The World's Best One Hundred Detective Stories Vol. Eight

 The World's Best One Hundred Detective Stories Vol. Eight (1910) by Eugene Thwing, ed

[I did, finally, manage to finish this collection--which I started before my husband was hospitalized. I only had three more stories to read, but had difficulty concentrating on much for almost two weeks.]

Billed as the "world's best," this collection is very hit and miss. Mostly miss in these later volumes. The best of this collection are "The Story of O Toyo" and "The Tragedy at St. Tropez." The Bramah stories are also good, but I have read them previously. ★★ and 1/2 for the collection.

"The Last Exploit of Harry the Actor" by Ernest Bramah: Features his blind detective Max Carrados in a mystery about the robbery from several safe deposit boxes in a Lucas Street depository known colloquially as "The Safe." The contents of the boxes are held safe behind multiple barriers--both real locks and bars as well as secret passwords known only to the owners. And yet...a large number of the boxes are plundered. Carrodos, whose other faculties have become stronger to compensate for the loss of his sight, is able to "see" the solution to the mystery very quickly.

"The Comedy at Fountain Cottage" by Ernest Bramah: Carrados is intrigued when his friend Louis Carlyle tells him about his niece's odd neighbor--a neighbor who tosses stewed kidneys over the fence at night. When he digs into the history of Fountain Cottage he learns some interesting facts about the previous owner and what the odd neighbor might have planned. [one natural]

"The Curious Circumstance of the Two Left Shoes" by Ernest Bramah:  When the Enderleigh's silver is stolen--apparently by the Monkey Burglar, Carrodos arrives to track down the real culprit.

"The Jeweled Casket" by Arthur Somers Roche: An "artist" in thievery, John Ainsley, steals from the thieves and gives...to himself. He loves outwitting the White Eagle, one of those supercrooks who thinks he's unstoppable. In this episode, Ainsley plots to get hold of a fabulous jeweled box that the White Eagle has just gotten his hands on. [two natural]

"The Club of One-Eyed Men" by Arthur Somers Roche: John Ainsley is at it again. He sees the White Eagle in close conversation with an American millionaire at a Parisian nightclub. Then sees the criminal mastermind the next day on a street full of men with only one eye. When he finds himself onboard a New York-bound steam ship with the millionaire and one of the one-eyed men, he finds himself set up to take advantage of another White Eagle criminal plot.

"The Pigtail of Hi Wing Ho" by Sax Rohmer: Hi Wing Ho becomes embroiled in a series of mysterious events that threaten his life and the lives of those around him. He is pursued by a group of criminals who are after a valuable artifact that our hero possesses.  

"The Story of O Toyo" by H. de Vere Stacpoole: When some con artists attempt an impersonation of a jeweler, the young Japanese woman who is his servant sees through their plot.

"The Tragedy at St. Tropez" by Gilbert Frankau: When a wealthy financier is poisoned everything points towards his secretary. But the man brought in to translate French for the investigators, can't believe his old school friend is guilty. [one poisoned]

These last two are like "minute mysteries"--the readers are given the story and then supposed to figure out the solution. The authors vary from the very obvious (the first) to impossible to tell how it was done even though the culprit is again obvious (the last).
"The Crawley Robbery" by Evelyn Johnson & Gretta Palmer: A wealthy couple bring home the family jewels so the wife can wear them to a special dinner. While she is dressing the emeralds disappear. Who did it?

"Finger Prints Can't Lie" by Evelyn Johnson & Gretta Palmer: The wife of a German spy is poisoned. The fingerprints on the bottles (poison and the wife's medicine bottle) belong to the maid. Is she guilty? If not, who did it and why aren't the fingerprints telling the truth? [one poisoned]

Pause in Posting: Update

 Life is still off the rails...but a little closer to getting back on track. My husband wound up not having to have the heart pump after all (We're SO thankful!). When the surgeon got in there, he said "I don't see why I can't do a bypass." So, he did. Triple bypass--actually. Recovery is going well--but I'm still spending a great deal of time at the hospital.

A Pause in Posting

 Life has gone off the rails here on the Block. My husband is currently in the critical cardiac unit of a local hospital--waiting on a surgery to install a heart pump. I do plan to host all of my challenges in 2026, but I can't promise how soon I'll get them posted.

The Final Ring

 The Final Ring (1978) by Marcia Blair (Marc Baker)

Tory Baxter is awakened by a phone call from her best friend and fellow nurse Peg Moore. After a bit of unintelligible mumbling, she manages one full sentence: "Oh, I don't think so." And then, "Two...Mailman...Bell...Our Favorite." Tory realizes that her friend, a diabetic, must be suffering from a diabetic reaction and tells her to hang up so Tory can summon help. She calls the house where Peg had been serving as a day nurse and instructs the housekeeper to get some sugar into the young woman at once. She then calls Dr. Clarkson, the doctor associated with the house as well as Peg's love interest. But they're too late. Peg dies as a result of a diabetic coma.

