crossexaminingcrime

Evelyn Clarke is the penname for V. E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, and I picked up this book as I was intrigued by its metafictional possibilities. Alas this element is not really developed. It has a slim locked room element, but given the answer is revealed early on, this is not a novel to buy for that reason. I would describe it as a thriller, since the detective fiction aspect is ...

I’ve not read much by Dorothy Cameron Disney, just a couple of novels, Death in the Backseat (1936) and Crimson Friday (1943). Both of these were detective stories with a certain lashing of suspense. However, today’s story is a bit different, falling into the camp of an espionage thriller. In particular The 17th Letter was influenced and shaped by the exploits of Franz Xaver Fre...

I came across this book when dipping into Jacques Barzun & Wendell Hertig Taylor’s review of it. They opined that: ‘The author writes clearly and consecutively about an East Anglian village that is severely flooded […] Good scenes of refugees in the church, second crime, and tragedy at the end.’ Whilst floods are not as common in crime fiction as snow, there still seems to...

I was drawn to ask this very question when I was recently perusing Barzun and Taylor’s A Catalogue of Crime, in particular their review of Murder of a Chemist (1936) by Miles Burton. In this review is the following statement: ‘The poison is the oxalic acid so popular in the thirties.’ And my first response was: “Really?” Popularity often involves a large number of something, be ...

Today I am looking back to the classic crime titles which were reprinted during May. As always let me know if I have missed any.