Traditional Mystery
Catching Up with Louise Penny in Iceland
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Despite a backdrop of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions threatening travel plans to Iceland, I was able to catch up with Louise Penny, author of the popular Three Pines traditional mysteries starring Inspector Gamache. We talked over breakfast at the Hotel Saga in Reykjavik one Saturday morning during November’s Iceland Noir conference. Given the conference line-up,…
The Best Traditional Mysteries of 2023
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For me, there are few things more enjoyable than a good, old-fashioned whodunnit. Or a good, new-fashioned whodunnit. I say it a lot on this website, but, to me, the best thing that can happen in a book or a movie is someone crying out: “someone in this house is a murderer!” Or, if that…
An Unconventional Christmas Novel by an Unconventional Writer
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The Christmas Egg, first published in 1958, is an unconventional Christmas crime novel by an unconventional writer. Mary Kelly was one of the most talented British novelists to write crime fiction in the post-war era, coming to the fore just before P.D. James and Ruth Rendell appeared on the scene. Having risen rapidly to the…
Sherlockian Collaborations and the Joys of Fandom
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Bonnie MacBird is regarded as one of the top Sherlock Holmes writers, and her five Sherlock Holmes Adventures for HarperCollins have developed a following. Frank Cho is a top Marvel artist whose cover illustrations are legendary. Together they have collaborated on WHAT CHILD IS THIS? – a Sherlock Holmes Christmas novella. A Holiday pick by…
The Enduring Appeal of Murder and Mystery: A Brief History
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“Thou shalt not kill,” commands the King James Bible— without, as opponents of capital punishment like to point out, riders or qualifiers. Curiously, this translation of an injunction in the ancient Hebrew Torah did not lead the list of Yahweh’s rules; it arrives after other warnings, such as no swearing and no bowing to the…
The Mysterious Mr. Badman Is A Masterpiece of Macabre Humor
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The Mysterious Mr. Badman is a long-forgotten but entertaining crime novel, its light-heartedness all the more unexpected given the author’s reputation as a master of the macabre. The teasing tone is set right from the start, in the opening sentence: “When at two o’clock on a sultry July afternoon Athelstan Digby undertook to keep an…
Tis the Season to be (Fictionally) Murdered
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I’ve never been one for a beach read at the beach. Recently in Ventura and Monterey, I read a New-Jersey-set legal thriller (Robyn Gigl’s Survivor Guilt), a desert-set horror (Catriona Ward’s Sunset), and Raynor Winn’s Landlines. But I do love a Christmas book for Christmas. A winter break in New York in 2004 started it….
On The Rise, Fall, and Seemingly Inexplicable Appeal of Golden-Age Sleuth Philo Vance
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Philo Vance—the creation of Willard Huntington Wright, writing as S. S. Van Dine—first appeared in 1926 and overnight became an American publishing phenomenon. Vance appeared in twelve novels and seventeen films, and was so successful and well-known that genre historian J. K. Van Dover declared that by 1930, “Philo Vance was the American detective.” Van…
The Orchestral Stirrings of Death on the Down Beat, a Musician’s Murder Mystery
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Death on the Down Beat, originally published in 1941, is subtitled “An Orchestral Fantasy of Detection.” This is a highly unusual detective novel which is likely to appeal particularly to music lovers. A rare and little-known novel, it has nevertheless been described by the Golden Age mystery aficionado Barry Pike in The Oxford Companion to…
“The Mousetrap”: Still Going Strong After 28,000 Performances
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On the day Agatha Christie died in 1976, London theaters dimmed their lights for an hour in a show of esteem for her. While best known as the top-selling novelist of all time, Christie also set a record for the longest running stage production. The play she predicted would last 8 months, The Mousetrap, opened…