RANDOM JOTTINGS

I have had this book for a year but have yet to write about it. Why you ask? Well, it is not a book you sit and read through. I have been dipping in an out of it for months now and have only just read the final chapter. But that still does not mean I have read it or finished it. Imagine trying to write a review of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations or Encyclopedia Britannica. You cannot. It is ongoing. Right finished that you say closing either of these examples up. Well, no you haven't. OK so I am wittering again. But I deemed an explanation was necessary.

I also feared, and was proved right, what my reaction would be to perusing The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books. My copy, signed by the lovely Martin, is bristling with yellow post it notes, and I also have a notebook with a mass of scribbles in. All these are titles which I am determined to find, some of which are proving quite difficult. I have also marked up, in pencil, I hasten to add, those titles I have already read. Out of the 100 named I have only read 32 so I have a long long way to go.  Mark you, of those I have ticked, such as Agatha Christie, I have read all of theirs and in Dame A's case that is 60+ so I am consoling myself with that thought.

The book is clearly divided into headed chapters and there is no reason why you should not read them out of order if you so wish. I did. Then I went back and re-read them in order. So we start with A New Era Dawns in which we find Conan Doyle, Edgar Wallace and Baroness Orczy (of Scarlet Pimpernel fame) to name a few. We then go onto the Birth of the Golden Age, The Great Detectives and then the different kinds and settlings of murder and mayhem. Set on trains, in schools, country houses, etc. Impossible to go into detail so this means that you will have to buy this book if you have not already done so and be prepared to be beguiled.

Prior to the simply wonderful British LIbrary Classic Crime series I thought I knew a lot about detective novels having loved the genre since I read my first Agatha Christie and the age of thirteen, but now realise that my knowledge is infinitesimal. It is several years now since I was contacted, out of the blue, by the British LIbrary telling me of this new venture and would I be interested in receiving some review copies, you will know what my answer was. Never in doubt.   I have received so many gloriously interesting, some not so interesting I must admit, books by authors I had never heard of that it has all been a bit overwhelming.

Of those authors my favourites by far are by Freeman Wills Croft, George Bellairs,  E R Lorac and Alan Melville. I was having lunch with a good friend last year and said I was trying to track down FW Croft and next time we met she handed over a carrier bag of her precious collection of some 30 of his titles which reduced me to a gibbering heap. Add these to those sent to me by the BL and I now only have about 8 or 9 to go. But these ones are proving very hard to find and when I do they are very expensive so I will just have to bide my time and see if I stumble across them in a corner of some old shop. 

E R Lorac has a wonderful detective, Inspector Macdonald who I already love and there are dozens of these to find. She also wrote under the name Carol Carnac and there are about 50 of these as well. I have been steadily acquiring these and will be writing about them in due course.

I cannot imagine if you enjoy the Golden Age of Crime and detective stories in general that you will not want this book on your shelves.  As soon as I had closed it up I was online and tracked down four of the titles I was interested in. I know nothing about them other than what is in the book but enough to make them sound intriguing. Again, more of those anon.

I have just finished reading Weekend at Thrackley and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery but have two others on hand at the moment. Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull and one which I am really looking forward to – The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson. It was published in 1932 and was the only mystery novel to be written by Ellen Wilkinson, one of the first women to be elected to Parliament.

"Through the double clamour of Big Ben and the shrill sounds of the bell rang a revolver shot".

Considering the current state of turmoil in the House of Commons I wouldn't be surprised if a body turned up on the backbenches any day now.

Perhaps somebody will write a story about it "Death by Brexit" perhaps or "The Mystery of the White Paper Amendments"……

Just a thought.