsh woman who is in love with an older man but does not think he reciprocates. The letters become intriguing enough that she takes her next vacation there and decides to track down her correspondent. But everything she learns seems to indicate that the woman does not exist. Someone is obviously using a false name. What might just have been a mild romantic adventure turns suspenseful as the sense of menace steadily increases. I found it hard to get into this one but the closing chapters are exceptional. 3/3/24

Senor Saint by Leslie Charteris, 1958 

Four short adventures of Simon Templar. In Baja, he helps a young woman keep a blind man hopeful by assisting in fooling him about some pearls. In Mexico he gets caught up in an arms deal to revolutionaries that turns out to be a swindle. He swindles the swindlers. In Cuba, he unmasks a smuggling operation that is disguised as an attempt to outwit the country’s secret police. Another confidence man decides to run his later operation in Panama. About average for the series. 3/3/24

The Case of the Purloined Picture by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1949) 

Ludovic Travers is visiting his cousin in a small village when one of the feuding council members is found murdered. The most likely suspect disappears but is later found dead. And he died before his supposed victim. It all involves vengeance for a past wrong, the intricacies of the antique business, some financial misdeeds, and the theft of small but valuable articles from isolated churches left open to the public. There are an awful lot of coincidences in this one and I felt a good deal of sympathy for the killer, who commits suicide rather than hang. 3/3/24

Trust the Saint by Leslie Charteris,  1962 

Six more Saint adventures, including the excellent “The Convenient Monster,” in which the Loch Ness Monster makes an appearance. The other stories include a misguided attempt to swindle the Saint, a very clever murder case which almost passes as natural death, a matador versus a rhinoceros, and yet another swindler finds the tables turned. Although the stories tend to be repetitive, a couple of these stretch the parameters a bit and are better than most. I suspect Charteris was a bit tired of Templar by this point. 3/1/24

The Birthday Murder by Lange Lewis, Penzler, 2023 (originally published in 1945) 

This is a very good mystery from an author who only wrote a half dozen or so in the genre. A mildly eccentric writers entertains three people during the course of the day, each of whom has good reason to dislike her. That evening her husband dies, poisoned, and poison is found in the sugar bowl. The writer is on a diet and does not use sugar. Was it the actress who desperately wanted to circumvent the loss of a plum role to another actress? Or the ex-husband whose personality appears to have altered dramatically? Or the old friend who is jealous of her success and upset by the rockiness of her own marriage? It might even have been the maid, who possibly put poison in the sugar by accident. But the actual solution is ingenious and caught me completely by surprise. The characters are exceptionally well drawn. Looking for her other books. 3/1/24

The Saint to the Rescue by Leslie Charteris,  1959 

Six short and generally typical adventures. The Saint allows a three time killer to go free because he was eliminating the people who were blackmailing him. He cons a con man. One story involves a fairly sophisticated understanding of the laws of probability. Another involves a scam about a new water purification process, and contains some rather offensive jingoism. I would not be surprised if this was ghost written because it does not sound like Charteris. A blackmailer finds the tables turned. A ruse causes a long time mobster to risk committing another crime, which has been arranged by the Saint to get him arrested. 2/29/24

Green for Danger by Christianna Brand, Bantam, 1965 (originally published in 1944) 

This is Brand’s best known novel, and probably the best written. During the Blitz, a wounded civilian is taken to a hospital for routine surgery, but he mysteriously dies on the operating table. Only seven people could possibly have interfered with the anesthesia, but naturally everyone was gowned and masked, so it is hard to determine who was where and when. Inspector Cockrill originally believes it to be an accident, but then he learns about a stolen key to the operating room and soon begins uncovering the complex and twisted romantic antics that are going on within the hospital. One of the classics of the genre. 2/28/24

Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand, Hodder, 1941 

This is an excellent mystery novel with an interesting puzzle and a great deal of suspense. Three women have been decapitated and there are only six suspects, but the six were all together at the time of the third murder and they also have strong alibis for the second. Or were they? And are all of the murders actually connected? There are a couple of proffered solutions that turn out to be wrong, before the final one reveals the truth, and costs a fourth life before it is over. Some mild cheating – one character is wildly insane but there is no hint of it until the climax. 2/26/24

