Last Update 12/31/25

The Complete Zenith Vol III by Anthony Skene, edited by Mark Hodder, 2021

Three short novels featuring Sexton Blake and his arch-enemy, Zenith, the albino criminal mastermind.

The Case of the Crystal Star Gazer, 1920

Blake must come to the aid of a jeweler who has been robbed of a fabulous gem entrusted to his care. He discovers that the victim’s wife borrowed it for an occult meeting and concludes that she was knocked out by an anaesthetic long enough for a fake to be exchanged for the real one. He confronts the medium responsible and immediately discovers that it is Zenith, running a new and temporary scam for just this purpose. He recovers the gem but the two men have three separate major confrontations.

The Strange Case of the Elsingham Legend, 1920

This Sexton Blake adventure takes place in a castle riddled with secret passages and plagued by a curse suggesting that the head of the family will drown mysteriously. Two predecessors have done exactly that. He has a very suspicious butler, who turns out to be a madman who believes he is rightfully the master of the estate. It is Zenith again, of course, working to some extent with the madman, although he clearly despises his ally. Once again he is almost captured and imprisoned, but manages to cleverly escape at the last moment. 12/31/25

The Roumanian Envoy, 1921

The longest but actually the least interesting of these three. The British government does not want to be held responsible if the Roumanian envoy to their country comes to harm, but Zenith has hatched a devilish plan to replace him with a double. Blake steps in to foil him, of course. Skene had a sneaking fondness for Zenith and portrays him as possessing unselfish love of a woman, of acting nobly and honorably on most occasions, and of having been warped by his physical abnormality rather then being inherently evil.

Lay On, Mac Duff! by Charlotte Armstrong, Zebra, 1993

Originally published in 1942, this was the first of three books about the title character, MacDougal Duff. The narrator is a financial distraught young woman who goes to live with her rich but unknown Uncle Charles. The night she arrives one of her uncle’s acquaintances is murdered and there is considerable substantial evidence suggesting that he was the killer.  It’s a bit clumsy, relying too much on coincidence and with people falling in love at the drop of the hat. The identity of the killer is pretty obvious early on because of his insincere efforts to exonerate another character while actually blackening his reputation. 12/23/25

Shadow of the Solstice by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2025.

This suffers a bit from having too many viewpoint characters. A government official is planning to visit the area, and naturally the police are overwhelmed, particularly when the local captain has a heart attack. An elderly woman goes off with her alcoholic grandson on an extended visit to what is supposed to be rehabilitation but actually appears to be a cult. A radical environmentalist group is believed to be planning some kind of protest, and one of their members is found dead, his body dumped in the desert. 12/23/25

The House on Tollard Ridge by John Rhode, Spitfire, 2025

Originally published in 1929. This is a Dr. Priestly mystery. A man is brutally murdered in a secluded and locked house. He had embraced spiritualism following his wife’s death and was alone conducting an experiment. Eventually suspicion rests on his estranged son, who admits he visited the house shortly before the murder. The prosecution seems to have an open and shut case. But then the dead man’s heir, a married woman, decides to spend a night in the house and she is shot to death, apparently suicide. The solution involves concealed radio transmissions, an elaborate gun trap that I suspect would not have worked. Priestly never seems to have much character and often pulls the solution out of thin air. 12/20/25

Lost Birds by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2024

There are too many story lines in this one. The criminal ones involve a missing woman, an embezzlement, a murder, an explosion at a school, a man on the run from a loan shark’s thugs, and possibly illegal conniving to falsify a woman’s birth certificate and conceal the identity of her real parents. The non-criminal ones involve a pack of feral dogs, a fire at an elderly woman’s home, and the relapse into drinking by the main character’s sister. Virtually none of these are related to each other and it just makes the plot(s) run off in too many directions. At least one of the plots is never even resolved. 12/18/25

The Bittermeads Mystery by E.R. Punshon, Spitfire, 2025

Originally published in 1929, this was one of the author’s first mystery novels. He would soon switch to the much better Bobby Owen series. This is one of those plots I don’t care for. We know who the killer is almost immediately. The protagonist is in disguise searching for a friend who disappeared. He suspects one house for no particular reason and within hours has found his friend’s body in a trunk in the attic. He pretends to be a common burglar and offers to work for the home owner/murderer, even helps him dispose of the body. No suspense, no real mystery, and some awkward scenes. 12/13/25

Strange Houses by Uketsu, Harper, 2021

This is a mystery/suspense story, but it’s really less of a story than it is a visual puzzle. There are dozens of diagrams and floorplans revealing hidden rooms and other anomalies. The discussion of these various features eventually unravels a rather dark mystery, but it is all approached in such a standoffish, analytical manner that it really generates no suspense. It is more like solving a puzzle than reading a story. The author has done some more along the same line, but I will be passing those up. 12/13/25

The Way of the Bear by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2024

This was a mostly okay continuation of the series, although the protagonist is unbelievable dense at one point, resulting in her being abducted, that it seems implausible that she could actually have been considered for a position as a detective. This one involves paleontology, the murder of a scientist, a mysterious shooting at the home of another, a defaced cave painting, a corrupted park ranger, a pair of comic book quality thugs, a snowstorm, and so on. The villains – there are several – are very transparently bad guys right from the start so there is not much mystery or suspense. 12/9/25

The Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2022

I thought this was one of the least successful books in the Manuelito series. Her part is mostly going undercover as a worker at a hemp farm that is dealing with illegal drugs. Her preparation is inept and I cannot imagine the government not taking action given the flagrant, multiple illegalities involved in the operation – drug dealing, murder, kidnapping, illegal workers, etc. Implausibly, she gets the dirt on her employers within hours, is discovered moments later, and escapes equally implausibly. There is a separate case of murder that Chee is investigating and this is considerably better, although the killer was obvious. 12/2/25

The 5:18 Mystery by J. Jefferson Farjeon, Coachwhip, 2025

Originally published in 1929. Almost this entire story is set during a lengthy train trip. A young man becomes interested in a woman whose behavior is rather puzzling. There is also an obviously ailing passenger who seems to be oddly protective of the woman, and an obnoxious man who is clearly interested in her as well, and with a less benevolent attitude. And finally we have a rude Cockney character who just seems intent upon annoying everyone he meets. The story unravels slowly and there is not much action, but it’s an engaging story, not up to the standards of the author’s later work. 12/2/25

The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2019

I was rather disappointed in this one. There are two separate crimes involving three different perpetrators, and none of the three appear before the climax - and one does not appear even then. One is briefly mentioned and the other not at all. The story involves the murder of a man who was connected to some minor burglaries, and a second thread about blackmail and the shooting of an elderly man. There is also a suspicious death that turns out to be murder at the hands of the victim’s sister. The main story involves Leaphorn trying to track down some valuable artifacts that were missing from an anonymous donation to a museum. There is also a tiff between Leaphorn and his romantic interest, but it is not even clear what it was about. The motives of the two chief villains are revealed after the fact and one is completely unconvincing and the other dubious. 11/26/25

Stargazer by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2021

A man is found dead in his car, apparently a suicide. His estranged wife turns herself in, insisting that she is responsible for his death, but won’t explain further. Another woman is found bound and left to die in an abandoned house, with a dead infant in the adjoining room. This turns out to be a red herring. A suicide note turns up, but it appears to have been forged. Various people with motives turn up, before we learn the truth. The mystery itself is pretty good, but the human interactions are sometimes forced. They act out of characters and the causes of tension are trivial and the conflict forced.  11/26/25

Scandalize My Name by Fiona Sinclair, British Library, 2025

Originally published in 1960. The author died just as it appeared. This is a fairly standard murder mystery, but rather too slow moving for my taste. The author also seems to keep all her characters at arm’s length. The detective has no discernible personality. The victim – a nasty blackmailer – is dead as the story opens so we don’t get a chance to look forward to his demise. The subplots about the various suspects come together very slowly and there are no surprises or plot twists. There is nothing to let us figure out the killer until the final scenes. It’s not badly written but I’ll have forgotten the plot by next week. 11/18/25

Song of the Lion by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2017

The third mystery from this author is much better than the previous one. The plot focuses on a lawyer who is mediating a conference about development of part of the Grand Canyon. His car is bombed and he is put under police protection despite his objections. The explosion killed a man standing near the car who turns out to be the mediator’s nephew. The story is quite focused despite several character tracks that constantly intertwine. As with the first two books, Bernadette Manuelito has become the main character, with Leaphorn and Chee relegated to supporting roles. I did guess the killer, but it was not particularly obvious. 11/15/25

