Who are you going to call?
It’s the 1930s and after making a will in your favour, your great-uncle has been found in the library with a dagger through his heart. You didn’t do it, but your fingerprints are on the hilt. Or maybe someone you love has been convicted of murder and condemned to death. You have only weeks to […]
Murder in Mind
I didn’t get round to posting my talk on Helen McCloy, which I gave at Bodies from the Library last year. So here it is now. The title is ‘Murder in Mind: The Crime Novels of Helen McCloy.’ My attention was first drawn to Helen McCloy when her novel, Mr Splitfoot, was listed by H. […]
Bodies from the Library 2019
Not long to go now to the annual British Library event, Bodies from the Library, and I am busy putting together my talk, Murder in Mind: The Crime Novels of Helen McCloy. She is a fine writer who has been unjustly neglected. I intend to put that right. If she is known at all it is for Through […]
What’s your favourite crime-writer?
Now and then someone asks me who my favourite crime-writer is, as they did last night at my book-group. My mind always goes a blank and I mutter something about still loving Agatha Christie. Last night I did in the end manage to come up with Andrea Camilleri, Michael Connolly (recent worthy winner of the […]
Ten novels set in the theatre
Along with my good blogfriend Moira at http://clothesinbooks.blogspot.co.uk I am posting my list of ten novels with theatrical settings. Theatres are closed communities of people engaged in a very stressful profession and so make wonderful settings – for crime novels in particular. Actors are good at lying. Deceiving people is what they do for living. And […]
Helen McCloy’s Through a Glass, Darkly
I hadn’t heard of Helen McCloy before her novel, Cue for Murder, was discussed on one of my favourite blogs, Clothesinbooks.com. It’s set in a theatre and sounded right up my street. I did enjoy it, and but not nearly as much as I enjoyed Through a Glass, Darkly, regarded by many as her […]