Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality, all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, whether physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, eBooks, and audiobooks.

Purchased eBooks

Whilst touring the North of England in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, Salim Mazaroff and Mervyn Holt depart from the Great North Road at Marrasdale Moor and reach a solitary inn. Mazaroff mysteriously disappears while walking the moors alone. His dead body is discovered in Reiver’s Den. Was it an accident, or was it murder? Where is the victim’s money, rings and tie-pin? Who killed Salim Mazaroff?

Amazon

Series: None.

Publisher: Spitfire Publishers.

Publication Date: July 21, 2020. Initially published in 1923.

Print length: 234 pages.

I don’t have a ton of familiarity with J. S. Fletcher, so I purchased this title for my Kindle and am looking forward to this new author.

Purchased Print Books

It is Cricket Week at Considine Manor. Gathered there are the friends of the son of Sir Charles Considine, and among them is Anthony Bathurst. Bathurst at this point had done no detecting — this is the first novel in which he appears — but he believes he’d be good at it. His opportunity arises when one of the cricketers is found dead in the billiard room, strangled and then stabbed.

Amazon

Series: Anthony Bathurst.

Publisher: Dean Street Press.

Publication Date: December 19, 2019. Initially published in 1931.

Paperback length: 161 pages.

I bought The Billiard Room Mystery from one of my favorite bookstores, Once Upon A Crime in Minneapolis. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the first Anthony Bathhurst mystery.

Two mysteries of the kind John Bude does best, with well-drawn and authentic period settings and a satisfying whodunit structure, following the traditional rules and style of the Golden Age of the genre.

Death in White Pyjamas: At the country home of Sam Richardson, a group of actors have gathered along with their somewhat sinister producer Basil Barnes, and a playwright whose star is rising in the drama scene. With competitive tension in the air between the three actresses, Clara, Angela and Deirdre, the spell is broken when Deirdre is found murdered in the grounds wearing, for some unknown reason, white pyjamas.

Death Knows no Calendar: A shooting in a locked artist’s studio. Four suspects; at least two of whom are engaged in an affair. An exuberant and energetic case for Major Boddy.

Amazon

Series: British Library Crime Classics.

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press.

Publication Date: June 7, 2020.

Paperback length: 488 pages.

I picked this up from a Little Free Library in my grandparent’s neighborhood that I found while on my morning run. It was such an unexpected gem to find!

What have you added to your shelves this week? Have you read anything I picked up? Leave your comments below.