EXIT LINES - Reginald Hill

 

"Fat Andy " Dalziel , one of crime fictions great characters.  Warren Clarke absolutely nailed him in the TV series 'Dalziel & Pascoe".

Anything Hill wrote is worth picking up.

THE MYSTERIOUS MICKEY FINN - Elliot Paul

The Thin Man written by P G Wodehouse is the best way I can describe this caper.  Very funny, full of fun characters.  Published in 1939 , great fun.
 

THE RAT ON FIRE -George V. Higgins

 

No one does sleazy characters like Higgins.  The Boston underworld in all its sordidness with a surprising amount of humour.

ASK A POLICEMAN -By Members of the Detection Club

 

Chapters written by Anthony Berkeley, Milward Kennedy, Gladys Mitchell, John Rhode and Dorothy L. Sayers.

The only difference from  The Floating Admiral is the chapter authors wrote using other members detectives  i.e Berkeley wrote his chapter as Sayers using Lord Peter Wimsey.

The result, a rather tedious vanity project.

THE MYSTERY OF THE ENCHANTED CRYPT - Eduardo Mendoza

 

A very very funny detective novel parody.  Its laugh out loud funny even with it being a translation.

This is very well written with continual digs at the Franco regime that had ended 4 years prior to this novels publication (1979).

I will Mendoza again if I can come across any of his work.

OTHER PATHS TO GLORY - Anthony Price

 

How can events from the battle of the Somme affect things in 1974?

A very good thriller.  Reviewers state this is Price's best and you can see why .

Very easy to find secondhand as Price sold truck loads in the 70's and 80's

BOOKS v CIGARETTES - George Orwell

 

A small book of short essays mostly about books.

Who hasn't bought books rather then food? 

Others, working in a secondhand book store, being a book reviewer and a couple of political pieces.

A great little read as as usual very on point and easy to comprehend.  

THE MAD HATTER MYSTERY - John Dickson Carr

 

A Gideon Fell mystery from 1931. Lots of very funny banter and not a bad mystery.  Carr is always reliable

BLOODY MURDER -Julian Symons

 

 A history of the detective novel through to the thriller through to the spy novel.  From Poe through to the 1990's.

Originally published in 1972 with revisions in 1985 and finally1992 shortly before the authors death.  Symons doesn't hold back in his criticism, personally I agreed with most of what he writes about the genre.. I  also think we would agree on how bad Robert Ludlum is but he couldn't offer an opinion as he was never been able to finish one of his books.

A good history which doubles as an encyclopedia of the genre. This book has given me years of book hunting to undertake finding authors I have never previously heard of

Its very hard book to find, I had to bite the bullet and buy it new which was getting up there price wise,  but if detective fiction is your main reading its invaluable to have in your collection.

THE CRETAN COUNTERFEIT - Katherine Farrer

Very very slow, not even editing it by 50 pages ,which it desperately needs would have made much of a difference to what is a very boring detective tale

A QUESTION OF PROOF - Nicholas Blake

Published in 1935 this is Blake's (Cecil Day-Lewis) first effort.  A good whodunnit set in a boarding school.  All the clues are there for the reader to solve the crimes.