Cave of Bones by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2018

A man working with troubled teens disappears into a dangerous area, which leads to a massive search party. An influential woman suspects that his organization has been embezzling government funds. A troubled girl finds a cave full of ancient bones that have obviously been disturbed. The protagonist’s sister is involved with two men, one of whom has a serious criminal record. Once again there is a subplot involving the trafficking in historical artifacts. The solution is okay although it is flawed by having two different villains not associated with each other. A jealous woman poisons a workmate with tainted cookies and the artifact trafficker has to kill to protect his secret, which leads to more killings, in part because of a really implausible coincidence. 11/15/25

Rock with Wings by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2015

Although there are several different plots running parallel in this mystery, not all of them converge.  It involves trespassers, blood stained towels in a hotel room, a fake grave in the desert, a movie production company in financial trouble, a security guard who attacks young women, a traffic stop that reveals two boxes of dirt in the trunk, an angry and armed father, blackmail, accidental death, credit card fraud, the witness protection program, and other things. There is also considerable time spent on the problems of one character’s invalid mother and alcoholic sister. I’m afraid I found this one disappointing. Hillerman makes some errors in police procedure – she does not appear to understand what “probable cause” means – and there are too many coincidences. Her characters also fail to ask obvious questions. When a man who has been shot remains conscious, no one asks him who attacked him. A man is found with blood on his hands near a dead body, and no one asks him how the blood got there. There is a fake grave that was meant to be a publicity stunt for the movie, but it was a very long shot that it would even be found, and it would not have attracted much interest in any case. The killer’s motive is never really explained. He apparently was a fanatic about installing solar panels – so much so that he was ready to commit murder to acquire one small site. They are in the middle of a desert – alternate sites were readily available. 11/10/25

Murder in the House of Omari by Taku Ashibe, Pushkin Vertigo, 2025

First published in Japanese in 2021. This is a long, deliberately paced murder mystery that covers generations of the Omari family, whose wealthy merchant business was ruined by World War II. After gaps of many years, one family after another is murdered or disappears, starting with a boy who vanished inside a museum. Someone has a grudge against the family and we know from the prologue that he was never caught. This was a bit too slow for my tastes. The family was not nearly interesting enough to carry the story without any overt plot developments and I found the ending disappointing. 11/7/25

Spider Woman’s Daughter by Anne Hillerman, Harper, 2013

This was Tony Hillerman’s daughter’s first book continuing the series. It is told largely from the viewpoint of Bernadette Manuelito, who is a police officer married to Jim Chee. Their old friend Joe Leaphorn has been shot in the head by an unknown assailant. Their investigation leads them to the world of antique Native American pottery. As a first novel, it’s not bad. A couple of awkward spots and I guessed the killer almost immediately. For the most part the author captured the tone of her father’s work and she continues his tradition of mixing Navajo culture into his stories. There is also a new subplot about Manuelito’s family – mother and sister – which I imagine will be pursued in later volumes. 11/4/25

The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 2006

This was Hillerman’s last novel, although his daughter has extended the series by another ten books so far. It is, alas, one of his weakest. Halfway through, you’ll know the answers to all the mysteries and have a pretty good idea how the climax will shape up. There is a good deal of unnecessary conversation in the second half, and Leaphorn makes a ridiculous error of judgment that almost costs three lives. The title refers to the villain, who has four different identities during the course of the novel. Jim Chee finally gets married. The foreshadowing is very clumsy. The body of a wanted criminal burned beyond recognition. Sorry, that doesn’t work anymore. 10/30/25

Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 2004

This was the penultimate Hillerman novel, although his daughter continued the series. A local man is accused of murder after he is shown to be in possession of a valuable diamond. It is obvious to the reader that he is innocent. A woman born out of wedlock and barred from a major inheritance is determined to find her father’s remains – he was lost in an airplane crash in the wilderness while carrying a shipment of diamonds. Her rivals hire a ruthless man to prevent her from doing so and he in turn hires a thug to help him. Much confusion ensues as another diamond turns up, the thug is shot by the obsessed woman, the accused man disappears, legends of a recluse living in the desert become more convoluted, and the various characters try to figure out the truth in their own ways. A pretty good installment in the series. 10/24/25

Vultures in the Sky by Todd Downing, Penzler, 2020 (originally published in 1935)

Although the puzzle in this murder mystery – set mostly on a train traveling through Mexico – is well done, I had a lot of trouble getting involved in the story. There are eight passengers to start with, but the first dies while they are traveling through an unlighted tunnel, and more deaths follow. One of them is a professional investigator, but he doesn’t make much headway. Part of the problem is that I had difficulty keeping the characters straight. All of the men except the protagonist seemed to have pretty much the same personality, and there are no motives to be explored. I also felt on several occasions that there was one obvious question or another that no one was asking. 10/24/25

The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 2003

Hillerman broke his usual pattern in this late novel. Chee and Leaphorn are barely involved. Part of the story involves Chee’s romantic interest, Manuelito, who has left the police and joined the customs service, where she inadvertently gets involved with a major drug smuggling operation and threats against her life. The villain is a rich businessman, who is also a viewpoint character. The most interesting person is the drug lord’s right hand man, a one-time mercenary whom we believe has killed his employer’s mistress because she got pregnant. Eventually we learn that he actually helped her hide out temporarily. When ordered to kill Manuelito, he shoots his employer instead, and then escapes before he can be arrested. Not the kind of story I expected from this author. 10/19/25

Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka, Overlook, 2024

Fourth in the author’s gangster series, the best known of which is Bullet Train. This is almost as good as that one, and follows the same pattern, except that it is largely set inside a hotel rather than a train. For various reasons a number of assassins are present. Their targets include a defector from a crime syndicate who must be killed, a politician whose unpopular views are troublesome to someone with no scruples, and our hero from the earlier novel who is just supposed to deliver a painting and who inadvertently gets caught up in the ensuing trouble. There is also a subplot about his handler being targeted for assassination for entirely unrelated reasons. The assassins include a pair of women who have found their vocation in murder, a pair of bored men of great wealth who kill as a hobby, and a team of six who commit most of their murders with poison darts.  10/15/25

The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 2002

Another nicely done Leaphorn/Chee mystery. A dead body is found in an abandoned vehicle. Connections are found to an old case in which a businessman allegedly killed a swindler in self defense, while negotiating for information about a long lost gold mine. There is also the mystery of the disappearance of the businessman’s wife, whom he clearly loves although people believe he may have killed her. The new protagonists pursue separate investigations which occasionally overlap before discovering that the new murder is indeed connected to the old one. They also find the missing woman’s body.  10/12/25

Murder at the Black Cat Café by Seishi Yokomizo, Pushkin Vertigo, 2025

This consists of two novellas involving the author’s recurring detective. The first is an interesting puzzle involving an unidentifiable corpse found buried behind a café. For some reason a cat was killed and buried as well, which turns out to be an important clue. The solution involves secret double lives, misdirection, and the confusion caused by a second murderer. The second story is shorter but better, and uses some of the same themes. Two men who are almost identical go off to war. One dies and the other returns, but mutilated in such a way that his identity is not certain. Murders follow. The ending was mildly surprising more because of the motive than the identity of the killer. 10/7/25

Ill Gotten Gains by Hal Meredith, Wildside, 2023

Originally published in 1915. Meredith was the group pseudonym used for most of the early Sexton Blake stories. This one was actually written by Andrew Murray. Blake’s friend Tinker befriends a near suicidal man, which leads to them all getting involved with an elaborate criminal conspiracy. There is a missing, presumably stolen, fortune and an international plot involving swindlers and killers. Blake is off stage for much of this novel, which I found less engaging the most of the others in the series I have read from this period. 10/7/25

The First Eagle by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1998

A police officer is murdered and Chee arrests the apparent murderer, who insists that he is innocent. A researcher studying fleas disappears under mysterious circumstances. Hillerman repeats himself yet again. The killer is trying to protect his research project and is willing to kill two people in order to do so. This is very obvious if you have read Hillerman’s earlier novels. The FBI gets roundly criticized in this one. The solution is a bit rushed. A shepherd just happened to see someone and that sighting leads the police to a hidden grave site. Chee forfeits his promotion – which he didn’t really want – in order to outmaneuver the FBI. He also has a final break with his lawyer romantic interest, but is starting to develop a new one. 9/29/25

Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1999

The robbery of a casino and murder of a guard kicks off a manhunt that is at first misdirected by the apparent theft of a small airplane. Leaphorn and Chee see through the ruse rather easily after talking to some of the characters and analyzing the time line of events. They also eventually figure out where the thieves are hiding, although only after solving a related murder mystery. I guessed almost all of the solution including the identity of the third killer – the other two are known from the outset. One of the thieves actually escapes at the end of the book, after he kills the man who double crossed him. About average. 9/21/25

The Unexpected Legacy by E.R. Punshon, Spitfire, 2025

Originally published in 1929, this was part of a very short lived series that predates the Bobby Owen books, for which Punshon is known. and which are much better. The detectives are the incompetent Inspector Carter and the quietly efficient Sergeant Bell. A body is found with arsenic in the man’s stomach, a bullet in his chest, and his head bashed in so badly that identification is difficult. The case is complicated by a series of known lies by the dead man. Bell is sure that the most likely suspect is innocent and enlists his help in solving the case. The solution, I admit, took me completely by surprise, although I had figured out a lot of the surrounding puzzles. 9/15/25

The Fallen Man by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1996

More than a decade after he disappeared, a man’s bones are discovered on a mountain. Did he try a risky climb and die by accident? Was someone with him and left him there, or killed him for that matter? A belated investigation is complicated by one murder and a couple of further attempts. The mysterious death and subsequent shootings are all connected to the inheritance of a ranch that has valuable mineral deposits. The killer commits suicide when cornered. Chee’s romantic life takes a sudden turn as there are growing tensions with his lawyer girlfriend, and the introduction of a new female officer who is clearly taken with him. 9/14/25

Beast in the Shadows by Edogawa Rampo, Penguin 2023

Originally published in Japanese in 1928, this is a very short novel in which a woman receives a threatening letter from a former lover, years after she married someone else. She appeals to two very different detective story writers to help her. But things are not what they appear. The former lover might not even exist. The less savory of the two writers may have been more involved in the case than anyone realized. This has a fairly creative plot but the writing is a bit crude, perhaps because of the translation. It will entertain you for an hour or so, however, and Rampo is the most famous of all Japanese suspense writers. 9/12/25

Sacred Clowns by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1993

As usual there are several separate stories that generally converge. In this case, a boy has run away from boarding school on the same day that a teacher at another school is murdered. The boy was carrying an oddly shaped package and no one will admit to knowing what was in it because of its religious significance. There was also a hit and run accident that resulted in a fatality and a controversy involving the dumping of toxic waste, although both of these turn out to be unrelated. Chee and Leaphorn both move forward with their respective romantic interests. There is a second murder for which there is no clear motive. It all involves faked historical objects and efforts to cover up the plot, and a final fatal falling out between two men who were each a murderer. 9/11/25

Coyote Waits by Tony Hillerman, 1990

Hillerman’s later novels had better plots toward the end of the career. This one is pretty good. A police officer investigating vandalism is killed and the obvious killer is a drunk, elderly Navajo who refuses to admit or deny what he did. Chee and Leaphorn separately get involved in the case, and once again converge. There is yet another iteration of the idea of way out academics taking extraordinary steps to support their theories, but in this case it is revealed to be a peripheral issue. Chee feels that he screwed up and is considering resignation. Leaphorn is considering taking an extended vacation and visiting China. Two more murders occur before things are resolved. This one is very well done. 9/8/25

Talking God by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1989

Another good mystery featuring both Leaphorn and Chee. A dead man is found near a railroad track with nothing to indicate who he is. A professional killer with severe mental problems is involved, as is a diplomat working for Pinochet’s Chile. Somehow this is linked to a would-be Navajo and political activist who works for a major museum and specializes in fashioning figurines. There are more murders later, including a very public assassination in which a mentally unstable professional killer turns on his employers. This novel broke some of Hillerman’s patterns and a chunk of it takes place in Washington. 9/4/25

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, Locked Room International, 2015

Japanese edition was in 2007. A group of college students rather stupidly decide to spend a vacation on an island where several murders occurred a year earlier. It is not long before the killing starts again, and they are isolated from the outside world. There is also an unusual house on the island – the author specialized in stories about strange architecture. Are the new murders related to the earlier ones? Is there a madman living on the island? Or is one of the students using the island’s history as a screen for his entirely different reign of terror? A bit predictable but entertaining. 8/26/25

A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman, St Martins, 1988

An archaeologist goes missing while investigating Anasazi ruins. Three men who deal in illicit trade in Anasazi pottery are murdered. Two police detectives follow parallel paths to discover what is going on and who is responsible. Hillerman repeated himself a bit. This is another one where a scientist is determined to protect or enhance his professional reputation, even if that involves murder. There are some major character changes as well. Jim Chee realizes that his ongoing romance is over and initiates a new one. Leaphorn’s wife dies of a brain clot and he decides this will be his last case before he retires. But he almost doesn’t live long enough to do so. 8/19/25

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, Pushkin Vertigo, 2023

Japanese edition is from 1988. A man becomes a recluse after an accident left him disfigured. He wears a rubber mask whenever he has to interact with other people. But his reserved living style is disrupted by a violent murder, followed by several others. Much of the appeal of the novel is in the strange house where the crimes take place, which has an unusual floor plan. There is a suitably clever police detective, although it takes a while before he is able to solve the case. This was well above average of its type. 8/18/25

Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman, St Martins, 1986

One of Hillerman’s best, uniting his two detectives, Leaphorn and Chee. Three people have been murdered by three different methods in three different places. There appears to be no connection. The chief suspect in one murder is arrested, but it turns out that his shot missed and someone else killed the victim.  Then he is himself murdered and someone wounds Leaphorn. Another of the victims was trying to track down death records for several people, but it turns out that at least some of them were still alive, and that includes all of the murdered people. Chee gets shot as well. Guessed the killer early but it’s a good story. 8/14/25

The Black Swan Mystery by Tetsuya Ayukawa, Pushkin Vertigo, 2025.

Japanese edition was in 1960. A businessman involved in a bitter labor strike is found shot to death near some train tracks. There are bloodstains on the roof of one railroad car and on a nearby bridge that runs over the tracks. It is clear that he was shot on the bridge and fell, or was thrown, over the guardrail. He fell onto the roof of a passing train, and then later fell off the train. There are three major suspects – two frustrated union leaders and one cult leader who was facing a large drop in his congregation, who were currently compelled by their employer to attend his services. A second murder eliminates the most likely suspect and frustrates the police detectives assigned to the case. This is drawn out a bit too far. Lots of pages turn without much happening. 8/9/25

The Labyrinth House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, Pushkin Vertigo, 2024

Japanese publication in 1988. Four authors and a few others are invited to the deliberately labyrinthine home of a famous mystery novelist. Upon arriving they discover that their host has committed suicide after receiving a fatal cancer diagnosis. But he has arranged a contest. The four writers must each write a story within three days. The stories will be judged by the other guests. The author of the best story will inherit a large portion of their host’s substantial estate. There are four contestants and the first is brutally murdered and mutilated on the first night. The house is underground and all the exits have been locked so they are trapped. The plot is very skillfully contrived, but the story lacks any real characterization. The various people are all completely interchangeable except for the protagonist and his wife.  8/5/25

Metropolitan Murders edited by Martin Edwards, British Library, 2024

I generally prefer my mystery stories to be novel length but this is an excellent collection of London oriented murder mysteries that includes several by some of my favorite writers, none of which I’d read before. These include Dorothy Sayers, Henry Wade, Josephine Bell, Anthony Berkeley, J. Jefferson Farjeon, Patricia Moyes and John Dickson Carr. There are others by authors I have not gotten around to yet including Margary Allingham, Michael Gilbert, and Raymond Postgate. They are mostly police procedurals, All of Edwards’ anthologies are well worth your time but this one had particular appeal for me.  7/31/25

The Ghostway by Tony Hillerman, Avon, 1984

Jim Chee has to solver another murder. A shootout between two strangers on the reservation is linked to a crime ring operating out of Los Angeles. One of that group has talked to the FBI and is living under an assumed name on the reservation. The mob is hot on his trail. His brother was one of those involved in the gunfight, and he lived long enough to die at the hogan of an elderly man. The granddaughter of the latter wants to find her grandfather – who went into hiding – and that attracts the attention of the mob, who send a professional killer to shut her up. Chee only has bits and pieces because the officer in charge of the case has been concealing evidence. Pretty good entry in the series with a better than average climax. 7/25/25