Thanks to the Saint by Leslie Charteris, 1957 

Six stories of varying quality, including one almost amateurish piece about the Saint outwitting a swindler and one pretty good one about the Saint outwitting a swindler. The others include the murder of a journalist investigating organized crime, a couple of rather traditional murder mysteries of no particular note, and an effort to force a ruthless woman to help her ex-husband out of his financial difficulties. These were generally well below the usual standard for Saint stories. It has been suggested that Charteris was already using ghost writers at this time, and this may well be the case. 2/26/24

Death House Doll by Day Keene, Ace, 1953 

This short novel has a very standard tough guy vs corrupt cops vs gangsters plot. Duval’s brother died in Korea and left a wife and child. Duval has never met them. When he looks them up, she is on death row for killing and robbing a jeweler. She has confessed. The cops rough him up looking for the missing diamonds. Then the gangsters rough him up because they want to know how much she told him. He runs around investigating, proves that the murder was done by gangsters, although the woman did find and hide the diamonds. Everything works out at the end, naturally. 2/26/24

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, Pushkin Vertigo, 2023 (originally published in 1988) 

One of the better locked room mysteries, translated from the Japanese. A man is horribly maimed in an accident and wears a mask whenever he is not alone. He lives in a remote mansion with his young wife and a close friend. His father was a famous artist and the son collected most of his paintings and never shows them – except once a year four men are invited to come to a private viewing. During one of those viewings, two people are murdered and a third disappears – the latter from a locked room. One of the paintings is stolen as well. A year later, the survivors meet again, along with an amateur detective. And two more murders take place. There is a mild cheat – a secret passage – but it has nothing to do with the locked room. There is a well done unreliable narrator for parts of the story and the solution is ingenious. 2/23/24

Tour de Force by Christianna Brand, Hamlyn, 1980 (originally published in 1955)

I have to say up front that I didn’t like this one. Inspector Cockrill is on a vacation cruise in the Mediterranean when one of the passengers is stabbed to death while they are visiting a fictional independent island state essentially ruled by smugglers. The dead woman was blackmailing several of the other passengers. Cockrill himself is briefly the chief suspect and is put in jail. There are a few scenes of humorous content that jar with the tone of the novel. Some of the characters are interchangeable. The only person who apparently could not have committed the crime is a man whose right arm is missing, so naturally he is the killer. It was painfully obvious even before the murder happens. The characters are generally flat or unlikeable. The plot jumps around a lot and never really plunges into the logic of the problem. 2/23/24

The Saint Around the World by Leslie Charteris, 1956 

Six longish stories set in six different parts of the world. Templar solves a murder in a French nudist colony, proves that an Englishman has murdered three wives, and uncovers the secret identity of a fugitive embezzler. He uses a dowsing rod to find water in an Arab emirate, a murderous wife is exposed in the jungles of Malaya, and a dope smuggling operation is uncovered in a remote part of Canada. This is possibly the best collection of Saint adventures. He is a more nuanced character, his adventures are more tightly plotted, and even the prose seems more polished. 2/23/24

Spider's Web by Charles Osborne, St Martins, 2000

This is the novelization of a mystery play by Agatha Christie. It's quite good. A house party is disrupted when a man sneaks into the house and is killed by a blow to the head. It appears to have been a child who killed him, but that is clearly not the case because someone makes an anonymous call reporting the crime. On top of that, the body disappears while the police are present, and when the characters tell the truth, they aren't able to convince the poilice that they are telling the truth.

Death Comes As the End by Agatha Christie, 1944 

Christie set this historical murder mystery in Egypt, four thousand years ago. An influential priest has taken a concubine into the family. There was already tension between him and his sons, and the newcomer alienates almost all of their wives. Inevitably she is found dead, apparently having fallen from a cliff. But everyone suspects that it was murder – and rightly so. The tensions ratchet up until more murder is threatened and we learn that two people actually saw the crime being committed. I rarely enjoy historical mysteries so I’m probably prejudiced, but I found this distinctly uninteresting. 2/19/24

