moranj (3 KP) rated Shakespeare and Hathaway in TV
Mar 23, 2018
Deadlier: 100 Crime Stories Written by Women
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100 of the best crime stories written by women, selected and introduced by Sophie Hannah. From...
The Affacombe Affair (Pollard and Toyne #2)
8.0
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Description Cosy crime writing at its best! Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, M C Beaton, Sophie...
Cosy Mystery
David McK (3918 KP) rated Ludwig - season 2 in TV
Oct 11, 2026 (Updated Oct 11, 2026)
So, as before, there's both the 'case of the week' where Ludwig has to solve a murder, and the concurrent deeper investigation going on at the same time.
Magpie Murders
7.4
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When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has...
Afraid of the Christmas Lights
Val McDermid, Sophie Hannah, T.E. Kinsey, Mark Billingham, Elle Croft, Phoebe Morgan, James Delargy, S.R. Masters, Victoria Selman, Clare Empson, Harriet Tyce, Kate Simants, Heather Critchlow, Adam Southward, N.J. Mackay, Rachael Blok, Dominic Nolan, Jo Furniss and Robert Scragg
10.0
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IT WOULDN’T BE CHRISTMAS WITHOUT A LITTLE CRIME… A Christmas dinner takes a murderous turn, a...
Short Stories UK Authors
Mayhawke (97 KP) rated Bats In The Belfry in Books
Feb 26, 2018 (Updated Feb 27, 2018)
Fifty-one re-issues in and I’m still stunned at the number of authors who had stellar careers as crime writers, were fully inducted members of the Detection Club, and had publication lists to rival Christie’s but who, within a few years of their deaths, had just vanished from the pantheon classic crime novelists.
Such a writer was E.C.R.Lorac, author of Bats In The Belfry. In his introduction Martin Edwards describes the pseudonymous Lorac (real name Edith Caroline Rivett) as enjoying a “low-key career spanning more than a quarter of a century.” It also produced a catalogue of over seventy novels, yet, cosy crime fan that I am I had never heard of her until her book turned up on my work intranet.
Bats, British Library’s inaugural Crime Classic for 2018, is also the first of Lorac’s novels to be given the British Library treatment. It couldn’t have happened to a better book! One of the dangers of republishing books that have disappeared in the mists of time, at least if you are republishing them for the mass market, is that some of them will prove to have been ‘lost’ with good cause. Not that the writing need be poor or the plotting weak, but there are social aspects that can be critical to the development or fundamental premise of the story that change over the course of half a century. When that happens there is a danger that the reader will at best be disgruntled with a puzzle they were unlikely to be able to solve because they didn’t understand the clues they were being given, or, at worst, that the whole premise will seem beyond ludicrous to modern readers. Of the twenty or so BLCC’s I have read only one has fallen into the latter category, and whilst there have been one or two which were a bit plodding thanks to such issues they have largely been a pleasure to read, and I have been able to joyfully pit my wits against the authors’ intrinsic challenge to solve the mystery before the denouement.
Bats in the Belfry most definitely falls into this class of Crime Classic, so much so that it’s a surprise to find from Edwards that it was a bit of a non-starter when it was first published in 1937.
A failing writer, his actress wife, his ward and a selection of friends are collected one evening following the funeral of the writer’s cousin. Shortly thereafter the writer himself has vanished, his suitcase and passport left in a darkly sinister studio known variously as The Belfry, and The Morgue. The story is as dark and twisty as any you could hope for from a member of the Detection Club, and it plays nicely on themes of the time. Broken marriages, financially emasculated men, and the requisite ‘strange foreign man’ all appear, and even aarchaeology gets a look in. As the main characters sit and incautiously discuss ways to bump off someone and hide the body there is brief verbal tussle over the usefulness – and even existence of – dene holes, ancient subterranean storage areas that provided writers of the time with endless possibilities, most notably in Sayers’ The Nine Tailors. Lorac’s plotting is flawless and deceptively simplistic, and she leads you back and forth from suspect to suspect. She is brutally unsympathetic to her characters, and her writing bundles you along until you finally reach the conclusion, to discover how good you are at detecting. Or not.
Cosplay Killer (London Podcast Mystery #1)
Book
What happens when an autistic firefighter and his paramedic boyfriend share a thirst for true crime?...
Cosy Mystery
Mayhawke (97 KP) rated The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star in Books
Feb 13, 2018
One of the great pleasures for crime fiction readers of the last decade has been the influx of new voices as - in the search for something new and different - the British market has been opened up to translations from abroad (Camilleri, Akunin, Vargas) and English-language fiction set in different cultural environments (No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, Aurelio Zen, Dr. Siri Paboun). Khan has proven himself a skillful and delightful contributor to the latter category, lifting the vibrant sounds, colours, smells and characters of India (good and bad) from the page as he weaves remarkably clever and entertaining stories of brutal thefts, murder and abduction for the protagonist, Inspector Chopra (Retd) & and his mystical and cheeky four-legged sidekick, Ganesha, to unravel.
His latest book sees a young and arrogant Bollywood star abducted on the eve of his most important film shoot to date. As the biggest and most expensive film in Bollywood history grinds to a halt money, reputations and lives are on the line and Chopra is employed to quietly find and return the prodigal starlet to his duties. It quickly becomes apparent, though, that the boy has not just had a Bieberesque tantrum, and that the funding for, and personalities behind the movie may be a lot murkier and more complex than they seem.
Already on his third book in two years he promises to be as prolific as he is enjoyable.
Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales
8.0
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The acknowledged Queen of Crime, P. D. James, was a past master of the short story, weaving together...
crime