Mr Mottram is found dead in a locked room with a gun shot wound to the face and a fatal knife wound to his heart.
Miles Bredon & his wife investigate.
Knox is very funny and exceptionally literate, I'd wager that Hammet modeled "The Thin Man "on these two. Both couples wise cracking while solving the mystery . It appears Knox got there first with this published in 1927 , the The Thin Man published in 1934.
Good fun
Its 1915 and Richard Hannay is taken from the trenches in France to embark on an undercover mission to " save the world ".
One of the great adventure yarns, I think its better than it's predecessor "The 39 Steps".
Been read many times , will get read some more.
Three short stories from Sayers featuring Lord Peter. Entertaining , but light weight when compared to her novels.
Time to start a re-read of the Bernie Gunther series, one of the best historical sets written.
Bernie is kidnapped from the waters off Cuba by the US and taken back to Germany to be tried as a war criminal. He re-counts events from over a 25 year period, his dealings with the atrocity that was Nazi Germany.
A great great series
Our amatuer sleuth is a nurse at a Cambridge college and one of her boarders is commissioned to write a biography of a dead mathematician.
What she finds is that three previous people have been given the same commission, two are dead and one missing.
This is a bit silly, our sleuth, Imogen Quy is one of detective fictions folk who is never wrong, knowns more than all the experts, this while doling out aspirins to hung over students in her day job.
Paton Walsh writes a good crime book usually, she has completed the unfinished Wimsey book that Dorothy L. Sayers did not finish before her death and has written a couple more Wimsey's which are fun.
This however, is not that flash, trying to be Miss Marple without a decent story (the Cambridge College she is employed by is St Agatha's).
This is a few levels up in darkness from what The 39 Steps is. Michael Kingston and 17 year old with a gift for languages who is drafted into the British Secret Service in 1915. He ends up in an undercover role Germany.
This was written in 1940 and as I said, it is very dark, not a tale of daring do, violent and surprisingly deep, certainly not a propaganda piece glorifying war.
Kingston's Secret Service mentor went on to star in a series of books written by the two authors.
Recommended
Humphrey Neyland a Intelligence officer for the British is sent to the industrial town of Gretley to uncover German spies.
Published in 1942 this is very readable, some good characters while being totally implausible but implausibility has never been a barrier to an enjoyable read.
My only criticism is every now and then Priestley goes off a socialist rant which an be a bit distracting as he over eggs it, meaning a sentence rather than an entire paragraph would have done.
A book of its time.