The Saint on the Spanish Main by Leslie Charteris, 1955 

Another set of six short adventures – two of them novelettes, this time concentrating on the Caribbean. The same trips up an obnoxious fisherman and his flirtatious wife, solves the murder of another miserable man who was apparently stabbed to death with an umbrella, helps unseat the leader of a small semi-independent group, swindles a man who is exploiting the local farmers, secures a sunken treasure guarded by a giant octopus, and barely escapes being made into a zombie while visiting Haiti.  2/19/24

Death in a Bookstore by Augusto de Angelis, Kazabo, 2019 (originally published in Italian in 1936) 

I was disappointed in this, the first Italian murder mystery I’ve read. The prose was awkward and repetitive. Either the translation was bad or the original, or both. The story involves a prominent doctor who is found dead inside a bookstore. There is no indication of how he or anyone else could have entered in the small hours of the morning, which is when he died. He had never been a customer of the store and was not known to the owner or its sole employee. A brilliant but taciturn police detective is put on the case and eventually solves it. The plot itself is okay but unexceptional. The author was a journalist who was later beaten to death by Mussolini’s fascists. 2/19/24

The Saint in Europe by Leslie Charteris, 1953 

Seven short adventures, none of them particularly good. The Saint turns the tables on a swindler, teaches another the virtues of honest work, recovers a stolen diamond of great value, exposes an imposter seeking an inheritance, avoids officious police officials, tricks an embezzler into losing his ill gotten riches, a mugging turns out to be premeditated murder, and so forth. The stories are formulaic and there has been speculation that some or all of these were actually ghost written for The short lived The Saint magazine. 2/17/24

Towards Zero by Agatha Christie, 1943 

A tense house party leads to murder. Present are the former and current wives of a man who feels guilty about his divorce. Also present are an admirer of the second wife who will not be set aside, and an admirer of the first wife who has just returned from years working overseas. The house is owned by an elderly invalid whose death will make the husband very rich. A handful of other characters round out the group. I had narrowed my suspicions to two people as the solution was about to be revealed, and it was neither of them.  2/17/24

Judgment Prey by John Sanford, Putnam, 2023

Lucas Davenport and Virgil Powers team up again when someone cold bloodedly murders a judge and his two young sons. They are hampered by the fact that the widow wants personal revenge on the killer and is uncooperative. As if that wasn't enough, two more murders are committed and this killer wants to confuse things by trying to make the police believe that the same killer was responsible. There are several scenes involving guns but this was a bit less violent than the last couple of books in the series. The end includes a rather pessimistic view of humanity. 2/15/24

The Saint Sees It Through by Leslie Charteris, 1946 

The Saint is now an unofficial agent of the FBI. They ask him to find out if there is a connection between a nightclub run by an obnoxious woman and the burgeoning drug trade. He immediately finds a suspicious connection between the woman and a phony psychiatrist. Both sides somewhat openly acknowledge that they are adversaries and there are the usual adventures – a chase, a gunfight, a fight in a bar, a confrontation with thugs who turn out to be fans of the Saint. None of his previous companions is even mentioned in this book. It appears that Charteris was looking for a new direction for the series. 2/14/24

Saint Errant by Leslie Charteris, 1948 

Nine short Saint adventures. He outsmarts two crooks who plan to use him to further their own plans, exposes someone pretending to be the Saint and guilty of blackmail, and saves a likeable crook from the police with a clever ruse. He helps foil a desperate kidnapper, outsmarts a band of Mexican bandits, swindles a swindler, and uses a bogus metal detector to turn the tables on a crook. The last story is a fantasy in which me ultimately discovers that he has been caught in the dreams of a comatose man who longs for adventure and romance. 2/14/24

Call for the Saint by Leslie Charteris, 1948  

Two novellas, the first of which involves a criminal gang that demands protection money from beggars in Chicago. An actress is attempting to investigate the death of a blind friend when Templar becomes interested and impersonates a beggar himself in order to discover who is running the operation. It’s pretty routine. The second is better and involved professional boxing. A not very talented boxer adopts a new identity and seems to be unbeatable under his new manager, whom Templar knows to be a crook. His opponents grow groggy early in the fight and are easily dispatched, although the latest opponent died in the ring. The boxing gloves do not appear to have been tampered with but clearly the other boxers are somehow being drugged. I thought the puzzle was extremely obvious, but the story is one of the better Saint adventure. 2/11/24