The longer Tory thinks about that last phone call the more certain she is that Tory was trying to tell her something important. The two young women were both mystery book fans and she's sure that there's a dying clue in there somewhere. Her friend, Lieutenant Thorpe, is just as sure that Tory is letting her imagination run away with her and that everything is just what it seems. But Tory insists that Peg was too aware of the dangers of her condition to have missed an insulin shot or not eaten enough. So, when Dr. Clarkson asks if she wants to take over the job at the Harrington house, she jumps at the chance. And when more "accidents" occur, Tory is sure that Peg's death is just one part of a nefarious plot. But whose plot? And to what purpose?

Mrs. Harrington, a beautiful woman married to a rich man who adores her, is the patient. She is suffering from a broken leg which occurred when her husband accidentally backed into her with the car. Or was it an accident? When Eve Harrington suffers from gastric distress that looks a lot like arsenical poisoning, Tory begins to wonder. And then Ethel, a nosy little maid, takes a deadly tumble down the staircase. Did Ethel see or hear too much? Tory needs to find out soon...or she may be next on the killer's list.

This is the first of Blair's Zebra Puzzler books to feature nurse Tory Baxter and her sparring partner Lieutenant Jay Thorpe. These Puzzlers offer up mysteries with visual clues--on the cover and in illustrations within the novel. The plot is a good one; better, I think, than the first of Blair's that I read two years ago (review HERE). There still aren't a lot of suspects running around (a definite weakness in Blair's plotting), but I do think there's more doubt about which way the suspicion should fall to become certainty. It isn't until the last clue given that I became sure. There's supposed to be one clue on the cover and four more inside, but I can only point to two of the five. And one of the illustrations is down-right misleading--what it depicts is contradicted throughout by what we're told and the contradiction doesn't figure in the explanation. 

A nice, quick read. Interesting plot and a good chance for the reader to figure out whodunnit (especially if you're better than I was at picking up the visual clues). Well worth the afternoon I spent on it. ★★★ and 1/2

A final note: I'm still not a fan of Tory's tendency to shout at Jay. It gets on my nerves. She's such a level-headed young woman in all other respects. The poor man doesn't even have to be irritating for her to shout at him. Not that he can't be irritating--he can. And is at times. If the shouting were limited to those times, that might be okay. But, geez, Tory, give it a rest, can't you?

First line: The ringing telephone threaded its way into Tory's nightmare.

My my mind's like a superlative wastebasket, filled with both trivia and unexpected valuables. (Sandy Brockman; p. 41)

Last line: They were still at it when the waiter brought the check.
******************

Deaths = 2 (one fell down stairs; one diabetic reaction)

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The Curse of Braeburn Castle

 The Curse of Braeburn Castle (2019) by Karen Baugh Menuhin

It's Halloween in 1921. Major Heathcliff Lennox's friend Jonathan Swift has married, retired from official detective work, and now lives with his wife's family at Braeburn Castle on an island in Scotland. He decides to do a bit of renovation in the section of the castle that holds their living quarters and while doing so makes a discovery within the wall. Lennox receives a message that Swift has found a skeleton wearing a crown and the former inspector wants Lennox to come to Scotland to help investigate.. The discovery has attracted archaeologists (whom Swifts suspects are really treasure seekers) and the head and crown have gone missing. 

The inhabitants of the castle believe the skeleton to be Black Dougal (an ancient enemy to the Braeburns) and that it comes with a curse and ghosts--very appropriate to Halloween. At the very least it comes with murder--because one of the archaeologists is shoved off the battlements to his death. And then someone burns the only boat on the island. Why does the murderer want them trapped? And why was the archaeologist killed? Swift and Lennox investigate and it seems that they will need to dig into the curse (which is a secret held closely by the Laird of the castle) and the history of Black Dougal. Then a second murder takes place and while Lennox has a suspect in mind, it seems impossible that they could have committed the crime. When he figures out how the person could appear to be in two places at once, he's ready to help Swift capture the killer.

