Classic Mysteries

Let 'er Rip

Another new month (well, a few days old, anyway), another new "Getting Away with Murder" column from Mike Ripley in the Shots Crime & Thriller eZine. 

Among the many items on the agenda this month:

• Interesting notes from the Autumn Lunch of the Margery Allingham Society;
• From that lunch, a review of an interesting-sounding mystery by Jane Stevenson;
• A new Sherlock Holmes exhibition in London;
• A list of Ripley's favorite mysteries of 2014;
• A couple of newly-reissued Golden Age classics which I must check out quickly;
• Lots of reviews of new books published, or about to be published, in the UK;
• And concluding with a hearty "Merry Crimbles to One and All" from The Ripster.

It's a great way to keep up with what our friends across the pond are doing to keep crime fiction alive and well. Enjoy your reading!

BINGO! All 36 Squares on my Vintage Mystery Scorecard - FILLED

As any reader of this blog is aware, I have been taking part in the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge at Bev's terrific My Reader's Block blog. The idea was to read books that would - in Bingo fashion - make up horizontal or vertical lines on the challenge image - this one:

This Golden card was to be filled with mysteries published before 1960. There was also a Silver card for mysteries published between 1960 and 1980. I chose to concentrate on the Golden card.

Of course, we were also challenged to try filling in the ENTIRE card. And I'm pleased to say that this is exactly what I have done. For those who either want to check my honesty or - perhaps on a brighter note - read my reviews, here are links to all of them. I am listing them by row from top to bottom, in order going across left and right.

Row 1:

• One book with a color in the title: Green Shiver, by Clyde B. Clason
• A book published under more than one title: Murder Can Be Fun, by Fredric Brown
• One book with a "spooky" title: Diabolic Candelabra, by E. R. Punshon
• A book by an author you've read before: Going, Going Gone, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  
• A book with a detective team: The Greek Coffin Mystery, by Ellery Queen
• One book with an animal in the title: The Puzzle of the Red Stallion, by Stuart Palmer

Row 2:

• One book set anywhere except the U.S. or England: The Chinese Maze Murders, by Robert Van Gulik
• One book with a number in the title: 8 Faces at 3, by Craig Rice
• One book that has been made into a movie: The Door with Seven Locks, by Edgar Wallace
• One book with a lawyer, courtroom, judge, etc. The Case of the Crooked Candle, by Erle Stanley Gardner
• One book with a time, day, month, etc. in the title: 4:50 from Paddington, by Agatha Christie
• One book with a place in the title: Murder a la Richelieu, by Anita Blackmon

Row 3:

•  One book that features a crime other than murder: Murder Must Wait, by Arthur W. Upfield
• One book that features food/cooks in some way: Too Many Cooks, by Rex Stout
  
• One book with an amateur detective: Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers
• One book already read by a fellow challenger: One Drop of Blood, by Anne Austin
• One translated work: The Late Monsieur Gallet, by Georges Simenon
• One book with a size in the title: The Little Sister, by Raymond Chandler

Row 4:

• One locked room mystery: The Kennel Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine
• A book by an author you've never read before: Death Wears a White Gardenia, by Zelda Popkin
• One book with a man in the title: Pietr the Latvian, by Georges Simenon
• One book with a professional detective: They Found Him Dead, by Georgette Heyer
• One short story collection: Dorothy L. Sayers: The Complete Stories
• One medical mystery (or features Dr. or nurse):  The Red Thumb Mark by R. Austin Freeman

Row 5:

• One academic mystery: Death on the Cherwell, by Mavis Doriel Hay
• One book with a method of murder in the title: Death-Watch, by John Dickson Carr
• One country house mystery: The Cornish Coast Murder, by John Bude
• One mystery that involves water: Tragedy at Ravensthorpe, by J. J. Connington
• One book set in England: The Devil at Saxon Wall, by Gladys Mitchell
• One book written by an author with a pseudonym: The Lake District Murder, by John Bude

Row 6:

• One book set in the entertainment world: And So to Murder, by John Dickson Carr, writing as Carter Dickson
• One book with a woman in the title: Look to the Lady, by Margery Allingham
• One book that involves a mode of transportation: The Blind Barber, by John Dickson Carr
• One book outside your comfort zone: A Coffin for Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler
• One book that you have to borrow (you do not own): Detection Unlimited, by Georgette Heyer
• One book set in the U.S.: The Egyptian Cross Mystery, by Ellery Queen

That's 36 books, 36 reviews, 36 squares covered. Whew. And now, time to get ready for Bev's 2015 challenge - same idea, different categories. Where to start, where to start...

More E-books Today Only!

Talk about Cyber Monday book sales - our friends at Open Road Integrated Media (who publish the Mysterious Press line of e-book mysteries) are having a huge sale TODAY (MONDAY) ONLY- with prices up to 80% lower than normal. Most books are $1.99. Full list of Kindle versions and more info at this link. For other formats, please visit here for Nook titles and here for Kobo titles. You can also try Apple's iTunes store, but I can't seem to get the proper link for that one. Again, the prices are only for today. There's a lot of great mystery titles - and a lot of other books available as well. As we say, check 'em out.

"A Coffin for Dimitrios"

A mystery writer gets involved in a conversation with a Turkish official about crime fiction and crime fact. The writer gets himself taken to the local morgue to view the body of a man described as a petty criminal, one Dimitrios Makropoulos. The Turkish official calls Dimitrios "a dirty type, common, cowardly, scum. Murder, espionage, drugs – that is the history. There were also two affairs of assassination."

But the writer becomes obsessed with learning more about Dimitrios - and winds up finding himself in the middle of a large and dangerous conspiracy.

If it sounds like a classic plot for a thriller, that's exactly what it is. The book, now 75 years old, is A Coffin for Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler, and it is considered one of the foundation stones upon which many of today's thrillers are built. A Coffin for Dimitrios is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

The deeper he gets into his search for facts about Dimitrios, Charles Latimer learns more and more disturbing things about him. Latimer is no professional spy or secret police agent - he is very much an ordinary man, swept up in a world of intrigue. Latimer suddenly finds himself in the midst of a very dangerous game involving political assassinations, illicit drugs, the sex trade, spies, blackmail, murder and – everywhere -treachery. It is a world totally unfamiliar to Latimer, a world in which the easiest way to tell if someone is lying to you is by watching to see if their lips move.

The book was turned into a classic movie in 1944, under the original British title, The Mask of Dimitrios. Readers of this blog know that I don't do very much with modern "noir" thrillers - they simply aren't the kind of mysteries I usually prefer. But A Coffin For Dimitrios proves to be an exciting read, even now, 75 years after its first publication in 1939. I highly recommend it.

The Challenge

As part of my continuing commitment to the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog, I am submitting this to cover the Bingo square calling for one book outside my comfort zone. For details about the challenge, and what I'm doing for it, please click here.