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie, 1942 

A Jane Marple mystery, although she barely appears. Someone is sending poison pen letters in a small village. One of the victims dies, apparently having committed suicide because of the latest she has received. The police begin to look into the matter, even more pointedly when a maid is murdered just as she was about to talk to a friend about something that troubled her. The ending is partly telegraphed. The characters insist that the writer has to be a woman so frequently that it is pretty clearly a man. The romantic element in this one is rather childish. Marple decides that the letters had to be written by a man because they were not as specific as they would have been if written by a woman. She convinces a young girl to act as bait to catch the criminal, and he almost kills her as well. 2/11/24

Death of Jezebel by Christiana Brand, Poisoned Pen, 2023 (originally published in 1949) 

A scheming woman and a weak willed man break up a love affair between two others that ends with the man committing suicide and the woman devastated by guilt and grief. Seven years later, they are all involved in the production of a pageant when the three of them receive notes indicating that they are going to be murdered. The pageant involve eleven men wearing identical armor so it is obvious well ahead of time that there is going to be some confusion about who was wearing armor and where they were situated on the stage – which is of course where the woman is murdered, strangled and somehow thrown from a mock tower where no one else could possibly have gained entrance. The description of the crime scene is not very clear, which makes it difficult to visualize what is going on, let alone figure out how the murder was done. Okay, but not something I would strongly recommend. 2/10/24

The Case of the Seven Bells by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1949) 

A famous actress has secretly been working as a barmaid in preparation for a movie role. Then she is murdered in what appears to be a robbery attempt. Her estranged husband is having an affair with her rival for the part, and the rival’s brother is in love with her. There is such a small number of suspects that speculation about the solution is limited  and I guessed most of the solution well in advance. A few minor points are not adequately explained. The solution is discovered almost by chance rather than by deduction and it relies on a lot of coincidence. Not bad, but not great either.  2/7/24

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie, 1942

Jane Marple’s first full length adventure is a pretty good one. A retired couple wake up one morning to discover that the servants have found the strangled body of a young woman in their library. No one recognizes her but she is soon identified by a co-worker as a professional dancer who works at a kind of hotel/resort a few miles away. She was about to be adopted by an elderly man, much to the dismay of the two people who had expected to be his heirs. About the same time, there is a car theft and another young woman is fund death in the burned out vehicle. The heirs both have strong alibis. Marple is a friend of the couple whose home was the crime scene and she takes a hand in the investigation, which involves a false identification and switched bodies designed to support the alibis. Marple is not in the story for very long, but quickly sees through the trickery. 2/7/24

Meat for Murder by Lange Lewis, Dell, 1943

I struggled a bit with this one. The story took too long to pick up speed. The premise is that a sometimes screenwriter hires three people to work with him on a new script. He requires that they work in his sprawling house while this is underway. They are troubled because they learn that he has done the same thing in the past, and then not paid the others on the team. There is also an oddball scientist living in the house, two bodyguards, three large dogs, and a steady stream of mostly female guests. Eventually poison shows up, although no one is killed, and it is a lengthy bit after that before there is finally a murder. 2/5/24

The Case of the Haven Hotel by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1948) 

Ludovic Travers is on vacation when one of the other guests appears to drown after his rowboat is sabotaged. One of the maids disappears a short time later and is then found strangled. Several of the characters appears to be spying on one another and at least two of them have criminal records. Two of them are livid when they are photographed and two others pretend not to know each other, although they clearly are old friends. A fairly well constructed puzzle although Travers makes a rather intuitive leap to the solution using information not accessible to the reader. 2/4/24

Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie, 1929 

A collection of short stories featuring Tommy and Tuppence, my least favorite Christie series. These are all early, minor, and mostly very short puzzles with implausible plots. The married couple are operating a detective agency, fraudulently, at the request of Scotland Yard. They solve minor murders, find missing persons, recover stolen jewels, and solve crimes. None of the stories are particularly good and a couple of them are actively bad. It is usually welcome when an author tries a change of pace, but Christie kept this series going for a long time. 2/4/24

