Foul Deeds and Fine Dying by Marco Malvaldi
Translated by Howard Curtis — Is there any better means of returning from the dead than appearing in a murder mystery? I expect not, particularly if the murder mystery in question is of the locked room variety. Italian businessman and cookery writer Pellegrino Artusi (1820–1911)…
Paris Police 1905 back on BBC Four
We have good news for lovers of historical crime drama. Five years on from Paris Police 1900, the programme is returning to UK screens with the not too mysterious title of Paris Police 1905. The first two of six episodes will air at 9pm on…
Sherlock Holmes & Mr Hyde by Christian Klaver
From marauding Martians to the Gentleman Ghost, Arsène Lupin to Fantômas, the Phantom of the Opera to the nefarious Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes has faced some of literature’s greatest villains. Faced them and thwarted them. Yet, when faced with a real-life foe in Christian Klaver’s…
NTN: A Quiet Life in the Country
Written by TE Kinsey — British writer TE Kinsey’s cosy mysteries were originally self-published novels, but have recently been picked up by Thomas & Mercer. A Quiet Life in the Country is the first book in the series while the second, In the Market for Murder, is due for…
CIS: The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers revisited
Although it wasn’t the first story ever written about spies, The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service by Erskine Childers can be described as the blueprint for subsequent writers in the genre including John Buchan, William Tufnell Le Queux and Somerset Maugham, all of whom…
The French Detective by O'Neil De Noux
A jambalaya of factors go into your enjoyment of a crime novel, and this one is definitely a flavourful mix. Author O’Neil De Noux has selected a time and place ripe for drama. New Orleans is consistently intriguing on many levels, most particularly for its…
A classic revisited: Heed the Thunder
Jim Thompson’s second novel Heed the Thunder is a sprawling, multi-generational epic following the descent of the Fargo clan at the turn of the 19th century. Although not a noir in the strictest sense, its ominous style and cruel but sympathetic characters show clear signs…