classic crime fiction

A classic revisited: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

By Dave Bradley

10 June, 2024

When most people think of Shirley Jackson, they think of horror. The Haunting of Hill House is often cited as the archetypal 20th-century ghost story. Even scaremonger-in-chief Stephen King regards Shirley Jackson as a major influence, devoting 30 pages of his 1982 memoir Danse Macabre…

Kindle Print Reviews

Twice Round the Clock by Billie Houston

By Erin Britton

24 May, 2023

Horace Manning is a sinister madman. He is also a scientific genius. This combination of characteristics provides an indication of danger from the outset of Billie Houston’s Twice Round the Clock, although surprisingly, despite an atmosphere of evil hanging around him like a fog of…

Kindle Print Reviews

Death of a Bookseller by Bernard J Farmer

By Erin Britton

14 April, 2022

Death of a Bookseller, the 100th title to be published in the British Library’s sublime Crime Classics series, marks a welcome return to print for Bernard J Farmer. As Martin Edwards notes in his informative introduction to this new edition, copies of the previously long…

Print Reviews

These Names Make Clues by ECR Lorac

By Erin Britton

11 October, 2021

First published in 1937, the same year that ECR Lorac was elected a member of the prestigious Detection Club, These Names Make Clues is a cerebral detective story that is perhaps the most in keeping of all Lorac’s books with the conventions of the Golden…

Features

My crime classics by Anthony Horowitz

By crimefictionlover

12 August, 2021

English author Anthony Horowitz is writing some of the most innovative and inspiring crime fiction out there. Books like The Magpie Murders and The Word is Murder, in which a proxy of Anthony himself has a role to play, have left us dazzled with our…

iBook Kindle Print Reviews

Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards

By Vicki Weisfeld

23 August, 2020

Right from the title, you know the stately Yorkshire family home Mortmain Hall will play a pivotal role in this classic mystery. The legal doctrine of mortmain, after all, refers to owners’ attempts to control the fate of their property after their death. As you…

Book Club

Rules for Perfect Murders

By Vicki Weisfeld

23 April, 2020

In this entertaining novel, Peter Swanson has concocted the perfect plot for lovers of classic mysteries. Malcolm Kershaw, the widowed part-owner of Boston’s Old Devils Bookstore wrote a blog post some years ago that described what he considered the best depictions of the perfect murder….

iBook Kindle Print Reviews

Rules for Perfect Murders

By Vicki Weisfeld

11 March, 2020

Written by Peter Swanson — Anthony Horowitz calls this entertaining new puzzle mystery by Peter Swanson ‘fiendish good fun’, and that really hits the nail on the head. It pulls together some of the best plots from past crime novels and combines them in a…

Crime Fiction Lover

A classic revisited: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Twice Round the Clock by Billie Houston

Death of a Bookseller by Bernard J Farmer

These Names Make Clues by ECR Lorac

My crime classics by Anthony Horowitz

Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards

Rules for Perfect Murders

Rules for Perfect Murders

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