The Saint Steps In by Leslie Charteris, 1942

A relatively short novel in which Templar comes to the assistance of a woman whose father has developed a new, cheap way to produce rubber. The Nazis aren’t very happy about that, but even more seriously a powerful businessman is determined to either have the process for himself or to suppress it to protect his own manufacturing. There is a bit of a plot problem. The inventor wants to make the formula publicly available, so why doesn’t he? And why doesn’t the businessman simply ask for the formula and receive it without qualm. But there are kidnappings and shootings and escapes and the usual Saint adventures before the story reaches its end. 2/1/24

The Golden Ball by Agatha Christie, 1934

This is a collection of non-series mystery stories, including a couple where there is actually no crime committed. The first for stories all involve impersonations – a double for an aristocrat, a false identity on a train, an aristocrat posing as his own butler, and a man mistaken for a thief who plays the part for a while.  Many of the stories are meant to be humorous and most succeed. A few of them involve the supernatural – possession, haunted houses, ghost stories – but none of these are particularly memorable. Two or three are neither fantastic nor mysteries.  2/1/24

The Mysterious Mr. Badman by William Fryer Harvey, Poisoned Pen, 2024 (originally published in 1934) 

Harvey is best known for his short horror fiction, but this low key mystery/adventure is also pretty good. Three different men inquire for the same rare book in the same book store on the same day, and before night falls, a local boy brings that very book to sell to the store. Inside the book is a letter which could be used to blackmail a very prominent political figure. One of the three men is found murdered – although it is arranged to appear to be a suicide. Three unlikely detectives decide to solve the crime and avert the blackmail, but the villain is smart enough to detect them and takes steps to ensure that they do not interfere. 1/30/24

The Saint Goes West by Leslie Charteris, 1942

Three novelettes. Templar is hired as a bodyguard but it turns out the attempts on his client’s life are bogus, designed to set up the murder of his wife. In a second case, he becomes involved when a powerful rancher tries to force his neighbor into selling his land because of a valuable mineral deposit which he hopes to divert to the Nazis. In the last, a ruthless movie producer is shot to death and the clues are arranged to make Templar appear to be the killer. So he solves the case, decides the murder is justified, and convinces the police that a drunken actor who recently committed suicide was responsible, and since he had threatened to kill the man, they are convinced. 1/29/24

The Saint on Guard by Leslie Charteris, 1944   

This consists of two novellas. In “The Black Market,” Templar is trying to disrupt the black market in iridium. He uncovers villains who are chiefly interested in making money rather than actually working on behalf of the Germans, and he breaks up their scam after routine adventures. “The Sizzling Saboteur” is somewhat better. Templar finds a dying man in the road, who just happens to be connected to an investigation he is conducting in Texas, unofficially working for the FBI. He uncovers a band of German spies and saboteurs, solves a couple of murders, escapes from captivity by the bad guys, and deals with some corrupt police officers. 1/26/24

The Case of the Housekeeper’s Hair by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1948) 

Ludovic Travers is intrigued when a new acquaintance announces that he is planning to commit a justified murder. Travers arranges a “chance” encounter in order to investigate the matter further. This leads him into a confusing mix of intrigues left over from World War II, a long cherished with for revenge, private espionage, faked murder attempts, real murder attempts, an escaped German prisoner of war, disappearances, and other complexities. This was one of Bush’s better novels and for all practical purposes, Travers does not actually solve the case but instead merely relates events as they unfold.  1/26/24

The Case of the Curious Client by Christopher Bush, Dean Street, 2019 (originally published in 1947)

Ludovic Travers investigates the murder of a man who was about to become a client. The dead man was interned during the war as a fascist but his three nephews were not troubled. It is almost certain that one of the three of them is the killer, but there is no apparent motive – the estate is modest – although none have strong alibis. This eventually leads to the discovery that a large amount of German cash was funneled to the dead man shortly before the war and was never spent. One of the men is a professional impersonator and all four men look very much alike, so the solution is partially telegraphed because that is obviously going to be a key element. About average for Bush. 1/23/24

