Golden Age Archives - Page 2 of 2

Castle Skull (1931) – John Dickson Carr

Castle Skull was once owned by the monstrous magician Maleger, and then, on Maleger's mysterious death, by the famed actor Myron Alison. A peaceful night at Myron's home across the river is disturbed by the sound of screams. The house-guests look up to see a burning body dancing on the battlements of the castle - as Myron spends his final moments in agony. Summoned by financier Jérôme D'Aunay to investigate, Henri Bencolin and Jeff Marle soon find themselves in collaboration - or perhaps in…

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24 September, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Cyril Hare / Golden Age

Untimely Death (1958) – Cyril Hare

In last week's The Turquoise Shop, the first body had been found shortly before the book begins. In Untimely Death (first published as He Should Have Died Hereafter), you could say the first corpse turned up decades before. The first half of the book takes place entirely in the Exmoor area, where the Francis and Eleanor Pettigrew have decided to stay for their holiday. For Francis, the location holds many vivid memories of time spent there in childhood. We are allowed time to get…

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10 September, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Frances Crane / Golden Age

The Turquoise Shop (1941) – Frances Crane

Frances Crane is a new author to me. She lived for a time in Taos, New Mexico, an artist colony managed by Mabel Dodge Luhan, which hosted many eminent artists and writers. The setting for this book - and perhaps some of its characters - are based on her time in Taos. After writing this, Crane went on to write 25 more books in the series, featuring the narrator and detective from this book. By anyone's estimation, that's a successful detective fiction career -…

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4 September, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Dorothy L. Sayers / Golden Age / Short Stories

The Short Career of Montague Egg (1933-1939) – Dorothy L. Sayers

In addition to Lord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy L. Sayers also had a much less well-known regular detective. Unlike Lord Peter, Montague Egg is a working man; a "commercial traveller" for Messrs. Plummet and Rose, Wine Merchants. Though still mingling with the well-off due to his job, Egg exists in a very different mileu to Wimsey. Less butlers, spying, and dressing up as a wizard, and more suspicious travellers, awful pub dinners, and money-saving train dodges. The down-to-earth nature of the stories leads to them…

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28 August, 2023

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Authors / John Dickson Carr / Short Stories

The Beginning of Bencolin – John Dickson Carr’s short stories in The Haverfordian

After finishing The Lost Gallows I wanted to go back to the short stories that featured Henri Bencolin and Sir John Landervorne. I've also been pretty busy, so I thought a review of the four stories would be a nice quick way to get back into posting. Things did not work out that way… These stories were among Carr's first detective stories, and they were published in Carr's college magazine The Haverfordian between 1926 and 1928, when Carr was in his early twenties. By…

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13 August, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Golden Age / John Dickson Carr / Novels

The Lost Gallows (1931) – John Dickson Carr

A limousine joyrides through the fogbound streets of London with a corpse at the wheel. The shadow of a gallows is seen on an unknown street. Nezam al Moulk receives threatening packages delivered directly to his room even though no one could have entered.Ten years ago a duel was fought in Paris - and now the mysterious hangman Jack Ketch wants revenge. Will he drag his victims to Ruination Street, or can Henri Bencolin stop him before it's too late? Henri Bencolin and Jeff…

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18 July, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Golden Age / Ngaio Marsh / Novels

Death at the Bar (1940) – Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh has long been considered one of the "Queens of Crime", a leading author in the fair-play detective tradition of the inter-war years. You just have to look at the laudatory comments covering my reprint edition to see her reputation - "She writes better than Christie", "Among the Queens of Crime she stands out as an Empress", and so on. Reactions I've seen on classic crime fiction blogs have been… less positive. However, this is my first time reading a Marsh book, so…

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10 July, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Golden Age / John Dickson Carr / Novels

It Walks By Night (1930) – John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr is a pretty special author to me. He was the first Classic Crime author I really got into after the obvious Agatha Christie, and discovering the joys of a good Carr or Carter Dickson is what made me want to explore more to see what else was out there. I've already read a lot of his books, but I want to share my enjoyment of them by re-reading them and writing reviews. I've decided to start at the beginning for now,…

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12 June, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / Dorothy L. Sayers / Golden Age / Short Stories

Lord Peter Views the Body (1928) – Dorothy L. Sayers

This first collection of Dorothy L. Sayers' short stories was published in 1928, after a few Lord Peter Wimsey novels had already been published. The stories range from tales of detection, through tales of puzzle-solving, and into tales of adventure. Aside from all sharing the trait of ridiculously long titles, quite a few of them are what I'll call "hobby-themed"; they turn on a particular interest. Generally this is a high-culture or high-class interest. Lord Peter resolves the plot through his specialist knowledge of…

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22 May, 2023

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Authors / Book Reviews / E. C. Bentley / Golden Age / Short Stories

Trent Intervenes (1938) – E. C. Bentley

After Trent's Last Case, E.C. Bentley might have been expected to kick off a series in order to capitalize on its success. But in fact he doesn't seem to have been that interested; the follow-up came several decades later and was a collaboration with another writer. While he wrote short stories featuring the character, they are few and far between. Most of them were collected in the 1938 collection Trent Intervenes, with one extra that would be added to later editions. Three stories, The…

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8 May, 2023