The Official TV Tropes Mystery Thread

You could always treat each part like its own short story collection. Read one part, read something else, read next part, read something else, etc. Tis how I intend to get through The Derek Smith Omnibus.

In personal news, finally got around to ordering The Golden Age of Murder. Should be fun.

Apparently The Decagon House Murders has been released! I'll probably wait until it's in ebook form as well though.

And The Golden Age of Murder is in! (Well, it was in a few days ago, but I only just now got around to posting.) Looks neat so far, though I haven't sat down and read the thing yet, I'm just flipping through it right now.

Also, has anyone here read Martin Edwards? Thinking about getting some of his books sometime, and I'd like to know what they're like.

edited 22nd Jun '15 1:05:39 PM by Halter7W

I've never read anything by him, but I've heard good things about his works.

Just read Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide. It's more character driven than her usual stuff, and with less suspects as well, which I liked. There's also a bit of an impossible crime aspect, and a narrative trick reminiscent of one of her more infamous works. Highly enjoyed it-it actually put me back into a murder mystery mood.

Just snagged The Decagon House Murders ebook! Not sure whether to read that, a foodie cozy mystery I just picked up cheap (Chef Maurice and a spot of Truffle by J A Lang), or Carr's classic The Judas Window next.

Now have a review up of a collection of Arthur B Reeve short stories—he's best known for Craig Kennedy, the "scientific detective." But it includes some of his other short mysteries, including ones with female detectives.

http://www.skjam.com/2015/07/18/book-review-from-ghouls-to-gangsters-the-career-of-arthur-b-reeve-volume-1/

So I just started The Decagon House Murders, and it's so meta. All the main characters are huge detective fiction fans, give themselves nicknames after famous mystery authors, and openly discuss golden age mystery tropes and history.

All that, and they still lack the Genre Savvy to avoid being stranded on a deserted island together (where a brutal quadruple murder had recently occurred, no less).

I actually heard some good things about the Chef Marice thing from In Search Of The Classic Mystery Novel, for what it's worth. (We really need to get a list of favorite mystery blogs...)

On other notes, last month's issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine had a new Soji Shimada story, "The Executive Who Lost His Mind". It's...interesting, involving a woman who vanishes from a locked office, pops up again eight or so months later looking much younger, and is then thrown from a window and turns into an eight or so month old corpse on the way down. It's good, even if solving it is more or less impossible (even the detective states that there was a lot of coincidence involved) but hey, twas fun. Even if I don't know how the main detective knew all that he did, as the main witness was, well, insane.

On the same topic of Japanese mysteries, Locked Room International is planning on having another story in EQMM, "The Spider" by Koga something. Oh, and a new Paul Halter short story, "The Scarecrow's Revenge". And speaking of Halter, The Phantom Passage, involving a disappearing street, is now out, and Death Invites You, which has a plot oddly similar to a story from Detective School Q, of all places, is coming at the end of the year.

Oh, and Whistle Up The Devil as well as Come to Paddington Fair, both by Derek Smith, are going come out as separate books, so if you didn't get The Derek Smith Omnibus, you can still get em!

On a personal note, I finally made some progress on this dang reader's block, and got through Derek Smith's Model For Murder. Now starting on Paul Halter's The Picture From The Past.

edited 2nd Aug '15 9:45:26 PM by Halter7W

In Search Of The Classic Mystery Novel is what got me onto the Chef Maurice mysteries, actually! I've finished both novels in the series now, and they're both very nice cozies.

That EQMM short story kinda reminds me of a Edward D Hoch story with a similar setup. Then again, Hoch was so prolific that shouldn't be a surprise.

Finished The Decagon House Murders. Have mixed feelings about it—on one hand the one-liner reveal is gold and it's an interesting take on Christie's classic And Then There Were None setup, but on the other there are a lot of coincidences and I wouldn't really call it fair play.