The Regatta Mystery by Agatha Christie, 1939 

A varied selection  of stories featuring Hercule Poirot, Parker Pyne, and Miss Marple. The better stories are the Poirots, particularly when he is solving a puzzling murder. A couple of the stories cheat – withholding vital information from the reader – but they are generally are good. I didn’t care for the Pyne stories. He is not a detective but someone who supposedly solves personal problems through his understanding of human nature. I found his solutions obvious or contrived or both.  The Marple is rather minor as well. One non-series story has a genuine vision but the story is not very good.  1/23/24

The Saint in Miami by Leslie Charteris, 1940 

This is an excellent Saint adventure that starts when he is invited to visit friends in Miami, and arrives to find them missing. An oil tanker is destroyed just off shore by an obvious torpedo. A rich local man has been acting suspiciously. Templar provokes him and it is soon evident to the reader that he is a Nazi sympathizer. Templar escapes a variety of traps set for him, has some extracurricular romantic adventures even though his steady partner is with him, survives a perilous trek through the Everglades, locates a secret German submarine base, and kills off all the villains. His instant suspicion of the wealthy villain is rather a leap but otherwise the story is excellent. 1/21/24

The Murder League by Robert L. Fish, Ace, 1968 

Three has-been mystery novelists decide to set up a murder for hire business to improve their financial status. They advertise openly because the authorities do not take them seriously. Their first job is a success with a philandering husband pushed in front of a train. The second is a successful poisoning in a pub. More murders follow and people begin to notice that they have money again. Among themselves, they are actively enjoying the adventure and when they approach the financial goal they initially established, they debate whether or not to continue. One of those rare books where you cheer for the villains. 1/21/24

N or M? by Agatha Christie, 1941  

Tommy and Tuppence are engaged in counterespionage in this rather pedestrian thriller. They arrive independently at a hotel where a German defector – whose loyalties are suspect – has been staying along with a handful of other characters. There is a subplot involving the kidnapping of a toddler which actually gives away part of the ending by identifying one of the real spies, and the other is so transparently lying about his credentials that he is obviously another. The very suspicious hotel manager has so much evidence against her that the reader is never misled into thinking she is a spy. Boring for the most part. And the villain spends a great deal of time explaining things to his captives instead of just shooting them.  1/18/24

The Happy Highwayman by Leslie Charteris, 1939 

This is a collection of nine short adventures of the Saint. As usual he reverses the situation with a variety of swindlers, but he also commits one cold blooded murder of a corrupt politician, and on another occasion he actually ends up making two swindlers very rich. The best story is “The Smart Detective,” which draws two separate story lines together and brings poetic justice to three separate minor villains, a rich snob, a burglar, and a crooked police officer. The final story is SF – a man breeds giant intelligent ants. 1/18/24

The Mystery of the Ashes by Anthony Wynne, Spitfire, 2023 (originally published in 1927)

A proposed marriage falls apart when a man discovers his fiancé has been unfaithful. Some weeks later, the woman and her lover are both found dead. A search of his room uncovers a large amount of cash and a letter from the dead woman indicating that she was being blackmailed. Other evidence mounts. The reader will likely suspect the “best friend,” who appears to have a perfect alibi, and sure enough, the alibi is bogus. Although not actively awful, I found it very difficult to read this one. The prose is frequently awkward and the puzzle was not clever enough to pique my interest. 1/15/24

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie, 1941

A vampish woman who cheats on her husband as a matter of course is vacationing with a variety of others at an island resort. Among the guests is Hercule Poirot, who suspects that murder is inevitable. Of course, he’s right. She is found strangled on the beach. But everyone seems to have an alibi. But do they? For one thing, there are two people guilty of the murder. Then there are the lovers who alibi each other falsely, the manipulation of a watch so that reports of timing are skewed, secret identities, a past murder that might be related to the new one, a possible blackmail scheme, and a teenager who decides to use witchcraft to dispose of an unwanted stepmother. Not bad, but I always feel slightly cheated when there is more than one killer because it makes virtually every bit of evidence unreliable. 1/15/24

The Man in the Dark by John Ferguson, Oreon, 2023 (originally published in 1928) 

