Category Archives: mysteries
Binge Reading vs. Close Reading
I’ve undertaken to write an essay on Dick Francis this summer, in preparation for which I am reading through all of his 40+ novels. His first, Dead Cert, was published in 1962, and he basically published one a year until his death in 2010 (the last few in partnership with his son Felix, who has now [...]
Rebus is Back: Ian Rankin, Standing in Another Man’s Grave
Yes, Rebus is back, and it’s good to see him again, the sodden old crank. The Malcolm Fox novels have been fine, but I don’t find Fox as interesting a character as Rebus–though that could be because I’ve known Rebus for so long. Also, I had hoped that Rankin would take up Siobhan Clarke as [...]
Elizabeth Speller, The Return of Captain John Emmett
I picked The Return of Captain John Emmett for my ‘light reading’ over the last couple of weeks because it seemed such a perfect fit: here I am reading and teaching both literature of the First World War and mystery fiction, and it’s a mystery set just after–and preoccupied with events during–WWI. In retrospect, maybe that [...]
From the Archives: Who Cares Who Killed … Whoever It Was?
I’m reading Elizabeth George’s Believing the Lie, and I find I still feel pretty much as I did when I wrote this post in 2009: I’m more interested in the continuing characters than in the mystery plot they’re caught up in. Given the particular characters, I suppose it’s inevitable that a novel about them would [...]
This Week in My Classes: Amidst the Mess, Three Mysterious Morsels
The past week or so has just felt crazy with tasks and details to keep on top of. When we’re planning courses, we (or maybe it’s just me?) tend to focus on big picture issues, like which books to assign and which assignment sequences to use. Once that’s all decided, there’s filling in the syllabus, [...]
Not Quite Cricket: Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise is my fourth favourite Dorothy Sayers novel, after Gaudy Night (first, of course!), Busman’s Honeymoon, and Strong Poison and Have His Carcase (tied at third, because though neither of them is as good as I could wish, both do have Harriet Vane, and that’s such a lot for any novel to have). [...]
Summer Reading Update: Some Hits, More Misses
I’m up to six books in my quest to reach thirty this summer. I can’t say I’m off to a very good start. Of these, two were awful, two mediocre, and two were very good. I’ll quickly survey them all here, but I plan to give the best two their own proper posts. The two [...]
Decided! Books for ‘Mystery and Detective Fiction’
As you know, I’ve been tinkering for some time with the book list for this fall’s version of ‘Mystery and Detective Fiction.’ This course presents a special set of challenges for me because the range of options is so wide and because my patience for exploring the options runs out pretty fast. I’ve also been [...]
Robert B. Parker, The Godwulf Manuscript
It seemed appropriate to come back from Boston with a copy of Robert B. Parker’s first Spenser mystery, The Godwulf Manuscript. Though I’m sure I’ve read it before, it wasn’t in my own Spenser collection–which is actually pretty small, since I originally read them from my family’s copies back in Vancouver. The ones I own [...]
Sjöwall and Wahlöö, The Terrorists
I’ve just finished reading three more of the Martin Beck books by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: The Abominable Man, Cop Killer, and The Terrorists, which are, respectively, numbers 7, 9, and 10 in the series. There are now only two I haven’t read (The Man on the Balcony and The Locked Room)–not by design [...]
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