The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman, Avon, 1982

Multiple murders, a plane crash, a mutilated body, a jewelry robbery, a missing drug shipment, a vandalized windmill, and a bootlegging operation all occupy the mind of tribal policeman Jim Chee. Predictably all of the separate threads are drawn together. There is an obviously corrupt DEA agent involved, some sleight of hand, two separate groups of villains, revenge as a motive, and a good deal of violence. Half a dozen people are killed during the course of the story. This was one of the better entries in the series, with a well conceived plot. I did, however, figure out most of what was going on well before the reveal. 7/22/25

The Tule Marsh Murder by Nancy Barr Mavity, Penzler, 2023 (Originally published in 1929)

This is supposedly based on a real murder and subsequent events. The wife of a prominent businessman disappears. Weeks later a burned body is found in a remote spot and eventually a connection is drawn between the two events. Two detectives are involved – a psychologist and a journalist. The plot is okay but the prose is egregiously awful. Awkward sentence structure, corny dialogue, hazy motivations, and absolutely no sense of atmosphere. This is described as an American Mystery Classic. Not by any stretch of the imagination. 7/15/25

People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman, Avon, 1980

Hillerman switched from Joe Leaphorn to Jim Chee for this book – which is a bit puzzling because there is not much to distinguish between them. Someone plants a bomb in a car owned by a man dying of cancer. An old mining accident might have been murder. Several people are unusually interested in the theft of some artifacts which the owner claims had little value. Hillerman repeats himself a bit – there is another sequence in which a man and a woman are stalked through the desert by a killer. The big mystery is obvious far too early and the solution is pretty contrived to clear up the loose ends. 7/9/25

S.S. Murder by Q. Patrick, Penzler, 2024 (originally published in 1933)

Q. Patrick, aka Patrick Quention, was actually four different writers working alone or in collaboration, so the quality of their output varies considerably. The name is best known for the Peter Duluth series. This standalone is set on a cruise ship where a man is poisoned during a bridge game. This is an epistolary novel – it consists of a journal and letters written by a female passenger. There is a second murder – the daughter of the dead man is thrown overboard – and a mysterious stranger who is a possible stowaway, although pretty obviously one of the other characters in disguise. Some creepiness follows involving a corpse and strange doings in the deserted portion of the ship. I guessed the killer early – he was too good to be true – and I’m not convinced that he could have pulled off his impersonations so well. 7/1/25

Listening Woman by Tony Hillerman, Avon, 1978

Police officer Joe Leaphorn has a number of cases running parallel. Two people were mysteriously murdered. A helicopter disappears. Drugs are found in an abandoned car. A man in a Mercedes tries to run him down and then disappears into the countryside with a large, vicious dog. And a young woman refuses to explain why she is in the area. The loose ends are all tied together eventually in a fairly long and rather violent climax that involves kidnapped boy scouts, explosives, a deadly manhunt, a couple of surprises about the characters, and an unexpected death. Lots of Navajo lore in this one. 6/26/25

Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1973

Two young boys disappear and the body of one of them shows up a few days later. He had been killed with a machete. They had been visiting a small commune, which had illegal drugs on the premises, and had been chased away from an archaeological site where evidence was emerging to support an unpopular theory about a local tribe. Then the father of the missing boy is found murdered and his home searched. The solution is too obvious in this one. The archaeologist who over reacts to the presence of young boys in the area is a dead giveaway. In order to “prove” his unpopular theory, he has been salting the site with artifacts which his colleague assumes are genuine. 6/22/25

Never Flinch by Stephen King, Scribner, 2025

Holly is back, although for much of the first part of the novel she is on the sidelines. There are two separate plots. One is a serial killer who picks random victims symbolic of jurors who found an innocent man – who was murdered in prison – guilty of having kiddie porn. The other involves an outspoken feminist who is being targeted by someone willing to kill in order to silence her. Holly is hired to be her bodyguard. The serial killer claims several victims without leaving clues for the police since they are chosen randomly, but Holly has some insight into his habits and spots an altered entry in an appointment book that provides some help. She also figures out who is stalking her client.  The two separate plots inevitably converge for a violent ending. I had trouble staying interested in this one. It should have been suspenseful but it wasn’t. The present tense narration did not help. 6/20/25

Slow Horses by Mick Herron, Soho, 2010

This is the first in a series of novels about a branch of British Intelligence where agents who screw up get sent to work on trivial jobs. The kidnapping of a young Pakistani man seems unlikely to have any repercussions there, but thins are not what they appear to be an a rogue executive in Intelligence has made a very large mistake which she cannot allow to be made public. The slow horses are a varied group of has-beens, wannabes, goof-offs, and potentially good agents trapped by circumstance. They are eventually jointly on the run because they are being made into scapegoats. But not all of them are willing to lie down and be victimized. This has been adapted for British television and is reportedly pretty good. 6/2/25

The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman, Harper, 1990 (originally published in 1970)

The first of the Joe Leaphorn novels is full of details about Navaho culture and philosophy, which is central to the plot. Someone is prowling the wilderness pretending to be a Navaho witch while he kills or injures livestock and generally causes trouble. Then an unconnected fugitive turns up murdered. Leaphorn is off stage for most of the story while a friend of his and a young woman dodge the killer and his associates, though they are eventually captured. There is a supposed surprise at the end that was pretty obvious and there are a couple of plot elements that I found implausible, but the novel clearly showed the promise that would be fulfilled in the later books in the series. 5/31/25

Honest Doubt by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 2000

Kate Fansler only makes cameo appearances in this story, which is narrated by a private detective who hires her as a consultant. Yet another unpopular, misogynistic professor has been murdered, poisoned at a party he was giving. Everyone hated him, including his wife. She has a perfect alibi but the guests and some students who were helping out all had the opportunity. The detective spends all of her time getting background information and frankly she’s a terrible investigator, although Cross may not have realized that.  She turns up a couple of interesting connections, but only because a friendly police officer tells her. She never even attempts to get a list of everyone who was at the party. This was more about collegiate politics than the murder. And private detectives cannot get search warrants. 5/18/25

The Edge of Doom by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 2002

The final Kate Fansler novel uproots her life dramatically. A strange shows up claiming to be her father by means of an affair with her mother, and a DNA proves that he is telling the truth. But there are gaps in his past and we learn that he is in the Witness Protection Program after testifying against one of his partners following a series of art thefts. The partner wants revenge and appears to have learned his new identity and location. Most of the detection here is by Fansler’s husband and her brother – she is largely passive throughout the novel. The ending is upbeat – the father survives – but there is little suspense and not much mystery. 5/18/25

Thin Ice by Michael Davies, Harper, 2024

This is the author’s second continuation of a series started by the late Desmond Bagley, featuring Bill Kemp. An unknown party kidnaps a friend of Kemp so that they can pressure him into picking up a parcel inside Soviet dominated Eastern Europe. His contact is murdered there and another mysterious group – who pretend to be the police – suspect that he killed her and knows more than he is willing to say. Actually, he does not. He escapes, crosses the Alps while being pursued, and finally discovers the truth. This was a competently written espionage thriller but not one that I will remember much about a few months from now. 5/10/25

The Puzzled Heart by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1998

Kate Fansler’s husband is kidnapped and they abductors threaten to kill him if she does not publish a renunciation of feminism in a list of publications. She consults a friend from the previous book, who is now partners in a private investigation agency, and through various means they locate him and set him free. But the brains behind the abduction is still free and when one of the detectives is murdered, Fansler is convinced that the two events are related. She is right, of course. This was more of a mystery novel than the last two books in the series, but it is also a sharp look at some of the prejudices of the 1990s, particularly in women’s affairs. 5/7/25

The Players Come Again by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1990

I didn’t like this very much, in part because it is not really a mystery novel. Fansler is hired to write the biography of the wife of a famous writer. This involves interviewing three surviving women who interacted with him and his family. It is eventually obvious that each of the three is concealing something, and at the end there is even a murder confession, but the novel was really just about a woman whose life was subordinated into that of her husband, even though she contributed more to his work than is publicly known. Some of the reminiscences are interesting but it doesn’t work as a novel or a mystery. 5/5/25

