My February TBR is focused on reading the first books in several series and since I am coming off a long hiatus of blogging, I’m keeping my expectations in check by only picking seven books to try and get through. I’m really looking forward to trying new authors and getting stuck into my collection.
Richardson’s First Case which I bought July 17, 2023 has been burning a hole on my shelf. The blurb is very Christie-esque with someone saying they will go to the police and then dying in a hideous wreck. Combined with the introduction by Martin Edwards, color me intrigued!
Synopsis From Goodreads
The D.D.I. recognized him and smiled. “That was a great case you brought us. You’ll be interested to hear that it is a case of mur-r-der!”
For eight years Basil Thomson headed the famous C.I.D., New Scotland Yard. He knew the Yard inside out. Now in this tale of mystery and detection we are taken behind the scenes. We are shown the greatest detection machine in the world in motion, and see how the Yard tracked down its man.
Stand, then, with young P.C. Richardson on the misty corner of Baker Street, while the traffic of the city swings by, and fate lays at his feet the beginning of his career. Out of the fog brakes shriek, a big car jolts to a stop, and from beneath the wheels the crowd disentangles a bundle of old clothes, within which is a man quite dead; a man who had said to someone, “Very well, then; I’ll call a policeman”—and was killed. Work with him to the ingenious solution, when he takes from his pocket the clue holding the fate of a human life.
Richardson’s First Case was originally published in 1933. This new edition, the first in over seventy years, features an introduction by crime novelist Martin Edwards, author of acclaimed genre history The Golden Age of Murder.
I’ve tried to read The Plague Court Murders at least thrice, but I’ve never managed to finish it. However, after reviewing another Sir Merrivale book, And So To Murder, where Sir Merrivale figures only very slightly, I feel like I fit in and get to know this lauded sleuth. Also, having made my way through a few other John Dickson Carr books, such as Till Death Do Us Part, I think The Plague Court Murders will be less daunting
Synopsis From Goodreads:
Plague Court is old and crumbling, long neglected after its lord, hangman’s assistant Louis Playge, fell victim to the black death hundreds of years before. Famously haunted by Playge’s ghost, the property finally has a new owner and banishing the spirit is the first order of business. And when the medium employed with this task is found stabbed to death in a locked stone hut on the grounds, surrounded by an untouched circle of mud, the other guests at Plague Court have every reason to fear an act of supernatural violence—for who among them would be diabolical and calculating enough to orchestrate such an impossible execution?
Enter Sir Henry Merrivale, an amateur sleuth of many talents with deductive powers strong enough to unspool even the most baffling crimes. But in the creepy, atmospheric setting of Plague Court, where every indication suggests intervention from the afterlife, he encounters a seemingly-illogical murder scene unlike anything he’s ever encountered before…
Reissued for the first time in thirty years, The Plague Court Murders is the first novel in the Sir Henry Merrivale series. Originally published under the name Carter Dickson, it is a masterful example of the “impossible crime” novel for which John Dickson Carr is known.
The Mystery of the Evil Eye which I bought May 9, 2023 sounds so brutal and creepy with it’s crow imagery and stabbing of an over bearing father’s eyes. Gruesome! I’m also curious how I will get along with the psychologist-detective Dr. Hailey because I’m not a huge fan of psychologist protagonists. However, I am going in with an open mind.
Synopsis From Goodreads:
Sir William Armand, a prominent lawyer, is found murdered, stabbed through the eyes near his country house on the Northumbrian coast. The timing appears suspicious, immediately following his order to his daughter, Estelle, to break off her engagement with the man she loves, Jack Derwick. A gruesome white ‘berry’ and a charm against the evil eye imprinted at the base of a tree are found where Sir William met his terrible death. Dr Eustace Hailey, a forty-something surgeon, scientist and amateur detective, investigates and succeeds in running to cover a strange and awful manifestation of distorted passion.
Death at Crookham Hall features a female journalist named Iris Woodmore, covering the candidacy of two female publicans running for local office and the mysterious death of her suffragette mother. It looks like a golden age-style mystery with a feminist bent, which is just up my alley.
Synopsis From Goodreads:
London, 1920. For the first time ever, two women are competing against each other to become an MP. Reporter Iris Woodmore has a big story on her hands when she accompanies one of the candidates to the House of Commons. But it’s a place that holds painful memories. In 1914, her mother died there when she fell into the River Thames during a daring suffragette protest. Then, in the shadow of Big Ben, a waterman tells Iris her mother didn’t fall – she jumped.
I’ve never really gotten into the long running Maisie Dobbs series but, a friend of mine described the titular character, Maisie Dobbs as a grown up Nancy Drew so that piqued my interest- I’m not sure if I will like it or not.
Synopsis From Goodreads:
Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, began her working life at the age of thirteen as a servant in a Belgravia mansion, only to be discovered reading in the library by her employer, Lady Rowan Compton. Fearing dismissal, Maisie is shocked when she discovers that her thirst for education is to be supported by Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche. But The Great War intervenes in Maisie’s plans, and soon after commencement of her studies at Girton College, Cambridge, Maisie enlists for nursing service overseas.
Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own business. Her first assignment, a seemingly tedious inquiry involving a case of suspected infidelity, takes her not only on the trail of a killer, but back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.
I’ve bought the 2024 Poirot Calendar and every month there’s a Poirot mystery as the featured image and The Labors of Hercules is the pick for February,
With all of the other books on the TBR novels this collection of short stories will be a nice change of pace. Although I have the book on my shelves, I found my local library has an audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser- which is a true delight!
Synopsis From Goodreads:
First published in book form in 1947, The Labours of Hercules comprises an even dozen mysteries starring Christie’s most popular sleuth, the ever-dignified Hercule Poirot. The introductory chapter of the collection sets up the rest of the book. At a dinner party, another guest compares the labors of Poirot to those of Hercules, and the little Belgian is not amused. He has already decided to retire, but makes up his mind to take on 12 great cases – each somehow reflecting the labors accomplished by Hercules – as a farewell to crime solving. All of the cases are quite different from each other, from searching for a lost poet to hunting down a particularly ferocious murderer, from solving mysterious deaths of religious cult members to saving a young would-be politician from potential blackmailers. Frequent Christie interpreter Hugh Fraser brings stories like The Cretan Bull and The Apples of the Hesperides to dazzling life.
Something about the cover of Murder in Stained Glass is arresting for me and I’ve been itching to get into it. The main character, a elderly Miss Trumbull has shades of Miss Marple, but American! I’m so curious how celebrated illustrator Margaret Armstrong’s first of three mysteries stacks up.
Synopsis From Goodreads:
Meet Miss Trumbull, a stout talkative New Yorker with perfect manners and a passion for sleuthing.
When the remains of temperamental artist, Frederick Ullathorne, are found in his own fiery kiln it looks like a ghastly murder has been committed. But with only a few bones as evidence the local police are getting nowhere fast. Can Miss Trumbull pick up the clues that the police are missing? Or will her interfering get her into trouble in more ways that one?
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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