Tag Archives: amateur sleuth

REVIEW: Murder Actually – Stephanie McCarthy

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Ela

Elspeth Gray, a romance novelist in her mid-thirties, has been living in All Hallows (a small town in New York) following her divorce. She treads safe and unthreatening ground with her books, and proclaims her distaste for crime novels. However, … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: Whom the Gods Love – Kate Ross

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Ela

(Hodder and Stoughton 1996) Julian Kestrel – Regency dandy, man-about-town and sometime sleuth – begins his third adventure in a churchyard in Hampstead, where Sir Malcolm Faulkland, eminent barrister, has asked for a meeting. Sir Malcolm wants Kestrel to investigate … Continue reading →

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To All Appearance, Dead – Liz Filleul

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Ela

(Bettany Press e-book 2007) Amongst my childhood reading were stories of boarding school life, particularly that of the Chalet School of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (whose readers will instantly recognise the derivation of the book’s title). There’s a very strong community … Continue reading →

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Five Red Herrings – Dorothy L. Sayers

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Ela

(Hodder e-book 2003, originally published 1931) Although this book – one of the series of detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey – was written after Strong Poison, this book does not feature Harriet Vane at all, nor is she mentioned. … Continue reading →

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The Layton Court Mystery – Anthony Berkeley

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Ela

(The Langtail Press e-book 2010, originally published in 1925) Like my introduction to Cyril Hare, I originally came across the work of Anthony Berkeley in an anthology, and later in a joint novel produced by members of the Detection Club, … Continue reading →

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‘Swan Song’ / ‘Buried for Pleasure’ – Edmund Crispin

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Ela

Gervase Fen is an eccentric Oxford don – Professor of English Language and Literature, no less – and amateur sleuth, whose adventures in detection are invariably comic and light-hearted. Crispin (a pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery) evidently prefers larkiness to … Continue reading →

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