An Imperfect Spy by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1996

Fansler is hired to give a series of lectures at a law school whose only female faculty member died in an accident which some people believe was murder. She is introduced to this potential mystery by a woman who is living under a false name because she wanted to live the life style of a John Le Carre character. There is very little mystery involved. The novel is primarily a means of presenting a relentlessly misogynistic society of males who resent every encroachment by women into what they consider their own prerogatives. The mystery woman is actually a very interesting character, but she flits around the periphery of the story rather than becoming its focus. 5/5/25

The Collected Stories by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1997

Cross only wrote a few short stories and all but one of them involve Kate Fansler. Shorts were not something she was good at. The first involves a professor who disappears so that she can drive a horse and buggy around Central Park. The next is a rather bland story about a founding baby. Fansler tracks down a missing dog. A missing relative has been playing detective. There are stolen paintings, missing persons, and a bogus George Eliot manuscript, all of which present minor puzzles. None of the stories are memorable although some are amusing. 5/5/25

A Trap for Fools by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1989

Although well written, this is another disappointing mystery novel in which all of the crucial clues are only revealed at the end, cheating the reader. An unpopular professor is pushed to his death from a window on campus. Family, peers, administrators, and students all loathed him. Kate Fansler interviews a large number of people – none of whom it turns out had anything to do with the murder, or the subsequent one. Blackmail, embezzlement, and more blackmail were behind it all, but none of the reasons why these things were possible were even revealed until the summing up. 4/25/25

Icefire by Robert C. Wilson, Berkley, 1984

This is a very long suspense novel about a prison/hospital for the criminally insane on a remote island on the Great Lakes. A particularly twisted individual with a powerful personality causes the other inmates to riot and eventually overwhelm the security staff. The survivors have to play a deadly game of hide and seek on the ice covered island. Although there are hints of the supernatural at times, they are all rationalized. The first half of the novel is very slow – Wilson spent a lot of time on characterization including extensive flashbacks, but the second half is quite exciting. 4/22/25

No Word from Winifred by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1986

Although this is at times an interesting character study, it is not much of a mystery – and in fact it turns out that no crime has been committed. Kate Fansler is enticed into investigating the disappearance of a reclusive woman and makes several leaps of logic that I found quite impossible to accept. She eventually concludes that the woman has been murdered and that her lover was responsible. She even decides where he buried her body. She is wrong on all counts. The woman is still alive, her disappearance is quite out of character, and the solution is implausible. 4/20/25

To Catch a Thief by David Dodge, Poisoned Pen, 2025 (originally published in 1951)

This was the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, although a lot of the plot is different. A retired cat burglar living in France has to go into hiding when someone imitates his style for a series of daring robberies. The police believe he is responsible, so he has to go undercover and attempt to capture the real thief in order to clear his name. Smoothly written with some memorable characters and scenes. The ending took me by surprise and the twists and turns are entertaining. Dodge wrote a few other mysteries, for which my eye will be henceforth peeled. 4/19/25

Death in a Tenured Position by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1981

The first female professor in the Harvard English Department is controversial, disliked by the male faculty, and most of the students as well. She has an unpleasant personality and resents any implication that she is a token staff member. Someone arranges an embarrassing incident that threatens to sully her reputation and she asks an old acquaintance, Kate Fansler, to help, although it is not clear what precisely she wants anyone to do. Then she is poisoned and dies, her body found in a staff men’s bathroom, and Fansler has to investigate what appears to be a cruel murder. This installment in the series never particularly interested me and I sort of guessed the solution. Cross clearly wasn’t interested in the mystery element and just wanted to write about academia. 4/16/25

Sweet Death, Kind Death by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1986

A prominent history professor drowns in a lake under conditions which clearly point to suicide. Fansler is asked to look into the matter simply to lay rumors to rest, but she begins to suspect that it was murder. Most of the book is a character study of the victim, who was complex and controversial. The mystery is almost an afterthought. The conclusion is infuriating. Fansler identities the killer – two of them actually – by means of several major pieces of information which have never been shared with the reader. I really don’t think Cross wanted to write mystery novels. She wanted to write about academia. 4/16/25

In the Fog by Richard Harding Davis, Poisoned Pen, 2025 (originally published in 1901)

This is actually a novella, padded out with scores of sometimes very length footnotes and an additional short story. A group of men spin a complicated tale of murder and intrigue in order to distract a Member of Parliament from making a crucial speech on a bill of which they disapprove. It turns out that the bill had already passed. The extra story is a minor mystery involving a newspaper reporter. 4/13/25

V As in Victim by Lawrence Treat, Poisoned Pen, 2024 (originally published in 1945)

The introduction to this edition asserts that this was the first -police procedural novel. I don’t know if that’s true. There are two detectives involved. One is a callous, not very bright plodder who nevertheless has some good instincts. The other is a technician who believes in laboratory analysis of evidence. A fatal hit and run accident coincides with the murder of a man in what appears to be an unrelated incident. But there is physical evidence linking the two. A young woman is alternately framed for the murder and risks becoming a victim herself. I guessed the clever way the hit and run driver disguises his involvement. Pretty good. First book I’ve read by Treat. 4/13/25

The Question of Max by Amanda Cross, Avon, 1976

Kate Fansler’s friend Max asks her to accompany him to the house of a recently deceased author, for whom he is acting as literary executor. They find a dead woman on the shoreline nearby, and Fansler recognizes her as a student. Her death may have been accidental and it is some months before she begins to believe that Max killed her because he is a horrible snob and she had uncovered evidence that he was illegitimate. It appears that things will continue as normal, but Fansler finds new evidence that proves he was not illegitimate at all, which suggests that he murdered the student because she had discovered the dead writer had expressly ruled him out as her executor. Another very slow paced but interesting mystery. 4/11/25

The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross, Knopf, 1981

The third Kate Fansler novel is not a murder mystery, since there is no murder. The mystery this time involves a body found inside a locked private school that is patrolled by dogs. The dead woman dies of natural causes, but should not have been able to enter the building. She had a weak heart and it is briefly thought that the dogs scared her into a heart attack, but subsequent evidence proves this is unlikely. Fansler is teaching a seminar on Antigone at the time and there are parallels to the play. There are also a couple of minor errors that an editor should have caught, one involving how a car can be hot wired and another a misunderstanding of how the army rotated troops to Vietnam. 4/7/25

The Mantis by Kotaro Isaka, Overlook.

This is part of the loosely organized series that includes Bullet Train. The protagonist is a professional assassin who is terrified of his wife and puzzled by his teenage son. He wants to retire from his unofficial job as a killer, but never quite gets around to it. Then he learns that someone has taken a contract out on him, so he has to be careful not to fall into the hands of a rival code named Hornet. I was very disappointed with this one. The first two are very tightly plotted and fast moving. This one plods along and there is not much plot at all. There is virtually no progress from page 50 to page 150. There is another book in the series, but I am now hesitant to buy it.

Tea on Sunday by Lettice Cooper, British Library, 2024 (originally published in 1973)

A wealthy woman is alone in her house waiting for eight guests she has invited to tea. One of them arrives early – we don’t know which one – and murders her, then returns with the others at the appointed time. So was it the lawyer, the financial advisor, the manager, the nephew, the nephew’s wife, the doctor, the swindling protégé, or the ex-convict? This was quite well done and kept me guessing. 4/1/25

Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross, Avon, 1970

The backdrop of this slow moving mystery is student unrest – Cross does not appear to have looked upon it very favorably even when she approves of some of the changes – and an internal battle about a division of the university about the continued existence of a division devoted to adult education. The man most determined to eradicate the school dies when someone replaces his medicine with aspirin, to which he is violently allergic. The mystery is not very interesting and the solution is neither logical nor clever. 4/1/25

Dramatic Murder by Elizabeth Anthony, British Library, 2024 (originally published in 1948)

This Christmas themed mystery starts pretty well – guests to a house party arrive to find their host, electrocuted, draped over his Christmas tree. It appears to be an accident, but no reader and only a few of the characters believes that. He was a playwright and his other guests include ambitious actresses, a producer, a doctor, an explorer, and a few random people. None of the characters stand out. They are all standard mystery characters with nothing to make them feel real or sympathetic or even unsympathetic. The author wrote only one other mystery which, like this one, has been out of print for seventy years. 3/30/25

The James Joyce Murder by Amanda Cross, Ballantine, 1982 (originally published in 1967)

The second Kate Fansler mystery is rather self indulgent – there are several lengthy literary discussions that do nothing to advance the plot. The premise also struck me as a bit off. She is hosting her young nephew for a summer and has no qualms about him taking a real rifle, presumed to be unloaded, and then aiming and firing at their nearest neighbor. But one day the rifle really is loaded and she is killed, although it was the tutor who made the shot. I find this all very difficult to swallow. If you accept the premise, however, you will be drawn into the mystery of a missing James Joyce manuscript, a young man who seems terrified of sex, a professor who is concealing the fact that he writes lurid spy novels, and a few other side plots. Definitely not as good as the first. 3/28/25

Death Holds the Stirrups by Nelson S. Bond, Armchair, 2024

Armchair does not indicate when this was originally published. I’d guess 1940s or early 1950s. It’s only a novelette. A new jockey is frustrated when his mount misbehaves and throws him during a race. Through a series of assumptions and coincidences, his career is in jeopardy on the one hand because he is suspected of being involved in fixing races, and on the other hand because people who ask too many questions are likely to end up dead. The fact that his boss might be a crook does not help any as he tries to prove his innocence.

