[An abortion] is not a particularly difficult operation—a well-trained nurse can do it with no problem. There’s only one small catch. It’s illegal. This is the driving thrust of Michael Crichton‘s (writing here as Jeffery Hudson, for reasons we’ll get into later) A Case of Need, a potent literary… Read more
My parents were mystery readers. And when my mother died, she left behind a comprehensive library of mysteries popular in the 60s and 70s. Sayers. Le Carré. Margery Allingham. Ngaio Marsh. Most of them were British or British Empire. One lone American stood out: Donald Westlake’s Who Stole Sassi Manoon?… Read more
Nicolas Freeling considered himself a true European. Though born in London to English parents, he spent most of his life on the continent, an influence that shows in his fiction writing. His debut series features Inspector Piet Van der Valk, a student of history and a dogged, somewhat cynical investigator…. Read more
The Cold War had grown hot. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev considered the young U.S. president John F. Kennedy to be weak and fearful of war. Consequently, the Eastern Bloc constructed an 87-mile wall of concrete and barbed wire that divided Berlin, Germany, into eastern and western sections in 1961. The… Read more
Eric Ambler’s The Light of Day was originally published in 1962 and then turned into the film Topkapi in 1964 by American film director Jules Dassin. The novel was received with rave reviews and helped cement Ambler as one of the creators of the modern suspense novel. With an international… Read more
In 1963, Ellis Peters’ Death and the Joyful Woman was awarded the Edgar for Best Novel, edging out Dell Shannon’s Knave of Hearts, Mark McShane’s Séance, Shelley Smith’s The Ballad of the Running Man, Jean Potts’ The Evil Wish, and Ross Macdonald’s The Zebra-Striped Hearse. I’d never read any novels… Read more
Gideon’s Fire is book 7 of the 26-volume series featuring New Scotland Yard Commander George Gideon. 21 of those were written by the shockingly prolific John Creasey—he wrote more than 600 books using 28 different pseudonyms—under the pseudonym J.J. Marric, with the last six penned by William Vivian Butler after… Read more
Englishman Julian Symons (1912-1994) was/is something of an oddity within the world of crime fiction. His is a name that rarely gets mentioned among enthusiasts of the genre. You get the sense that, even in his own time, he flew somewhat under the radar within the realm of suspense novel… Read more
Like many other distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors, Jack Vance won multiple Hugo awards, a Nebula award, a World Fantasy Award, and plenty of other honors. Unlike most other holders of these awards, Vance also has the highest award in the field of mystery writing, an Edgar Award from… Read more
The cover of Faber’s reissued The Hours Before Dawn, which features glow-in-the-dark type that scared the bejesus out of me earlier this week, calls the book a “lost classic.” Doesn’t that sound like something of an oxymoron—the jumbo shrimp of literature? Books become classics because they are good, yes, but… Read more
