Mary Kelly, The Spoilt Kill

This is a tremendous crime thriller from 1961, that won the Crime Writers' Association Critics' Award for that year. Mary Kelly went on to write more detective novels, but somehow her name has disappeared from sight. Crime fiction historian Martin Edwards says that she stopped writing fiction in her forties, because she chose when and what … Continue reading Mary Kelly, The Spoilt Kill →

Osbert Sitwell, A Place of One’s Own

This is a neat and lush little ghost story, barely long enough for a novella, printed in 1941 in an austere wartime edition. In 1945 the story was made into a film of the same name, starring James Mason, and Margaret Lockwood as an entirely new character. The story is the work of an established … Continue reading Osbert Sitwell, A Place of One’s Own →

E C Bentley and Trent’s Last Case

Sir Humphry Davy Was not fond of gravy. He lived in the odium Of having discovered sodium E C Bentley published his first collection of clerihews in 1905, as Biography for Beginners, and in this he was clearly the inspiration for such other classics of amateur history interpretations as 1066 And All That, and … Continue reading E C Bentley and Trent’s Last Case →

Great swashbuckling: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped

Allow Robert Louis Stevenson to give you a swashbuckling time in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up. Kidnapped (1886) is the classic romp through the heather by the master of the modern Scottish adventure, though it's set in 1746. Stevenson dragged the historical novel out of the rather long-winded grip of Sir Walter Scott, and made it immediate, exciting and … Continue reading Great swashbuckling: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped →

Lemon in the sugar: Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine

This was a surprise. I picked up a paperback copy of this novel because I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to be rereading Bradbury and bought the first one I found. I paid very little for it, because clumps of pages were already falling out: it was clearly a much loved copy. … Continue reading Lemon in the sugar: Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine →

Greer Gilman’s Jonsonian fantasies

Greer Gilman’s Exit, Pursued by a Bear was published in 2014, preceded by Cry Murder! In A Small Voice in 2013. These are historical novels published by the estimable and alluring Small Beer Press, in saddle-stitched chapbooks of high quality and good design (e-book versions are also possible). They share a protagonist, the English playwright … Continue reading Greer Gilman’s Jonsonian fantasies →

Josephine Tey’s Miss Pym Disposes

This week on the Really Like This Book's podcast scripts catch-up I am urging you to read Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes. Tey (her real name was Elizabeth MacKintosh) is, I maintain, a better writer than any of her Golden Age detective novelist colleagues. She chose to focus on the detective novel format, but she was … Continue reading Josephine Tey’s Miss Pym Disposes →

E R Punshon’s Crossword Mystery

In E R Punshon's Crossword Mystery, Mr George Winterton, a stockbroker and monomaniac on the subject of the gold standard, is in fear of his life. His brother has recently drowned, all his comfort in the peace of the English coastal bay which they own has been ruined, and he has demanded personal protection from … Continue reading E R Punshon’s Crossword Mystery →

Rose Macaulay’s Potterism

I wrote this podcast for Why I Really Like This Book for a miniseries called Fictions about Newspapers. Journalism is something I’ve dabbled in enough to know that I’m no good at it. I can write reviews, but I have no nous when it comes to news, and I am not hard-boiled. But I do … Continue reading Rose Macaulay’s Potterism →

Coroner’s Pidgin

Beginning my reposting of my scripts from Why I Really Like This Book, this is a lucky dip from the vaults: Coroner’s Pidgin by Margery Allingham. It was the last classic detective fiction novel of the Five Great Reads miniseries. I’ve been reading some great detective novels from the 1930s and 1940s, because this is my favourite kind of … Continue reading Coroner’s Pidgin →