In the Last Analysis by Amanda Cross, Avon, 1964

The first of more than a dozen books featuring English professor and amateur sleuth Kate Fansler. Her close friend, a psychiatrist, is the chief suspect when one of his patient is found stabbed to death in his office. His wife is their second choice, but slowly the number of suspects grows. The dead woman left her money to a man she had never met. The doctor across the hall has a mysterious past. Two other patients acting out of character on the day of the murder. With the help of a friendly police official and a young man she knows, Fansler uncovers bits and pieces that the police overlooked, or did not consider important. The prose is rich and filled with literary references. A very promising beginning as I have 15 more books by her to read.

The Invisible Helix by Keigo Higashimo, Minotaur, 2024

An abusive boyfriend disappears and then is found dead a few days later. His girlfriend goes into hiding with a friend and the police naturally suspect her. The police consultant – a recurring character in the author’s work – appears to be deliberately making it more difficult for the police to track her down. The police suspect the involvement of the elderly manager of a local sex club. The identity of the killer is actually quite obvious early on. But she is arrested and confesses well before the end. The real climax involves the unraveling of the relationships among various of the characters, some of which are quite startling. Higashino is my favorite Japanese mystery writer. 3/26/25

Murder in Vienna by E.C.R. Lorac, British Library, 2024 (originally published in 1956)

Although this is a relatively slow moving mystery, it will likely hold your interest. The characters are quite interesting and the background – Vienna shortly after Austria was released from Allied occupation – is colorful. A young woman hired as a secretary is attacked during a thunderstorm. An investigative author is murdered – apparently run over twice. A chauffeur disappears and is later found in a canal. A once famous opera singer is attempting to sell some memoirs that she has inherited. A British camera man with a good memory for faces appears to be playing a game of his own. The solution involves a clever net of apparently unconnected incidents into a single whole. One of the author’s best. 3/22/25

The Big Fix by Mel Colton, Armchair, 2024 (Originally published in 1952)

The protagonist of this novel is a dubious character who gets caught up in a dilemma. A large bet was placed on a horse race that was fixed. It was placed in his name so only he can collect the cash. But if he does so, one group of heavies is going to be after him, and if he doesn’t, another group is going to equally upset. He wants to stay on good terms with the local criminals but no matter what he does, he is going to make someone else mad. Throw in an ex-wife, another sexy young woman, and a few standard characters and you have a mostly predictable, largely forgettable story whose protagonist you are not going to like or care about. 3/22/25

Blood on the Moon by Dwight V. Swain, Armchair, 2024 (Originally published in 1947)

An okay crime novel that centers on a sleazy bar. The protagonist falls in love with a woman who works there and becomes so obsessed that he allows her to lead him into a life of crime – small stuff at first but eventually culminating in a murder. His brother is a police detective who obviously disapproves strongly. The reader is likely to do so either. There is really no excuse for the stupidity of the protagonist, who believes everything he is told and shows no remorse even when he realizes the truth. He is just trying to get out of having to pay for his crimes. 3/17/25

Murder for Madam by Dwight V. Swain, Armchair, 2024

I don’t know when this was originally published, probably late 1940s. It has virtually the same plot as the other Swain crime novel I recently read. A happily married man meets a beautiful woman and he just cannot resist being drawn into infidelity, even when that means he has to dabble with committing crimes himself. This inevitably leads to his involvement in a murder case and he has to find a way to get off the hook. I had no sympathy for him at all. Swain apparently thought men were generally willing to do whatever it took when they had a chance to romance a beautiful woman. Hopefully Swain was not speaking from personal experience. 3/17/25

The House on Lily Street by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 1978

One of Vance’s lesser known mysteries begins when a welfare worker is found with his throat cut in an untenanted house. He was supposedly looking informally into an extortion scheme that preyed on welfare recipients who cheated. The racket crossed paths with a brutal man who abuses his family and spends most of his time either gambling or drinking. A police detective tries to weave through a small crowd of people who all I interacted with the dead man, but none of whom actually liked him, not even his mistress. The story is told largely in flashbacks and the climax involves two men cruising around the city looking for an opportunity to kill each other. Readable, but not one of his successful novels. 3/16/25

Strange People, Queer Notions by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 1985

I didn’t care very much for this suspense novel – which only has some murder in the closing chapters. An American living in Italy is tricked into becoming the front man for a twisted individual who sends blackmail letters to various people, even though he is not really interested in their money. He just likes pulling people’s strings – and two suicides follow. Our hero is blamed by most of the others. Toward the end, the villain gets murdered and the hero is briefly the chief suspect. The actual criminal is a shadowy figure who does not even appear in the book until the climax. 3/16/25

The Dark Ocean by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 1985

A young woman books passage on a freighter to get away from her domineering mother and an unwelcome suitor. Unfortunately the latter secretly books passage on the same ship. After an altercation with another passenger, he disappears, and a typed suicide note is found in his cabin. It is pretty obvious who killed him, and the same man claims two other victims before he is caught. He also throws the protagonist overboard, but she is able to reach shore and safety. There is really no mystery involved because the killer is obvious. 3/16/25

The Deadly Doll by Milton Ozaki, Armchair, 2024 (originally published in 1951)

Ozaki, who also wrote as Robert Saber, was a small time swindler for many years, but found time to write a couple of dozen mystery novels. A young woman is lured into a park one night in a small midwestern city and is promptly strangled. The protagonist is a private detective from another part of the country who is transplanted to get a fresh look at the case. He finds the local police unusually uncooperative and the one person he meets who might be an ally betrays him rather blatantly. Okay story, but I won’t be able to remember the plot a couple of weeks from now. 3/14/25

The View from Chickweed’s Window by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 2002 (originally published in 1978)

A very low key murder mystery involving a young girl sent to live with her horrid aunt and uncle, along with a valuable antique vase that the aunt covets. The uncle is shot to death, and the girl believes that she is responsible because she fired at him when he attempted to sexually assault her. She is sent to a detention center and does not see her aunt or cousins for more than a decade. Then she inherits her father’s trust fund and decides it is time to reclaim her vase. She swindles each of the cousins, then her aunt, regains everything she lost, and also proves that her aunt was the actual murderer. Lightly entertaining but not as good as his earlier mysteries. 3/9/25

Murder Is So Final by Robert Moore Williams, Armchair, 2024

This is a reprint from an old pulp but I’m not sure when it was first published. It’s a novella about a private detective who is hired by a woman to find out who is following her and why. It turns out that two different people are on her tail, one of them hired by her presumed future father-in-law. The client also stumbles upon the body of a street person, who was murdered just outside the detective’s office. The great reveal is pretty obvious quite early. The dead man had a daughter who grew up in an orphanage, and when she got out and discovered how he lived, she killed him. And she is, of course, the client. Very minor. 3/9/25

Love and Death in the Time of Covid by Qui Xiaolong, Severn House, 2024

Inspector Chen is no longer an inspector in this addition to his series. He offended too many Communist Party officials and he is also old enough that retirement seems the next logical step. But when a serial killer begins claiming victims in the vicinity of a hospital, the authorities decide that his talent for detection cannot be wasted. The story moves very slowly but it is more about the way the Chinese government responded to the Covid crisis than it is about a serial killer. I never really got engaged with this one although some of the peripheral information was fascinating. 3/7/25

Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell by Nicholas Meyer, Minotaur, 2024 a642