A man is brutally murdered in his study. There is a witness, but unfortunately the witness is blind and does not know the killer or victim by name. On top of that, he is seriously injured and then made a virtual prisoner by a young woman, also unidentified. And since the blind man left his cane behind, he is a suspect in the murder. A few awkward spots but generally this is a nicely constructed and unraveled mystery novel that avoids most of the genre’s cliches and actually has some decent characterization.  1/11/24

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie, 1941

Although are some nice twists in this murder mystery, there is too much cheating – withheld information, coincidences, unexplained details, unlikely events. A dentist is found shot to death in his operating room. His last patient dies of poisoning a few hours later. Another patient disappears and is found battered to death and stuffed in a trunk. Is it all a plot against a prominent banker? Was the jealous boyfriend of the secretary the real killer? What about the far-left activist who is in love with the banker’s niece?  There’s a clever double reversal – although I don’t see how it could have been done as described, and a cute but highly improbable final surprise. Well below average. 1/11/24

The Bone Hacker by Kathy Reichs, Scribner, 2023 

Temperance Brennan returns for a new case. She flies to the Caribbean to help with a serial killer and soon finds herself involved with a mysterious situation in which a small yacht is stranded at sea and all aboard die of thirst. Then her contact officer is murdered and she has to fend off a burglar in her bedroom. There is also a missing FBI agent and all of the cases, which seem separate, obviously interweave themselves at the end. A couple of eyebrow raising coincidences are the major flaws in one of the better entries in this series, which was the basis for the television program, Bones. 1/7/24

The Crook’s Shadow by J. Jefferson Farjeon, Spitfire, 2023 (originally published in 1927) 

The title refers to an unknown party who anticipates upcoming criminal efforts and anticipates them, stealing the loot out from in front of them. He, or she, is the quarry of Inspector Strood of Scotland Yard as well as a highly placed criminal named Hatchett. Although the two despise each other, they are both more interested in ending the career of the arch criminal. His latest coup appears to be the theft of three diamonds from a fairly wealthy jewel merchant who had locked them in his safe. But somehow things went awry. The diamonds are gone, the apprehended thief had never managed to steal them, and Strood is increasingly considered to be nutty on the subject. A big crudely written at times but a good story. 1/7/24

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina, Mulholland, 2023 

Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s famous detective, makes a reasonably good return in this book. Marlowe is hired to find the daughter of a very rich man, who is also his only heir. He finds her right away – she simply wanted a new kind of life and is working at an art gallery – and he’s not sure that he wants to tell his employer where she is and spoil her respite. There’s another detective looking for her as well, however, and she is more interested in the very nice bonus offered if she is successful. Things get more complicated when Marlow finds her standing over the dead body of a man who supposedly died a year earlier. And then things really start to pick up. Nicely done. 1/5/24

The House of Disappearance by J. Jefferson Farjeon, Spitfire, 2023 (originally published in 1927)  zz658 

This is a very convoluted mystery novel that opens with a man disappearing from his library moments after calling the police. Then the butler answers a call to the library after the police arrive, and he disappears as well. One of the guests is sent with the chauffeur to fetch a doctor and does not return. The Scotland Yard detective and the local man in charge detest one another. There is a mysterious gunshot, blood stains in odd places, an itinerant worker who is not what he seems to be, a drugged secretary, an overbearing housekeeper, a Member of Parliament, an eccentric botanist, and others. The plot is a delight but the writing does not always hold up. There are awkward scenes, small implausibilities, and occasional clunky dialogue. Farjeon wrote sixty mystery novels but this is from early in his career. 1/5/24

Dead Mountain by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Grand Central, 2023

Latest in the Nora Kelly series. Fifteen years ago, nine campers disappeared from their tent in the mountains of New Mexico under mysterious conditions. The bodies of six have been recovered. When two stoned college students find a cave in which to shelter, they turn up a Native American burial site, and also two of the missing hikers. Evidence suggests murder and suicide. Agent Corrie Swanson enlists the aid of Nora Kelly to survey the site, and that leads eventually to the uncovering of two separate mysteries and the discovery of the third body. The solution was a bit disappointing - too mundane and not entirely convincing - but the plot moves quickly and holds the reader's attention in a tight grip. There is an annoying subplot involving Kelly's obnoxious brother that contributes nothing to the story. 1/3/24

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