A mixed bag

Some great, many good, two absolute stinkers. Ngaio Marsh, Grave Mistake I have no memory of ever reading this, yet it's got a record in my reading diary from thirteen years ago so I'm obviously getting old and forgetful. It's VERY good: a classic whodunnit set in the 1970s in an English country village and … Continue reading A mixed bag →

Seven duds for seven dustbins: More books to avoid

Recently I posted a collection of short hatchet jobs on books that I felt so strongly about I had to be bitter about them in public. This was one of the most popular reviews I’ve posted in the last 6 months, so you clearly like this stuff. I’ve found a few more. I haven’t included those … Continue reading Seven duds for seven dustbins: More books to avoid →

So much unhappy beauty: Robin Hyde’s The Godwits Fly

Perhaps I’ve been reading too much Ngaio Marsh lately, but when I saw in the Persephone catalogue that they were reprinting Robin Hyde’s The Godwits Fly (1938), handily on the eve of a trip to London, I went straight to their shop. I had come across references to Hyde’s writing when I was reading a … Continue reading So much unhappy beauty: Robin Hyde’s The Godwits Fly →

Ngaio Marsh’s Death in a White Tie

This week's classic detective fiction podcast scripts catch-up from Why I Really Like This Book is on the tremendous New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh (pronounced NYE-oh). Death In A White Tie (1938) is from the same period as Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, and shares a theme of a high society drugs racket with Murder Must Advertise and with Darkness … Continue reading Ngaio Marsh’s Death in a White Tie →

The 1938 Club! Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop

This special podcast scripts recap from Why I Really like This Book, is on Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's magnificent satire about newspaper journalism. Scoop is also a member of The 1938 Club, a week of book reviews and blog posts about the reading of 1938, that's taking place between 11 and 17 April 2016. British journalism changed radically at … Continue reading The 1938 Club! Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop →

The performances of Roderick Alleyn: Ngaio Marsh at her best

I accidentally began rereading Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn detective novels before Christmas, and have now, a month later, read them all, bar the four that I didn't have which have yet to arrive via Abebooks. These novels are Marsh’s most well-known works, superb Golden Age detective novels in the classic whodunit style, published from the 1930s … Continue reading The performances of Roderick Alleyn: Ngaio Marsh at her best →

The Golden Age of Murder

Martin Edwards' The Golden Age of Murder is a fat and heavy hardback (the paperback is due out in 2016) endorsed by Len Deighton, as a study of the British writers who created the Golden Age of detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s an absolute treasure chest of writers’ names and novels that have … Continue reading The Golden Age of Murder →

Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady

This is the first podcast script for the first podcast series I produced, on an A to Z of authors I really like. Looking for Author A was tough: Asimov, von Arnim, Austen, Alcott, Aaronovitch and Adams stare at me pleadingly from the bookshelf, but the English detective novelist Margery Allingham has the most shelf centimetres. She … Continue reading Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady →

The Golden Age detective novels of Ianthe Jerrold

I do like a classic detective novel from the British Golden Age. The reigning queens of the genre - Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey - are superb novelists, and highly influential stylists. It would be a fine thing to discover forgotten writers who are as good as they are, … Continue reading The Golden Age detective novels of Ianthe Jerrold →