Holmes and Watson come out of retirement to travel to the US during World War I. The British government has heard that the Germans have a plan to keep America from entering the war – an obvious reference to efforts to create conflict with Mexico to divert President Wilson’s attention. They have to solve a murder on the voyage to America and then get involved in an okay but frankly not very interesting espionage plot. I was rather disappointed in this one, which seemed overly restrained, loosely plotted, and lacking any real puzzle. Meyer has done much better with previous Holmes stories. 2/27/25

The Pleasant Grove Murders by Jack Vance, Ace, 1967

A mailman is found murdered in his truck but none of the mail is missing. The complex relationships among several families suggest no real motives and Sheriff Bain is stumped. Then another man is murdered in the same manner, and shortly after that a woman living alone is found dead in her house. All were killed with the same hammer. A woman becomes pregnant despite her separation from her husband. A young woman’s trip to Europe turns out to have a secret agenda. Bain and his family are also involved in purchasing a rundown tavern and reopening it. A nicely complex mystery with a clever solution. 2/27/25

The Deadly Isles by Jack Vance, Ace, 1969

The management of an enormous fortune results in a plot to kill all three of them so that the wife who inherits can be blackmailed for a lifetime. One of the three survives the attempt on his life, but does not suspect the truth until one of the others mysteriously falls overboard and drowns between two South Pacific islands. He meets the third, who promptly dies, poisoned. Although he knows the man who is one of the killers, there are several different women who might be his partner. The wife is the obvious suspect, so clearly it is not her. There are a few convenient coincidences, but this is actually a pretty good book. 2/27/25

Bad Ronald by Jack Vance, Ballantine, 1973

This is an excellent suspense story about a psychopathic teenager who is secretly living in a hidden room and the walls of a large house currently occupied by another family. At first he is careful about stealing food and not being seen, but eventually he becomes bold enough that he even abducts one of the three sisters. That ultimately leads to his discovery and downfall. This was made into a made for television movie that toned down the atmosphere and events a good deal but was still effective. The novel is, however, much superior. 2/27/25

The Man in the Cage by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 2005 (originally published in 1960) a627

The protagonist comes to Tunisia to search for his brother, who has been missing since finding himself mixed up in a drug deal against his will. He meets a variety of unsavory people and is briefly imprisoned by one of them. They all want to know what happened to the drugs, which the rebels want to use to pay for additional weapons. No one dares approach the police, for obvious reasons. This is more of an adventure story than a mystery, and is quite well done, although the final revelations come a bit out of left field. Lots of local color, rather complex characterizations, and a decent puzzle. Vance might have been another Hammond Innes if he had pursued this type of story instead of SF. 2/20/25

Fly Country by Anthony Lang, Spitfire, 2004 (originally published in 1927) a622

A woman who has founded the first female financial agent office in London is involved in the sale of a prospective copper mine in Africa. Almost immediately, the seller is murdered. The murder is never really at the center of the story, however. Most of it is about attempts to discover who really owns the African concession. A considerable amount of information is withheld, cheating, until the final revelations. The identity of the murderer is no surprise. That said, and despite a very slowly paced plot, this wasn’t bad at all. Not a lost classic but an entertaining though minor addition to the genre. Lang is better known as Vernon Loder. 2/20/25

The Fox Valley Murders by Jack Vance, Ace, 1966 a631

The first Joe Bain novel is quite good. Bain is acting sheriff when a man who served sixteen years in prison for the murder of a young girl returns. Then the witnesses who helped convicted him begin having fatal accidents. The ex-convict has no alibi, but the reader will recognize immediately that he was unfairly convicted. The murders are fairly cleverly done and there is only a hint of cheating in that the killer is virtually absent from the story until the very end. The one failed accident – which really was accidental – is a bit overly contrived but otherwise this was a satisfying detective story. 2/20/25
 

The Sound of Death by David Wright O’Brien, Armchair, 2024 (originally published in 1946) a637

O’Brien died on a bombing mission in Europe while still in his twenties, but had already published several dozen stories in both the science fiction and mystery genre. This is one of the latter. It’s nothing special. It does have an unusual protagonist. He has just returned from the war with an artificial leg. While he was gone, his mother and fiancé were both killed, and his younger brother was fatally shot by a police officer while fleeing a robbery scene. But our hero does not believe his brother was a thief, and he is not convinced that the other murders were all properly investigated,. So he’s off on his own, aided by a man who turns out to be the evil mastermind behind it all. 2/16/25

Point Zero by Seicho Matsumoto, Bitter Lemon, 2024 (Japanese edition 1959) a638

Although I guessed the killer very very early, this is a fine Japanese murder mystery. The chief protagonist has recently married a man about whom she knows little, and both she and her employer are puzzled when he mysteriously disappears on a business trip. His brother goes looking for him, and is fatally poisoned by a mystery woman. One of the company executives becomes interested and pursues his own investigation, and he is also poisoned and dies. The bewildered wife figures out the truth, that her husband had been leading a double life for over a year and had been unsuccessful in disengaging thanks to the interference of a third individual, who was afraid he might reveal details from her sordid past. The subtle differences in culture are very noticeable and give the story a very different flavor. 2/16/25

Shot on the Downs by Victor L. Whitechurch, Spitfire, 2024 (originally published in 1927)

A man walking through the woods finds a recently murdered man and impulsively steals a large sum of money he is carrying and which the murderer left behind. A poacher finds and reports the body, but the police are puzzled because the money is clearly gone, but the tracks prove the shooter never approached his victim. This is a fairly clever puzzle story in which the coincidences actually work against the investigators instead of in their favor. The motive for the murder is a mild cheat because there is no way for the reader to have known, or even really suspected, the relationship between the killer and the victim. Nicely done however. 2/12/25

The Tobacco Auction Murders by Robert Turner, Armchair, 2024 (originally published in 1954)

The protagonist of this standard crime novel is skeptical when his wife’s supposedly accidental death, so he decides to find out the truth when the police refuse to take him seriously. But someone else does take him seriously, someone who does not want the truth to come out because, obviously, it was a murder made to look like suicide. There’s the usual gang of toughs, the shady businessman, the mysterious woman, and a slow build up to the final confrontation. Competently done. I believe Turner wrote prolifically under other names. 2/12/25
 

Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, Spitfire, 2024 (originally published in 1928)

This is a very fine Golden Age mystery by two mostly forgotten writers, set mostly in the world of theater. An actress is present when one of her fellow cast members is murdered, but she cannot remember what happened and she seems to be the only suspect. She is tried and sentenced to death but a theater producer gets interested in the case. There was so much circumstantial evidence that the police didn’t look at some anomalous elements in the case. The identity of the killer is mildly telegraphed but the process by which the protagonist conducts his investigation, assisted by a stage manager, is interesting and the prose is witty and sometimes even humorous without being silly.

Kill Me a Fortune by Robert Colby, Armchair, 2024 (originally published in 1951)

A readable but not outstanding standard detective story. The protagonist is a teacher on break who decides to occupy his time proving that a young woman did not commit the murder for which she is being charged. Naturally his activities attract the attention of the real killer, who wants to put an end to outside interference. Prose is acceptable. Characters are reasonably well done. The story is just too overly familiar and the protagonist is rather too naïve to be entirely credible.
 

Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto, Penguin, 2022 (Japanese edition, 1958)

Two people are found dead on a seashore and it appears to be a lovers’ suicide pact. But the local detective in charge is troubled by some oddities. There is no proof that the two were lovers and their movements in the few days prior to their deaths are full of contradictions. A Tokyo detective knows that the dead man was connected to a major corruption investigation, and he is similarly troubled by a series of coincidences involving a senior official who just happened to be in the area shortly before the suicides. This is a nicely laid out and logical mystery story which involves manipulation and interpretation of train and airplane schedules, impersonations, and a very clever villain. 2/7/25

Unholy Night by Hugh Cave, Armchair, 2024 (Originally published in 1934)

The generally reliable Cave sleepwalks his way through this melodramatic piece of imitative tripe. A married couple stay at a gloomy house with a bad reputation. Two of the other guests are killed and beheaded. There is a dark shape looming in the shadows. The landlady is not only weird, she has nearly superhuman strength. Someone is clearly hiding in the attic throughout, and he is revealed to be her homicidal, insane, very disfigured son. Not remotely worthwhile. 2/7/25
 

