Golden Age of Detective Fiction

I saw this over at Becky’s Book Blog thought it was an entertaining and fun tag to do, especially during this busy holiday weekend. This tag was originally created by girlxoxo!

First Book Read in 2024

Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness was my first read of 2024, and I had such a good time re-reading this classic Poirot story. An old lady is found dead after several failed possible murder attempts. Her family is swarming like vultures to see what they inherit before they scatter to fritter away her fortune. However, before her death, she writes a long, cryptic letter to Poirot detailing how she thinks something sinister is happening in her household. The letter arrives too late to save her life, but Poirot, an avenging fury, blows into town and finds everything revolves around her pet dog, Bob.

You can read my review here.

P.S. I highly recommend listening to Hugh Fraser’s audiobook version of the story.

First Review of 2024

The Billiard Room Mystery by Brian Flynn is the first of the long-running Anthony Bathurst mystery series and is dripping with Golden Age mystery goodies. There’s a manor house, a murder, a jewelry heist, a closed circle of suspects, and an interesting investigative duo who love every second of this murder mystery.

You can read my review here.

First 2024 Debut Read

Ok, so technically this answer is a bit of a cheat because I haven’t posted my review yet, but it will be the first book released in 2024 on the blog. The Problem of the Wire Cage is a 2024 re-issue by American Mystery Classics of the eleventh book in John Dickson Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell mystery series.

The Amazon synopsis:

Death and tennis meet in one of impossible crime master John Dickson Carr’s most memorable cases.
John Dickson Carr is famous for his puzzling “impossible crime” plots in which corpses are discovered in scenarios that seem to lack any logical explanation. Among all of Carr’s ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of the best known: a dead man is found strangled in the middle of a clay tennis court just after a storm. In the damp dirt, there is one set of footsteps—his own—leading back to the grass; the court is otherwise untouched.

It seems like a case of sudden death but, in order to find who’s at fault, the authorities must first solve the mystery of the body’s puzzling position. The bafflement has reached a harried volley by the time ace amateur sleuth Dr. Gideon Fell gets involved, bringing to the case a wit capable of cutting through the racket and discovering the truth. With brilliant deductive reasoning and plenty of humor, Fell untethers a confounding set of clues in search of a diabolical killer and a bizarre murder method, serving up a dazzling stroke of genius to expose whodunit.

Reissued for the first time this century, The Problem of the Wire Cage is an atmospheric and amusing Golden Age mystery with a memorable puzzle at its center, perfect for both long-time fans and first-time readers of John Dickson Carr.

First “New to Me” Author in 2024

The Dinner Lady Detectives promised to be in the same vein as The Thursday Murder Club series: cozy mystery, elderly ladies solving crime at their school. Throw in that the two leads are a lesbian couple-which is rare in detective fiction- and I was ready to enjoy this with a cup of tea and some Walker’s shortbread I got in my Christmas stocking. However, it was never really delivered on its promises.

You can read my review here.

First Book of 2024 That Slayed Me

Michelle Salter’s Death at Crookham Hall is a book with a lot to say about how women rose and held on to power in a profoundly patriarchal England in the generation after the birth of the feminist movement. There are the usual trappings of a murder mystery, but really, it’s about how we wield power: to uplift the oppressed or to abuse the most vulnerable. For those who say the mystery genre is just escapist entertainment without real value, I suggest you pick Death at Crookham Hall.

You can read my review here.

First Book of 2024 I Wish I Could Get Back The Time I Spent Reading it

OOOF. This book was a slog and almost ended up in the DNF pile. You can read my review here.

First Five Star Book of 2024

Lovers of locked room mysteries need to read The Plague Court Murders. A man is killed during a seance while chanting in a locked room with a old cursed dagger. The victim was heavily guarded by police and still met a gruesome face. This tour de force was my first five star read of 2024.

You can read my review here.