Features

CIS: 75 years of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

With the world at war, England under bombardment, espionage running rampant, and sinister forces blanketing half the globe, late 1941 cannot have been the right time to start a new publishing venture. Yet that is the dark moment when Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine was launched, and…
Read more
KindleReviews

Gargoyle Pixie Dog by Bill Todd

This collection opens with the bright and breezy novella, Gargoyle Pixie Dog. Private detective Danny Lancaster, who features in all the stories, is a partly disabled army veteran plying his trade on the streets of Brighton. The seaside town offers a backdrop of fading Georgian…
Read more
Features

Ruth Rendell (1930-2015) remembered

It was just five months ago that Ruth Rendell spoke on BBC Radio 4 to pay tribute to PD James, who died last November. Rendell’s recollections of a friend, crime-writing colleague and fellow parliamentarian (they both sat in the House of Lords) turned out to…
Read more
iBookKindlePrintReviews

Little Tales of Misogyny

Written by Patricia Highsmith — The title of Patricia Highsmith’s story collection, reissued this month by Virago, remains highly provocative even 40 years after it first appeared. As a reader, you wonder if these tales will highlight the cruelty of misogyny from a feminist perspective. Or…
Read more
KindleReviews

The Deepening Shade by Jake Hickson

Written by Jake Hinkson — This book collects many of Hinkson’s short fiction written over the last 20 years – stories that originally appeared in print and online in publications such as Beat to a Pulp, Crime Factory and Fires on the Plain. Previously I have raved about…
Read more