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I am pretty sure time 2026 is on a skateboard, with a turbo boost feature, as every month seems to fly by. But maybe it’s just me? I kicked off April with my new list: 50 Classic Crime Novels to Read from the 1950s. Do let me know which ones you would add. This month also saw me take my first look into Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor’s A Catalogue of Crime (1989), comme...

To begin my usual monthly housekeeping on the blog I am posting today about the themes #MurderEveryMonday participants were challenged to find covers for during April. #MurderEveryMonday is a book cover sharing activity, which I host on Twitter a.k.a. X and Instagram and it is nice to hear that it has spread on to other social media platforms too, such as Blue Sky and there are...

I was quite surprised to note that it has been nearly five years since I last read anything by Henry Wade. I came across The Missing Partners by chance a few weeks ago, which was Wade’s second mystery. I must say I don’t feel it is Wade at his best either in terms of plotting or characters. Barzun and Taylor were similarly lukewarm: ‘Rereading and comparing with others by Wad...

Pens, pencils, rulers. All small, everyday items we have lying around our homes, bags and desks. Even in the age of iPads and iPhones, stationery has not been made obsolete. Papyrophilia, a strong love for paper-based products and stationery, is not dead, and I hope I am not the only who has far more notebooks than they need, because they just had to have that extra one with the...

If you are interested in the history of crime fiction and/or love digging up obscure authors, then you have probably come across the literary critiquing duo, Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor. They are best known for their work, A Catalogue of Crime, originally published in 1971. It was later updated and expanded in 1989. It is this later edition, which I recently acquire...