The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1945

When the protagonist arrives to open up the family house in Maine, she is soon faced with the burned body of a woman that has been hidden in a linen closet. No one knows who she is, but she has connections to the family because she tried to visit one of them shortly before her death. A brother on leave from the army has been acting mysteriously. The plot is pretty convoluted and there are several red herrings. I guessed wrong, but mostly because there was no clue that could have taken me to the right decision, and the character was so minor – and acted out of character when he did the killing – that I never considered him. 2/4/25

The Horseman of Death by Anthony Wynne, Spitfire, 2024 (originally published in 1929)

This vintage mystery does not age well. It makes factual errors about drugs and it assumes that bleeding a patient is a good way to cure an overdose. A rich man is haunted by phantom hooves and preyed upon by a fake medium with designs on his money, a fortune in cash concealed somewhere in his house. Several murders take place and his niece’s fiancé is the prime suspect. The guilty party is so obvious that I thought it had to be a red herring. There are two different secret passages, and a bunch of withheld information revealed only at the conclusion. The last forty pages introduce a completely new subplot and characters which leads to the solution. Awful book. 2/4/25

Episode of the Wandering Knife by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1950

The title story is a novella, accompanied here by two novelettes. The wandering knife is the murder weapon when a young wife is stabbed to death using her husband’s easily identifiable knife while he is attending a party within walking distance. The protagonist and her mother confuse matters by hiding the knife, then losing it, then being caught for having taken it. The solution involves a subplot that is only introduced toward the end, which is a bit of a cheat. The second involves the murder of a domineering women. The police generally believe the daughter or the daughter’s boyfriend was the killer, but the detective in charge demurs and proves his case. 2/4/25

The Swimming Pool by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1952

This is basically a rehash of plot elements from her earlier books, and it was her final novel. A family is indirectly connected to an old murder case. The spoiled daughter is clearly afraid of something – which gets worse when a woman who looks like her is found murdered on the property. Intruders, another shooting, revelations, and mysterious attacks ensue. A man convicted of a murder was himself killed and the daughter is a suspect. But he really was innocent and it is the real murderer who is trying to cover his tracks. Far too long for the plot – nothing really happens for the first hundred pages. 2/4/25

Alibi for Isabel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1972

A collection of short stories from the 1940s, marketed as a mystery although some of them are quite mundane. There are three stories – including the title story – in which murders are made to look like suicides, but the stories themselves are very much different. A man kills a saboteur in WWII London, which gives him the courage to confront his profligate wife. Rumors of a spy complicate Christmas for a family. The title story is the only one that is at all memorable. Not all of the stories are mysteries. 2/4/25
 

The Wall by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Zebra, 1989 (originally published in 1938)

A divorced woman returns to the island where her ex-husband lives and makes unreasonable demands. Not surprisingly, she is found dead not long after and the ex is clearly the prime suspect. But then the dead woman’s maid suggests her employer had a lot of enemies, and she is also murdered. There are a number of newcomers on the island, and most of the long term residents had good reason to dislike the divorcee. The story is long winded – not unusual for Rinehart – but the solution is well done, although there is no way the reader could figure out the killer except by sheer guess work. 1/18/25

The Frightened Wife by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1953

This is a collection of two novellas and three short stories. The title novella is a pretty good tale of a woman who believes her husband is trying to kill her, but he is the one who ends up dead. The three short stories are all very minor. The second novella is “The Burned Chair.”  An invalid is found dead one morning, but the circumstances seem unusual to one of the witnesses, who later passes on her doubts to the local police. There is another murder later on and the solution involves efforts to acquire the bulk of the dead man’s considerable estate. It’s not a bad story but is overly familiar. 1/18/25

Haunted Lady by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1942

The second Miss Pinkerton novel. An elderly woman has been finding small animals, bats and rats, in her almost hermetically sealed bedroom. Nurse Adams, who works with the police, is engaged to watch over her and quickly discovers a great deal of tension exists among her family and even extended family. Then she is stabbed to death in her bed and another murder follows. The unraveling includes a secret passage – which is cheating – and a plethora of motives and opportunities. There are several red herrings, none of them particularly effective, although the story is actually one of her better efforts and a lot less padded than usual. 1/18/25

The Flesh Mask by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 2002

This is a reprint of Take My Face, which appeared as by Peter Held in 1957. It is the story of a wronged and mutilated boy who gets plastic surgery, disappears for a few years, and then returns. Some of the people who wronged him in the past and they are killed and have their faces mutilated. The puzzle appears to be finding out which character is the boy from the past, but that actually is a red herring. The prose is rather rough and the characters not very well done. I guessed the truth way too soon, and the motive was almost  ridiculous. Vance would go on to write some excellent mystery novels in the future. 1/18/25

The Adventures of Letitia Carberry by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Bobbs, 1911 

This very obscure mystery is a novel although it is generally listed as a collection. Carberry works in a hospital and is fond of a patient named Tish, who is the protagonist of several of Rinehart’s non-mystery novels. A dead body disappears from the morgue and another corpse is found hanging from a chandelier. The first had claimed he would return from the dead for revenge. His body is found concealed behind a false ceiling. 1/12/25

There’s Death in the Churchyard by William Gore, Oreon, 2023 (originally published in 1934) 

All of the elements that should have pleased me are here – murder in a remote English village, a body in the churchyard, lots of motives and suspects. The problem is that I found the prose and tone both annoying. The prose kept drifting off into irrelevant side issues that caused my interest to waver. The tone is a curious one. The authors – a married couple – did not seem to take the murder seriously. I don’t mean that it was humorous but just that the murder itself never seemed to be a serious occurrence, more of a curiosity than a tragedy. Took three days to nreadn chunks of it and finish, and it’s not that long a book. Not every Golden Age Mystery is an obscure pleasure.  1/12/25

The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox, Spitfire, 2024 (originally published in 1928)

This one is an excellent mystery but an unorthodox one. Two cousins are on a canoe trip. One leaves the boat for a day and when he returns, the boat is half sunken and the cousin is gone. This would mean he would inherit a large legacy. But even if we assume that he somehow faked his alibi and committed murder, where is the body? Why was the canoe damaged and how did it travel so far if the cousin was already dead when he left it? And who was the man walking along a remote path? Who left bare foot prints on a bridge overlooking the water? Who took several odd photographs including one that might be showing the dead body? There are so many contradictory bits of evidence that I just kept reading, hoping for illumination. 1/12/25

Murder Bound by Poul Anderson, MacMillan, 1962

The third and final novel featuring detective Trygve Yamamura. Conrad Lauring is aboard a Norwegian cruise ship as the story opens. One of the crew members is identified as a Nazi war criminal and there is a confused fight on a foggy night. The wanted man appears to have fallen overboard. Yamamura is hired to determine if a murder has been committed, but meanwhile an attempt is made to kill one of the other men involved. This was not a very good story. The killer is the man who supposedly drowned. He had built himself a place to hide on the ship and waited for it to dock. 1/12/25

The Drowning Wire by Marvin Claire, Ace, 1953

I didn’t like the protagonist of this crime thriller even remotely so it was hard to get involved in his troubles. He is short tempered, intolerant, nasty, and irritable. When a murder is committed in his vicinity, and the victim turns out to be someone with whom he has tangled in the past, it is not surprising that he is suspect number one. And as you surely have already guessed, he spends the rest of the story tracking down the real killer so that he can clear his name. Competent but uninteresting prose – the same for the plot. The characters are mostly bland.

Departure Delayed by Will Oursler, Ace, 1947

I can’t say that I was ever convinced by the premise of this novel. The protagonist has had amnesia and learns – or thinks he learns – that under his previous identity he was a dangerous killer. The police are supposedly on his trail. But he has difficulty reconciling the image of himself that is suggested by his dark past with the fact that he has strong moral objections to such behavior in his current persona. I have never been able to accept that a person’s basic personality could be altered this much by amnesia, so I found the story reasonably well written but completely uninvolving.

The State vs Elinor Norton by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1934

I’m inclined to say that this is an anti-romance novel rather than a murder mystery. Norton is accused of killing her love, who may have murdered the husband she despised. The novel as written as a biography of her life, authored by a childhood friend, and the deaths do not actually occur until very late in the book. Unfortunately, her life is not very interesting and I frequently struggled through long and sometimes irrelevant sections which were devoted mostly to establishing the various characters.

Death on the Oxford Road by E.C.R. Lorac, 1933

A chauffeur runs over a body late one night, but subsequent evidence shows that the man had been dead for several hours already. It is not plausible that he could have lain unnoticed in the road for so long, so obviously someone moved the bo–‡Ú*
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