Very atmospheric--Menuhin captures the castle setting very nicely. You are very aware of how drafty, yet claustrophobic the place can be. She also gives us good descriptions of the inhabitants and the archaeologist. Well-drawn characters that are clearly defined and work well in the setting. The only one I'm not sold on is Miss Fairchild, a psychic/medium who makes a beeline for the castle as soon as the skeleton is found. She's a nice enough lady and all, but she really isn't necessary to the plot unless the point is to validate the ghosts and whatnot for the Halloween theme. But she's doesn't add anything plot-wise that couldn't have been covered just as well by other characters. The plot itself is well done and I appreciate the way Menuhin has taken a device that provided a solid alibi in a particular Agatha Christie novel and turned it on its head. Very nice! ★★★★

First line: "Are you absolutely certain he said skeleton?" I asked, with a degree of scepticism.

Last line: I picked the little cat up, dropped him gently into my jacket pocket, called my dog and headed off for a long walk in the peaceful countryside.
*****************

Deaths = 5 (one war; one Spanish flu; one fell from height; one stabbed; one buried alive)

They Do It with Mirrors

 Murder With Mirrors (aka They Do It With Mirrors; 1952) by Agatha Christie

American Ruth Van Rydock comes to England on one of her flying visits--to see her sister Carrie Louise Serrocold and her dear friend Miss Jane Marple. While at lunch with Miss Marple, she tells her friend that she's worried about Carrie Louise. something is not quite right at Stonygates where Carrie Louise lives in England. She can't say quite what, but she's sure that it involves danger of some sort for her sister. She tells Miss Marple that she has told Carrie Louise all about their "dear friend, Jane--all alone and in need after the war" and, if Carrie Louise asks (as she's bound to do) Jane to come for a visit, will she go? Will she go and use her knack for unraveling problems and understanding people to figure out what's wrong at Stonygates? 

Miss Marple agrees and when the invitation comes she is prompt to accept. She finds a house full of people including Louis Serrocold, Carrie Louise's current husband; Mildred Strete, Carrie Louise's widowed daughter; Stephen Restarick, her stepson from a second marriage; Gina Hudd, her granddaughter, and Gina's husband Walter (an unhappy, misplaced American); Juliet Bellever, housekeeper and devoted companion to Carrie Louise; and a whole institute full of delinquent boys that Louis Serrocold is endeavoring to rehabilitate. One of the boys, Edgar Lawson, has shown signs of improvement and is acting as Louis's secretary. In conversations with all of them, Miss Marple picks up little eddies of discontent and menace of a sort, but she can't quite identify the causes and the focus.

Then Christian Gulbrandsen, Carrie Louise's stepson from her first marriage, arrives unexpectedly. Since he is one of the trustees of the Gulbrandsen Institute and executors of the Gulbrandsen Trust, everyone assumes that some sort of business must have brought him back to England so abruptly. Miss Marple overhears a bit of his conversation with Serrocold--only enough to verify that there is something that concerns Carrie Louise. But before Christian can do much of anything, there is a scene between Serrocold and Edgar in Louis's study. A scene that is noisy enough to draw everyone's attention and which results in shots being fired. However, when the everything is over, the person who has been shot is Christian Gulbrandsen who had gone to his room to write a letter to the other Gulbrandsen trustee. It looks like Christian was shot because he was about to reveal that someone has been systematically poisoning Carrie Louise. And, if true, there's a wide field to choose from who might benefit from her death. But did anyone need money badly enough to poison sweet Carrie Louise? It isn't until Miss Marple remembers the old conjuring trick with mirrors that she sees the full picture of the plot.

For this outing, I actually listened to Joan Hickson's audio novel version from Hoopla even though I own the book in two editions (the one pictured above as well as a digest-sized edition by Pocket Books). I'll address the audio novel first and then talk a bit about the book itself. While I love Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and, for me, she will always be the Miss Marple, I have to say that her audio novel is more like storytime with Miss Marple rather than a performance of the book. There is some small attempt to give a different intonation to the male characters, but in actuality this is just Joan Hickson reading us the story. There nothing wrong with that--I like being read to. But if you're expecting a vocal performance that will give definition to each character, then you will probably be disappointed.

The mystery is a good bit of misdirection for first-time readers. I found that even though this isn't one of Christie's "big" plots (once read, never forgotten) and it had been quite some time since I last read it, I still remembered a great deal of the details. It didn't take long to be absolutely certain who did it and why. I gave more attention this time to the characters and appreciating how much Christie could tell us in her brief descriptions. I also like that Miss Marple is in it from the beginning and is really, truly the star of the show throughout. ★★★★

First line: Mrs. Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed.

Last lines: "I don't suppose you can," said Miss Marple. "It was all a long time ago..."
********************

Deaths = 6 (one shot; one hanged; two hit on head; two drowned)

The Singing Sands

 The Singing Sands (1952) by Josephine Tey (Elizabeth MacKintosh)

The last of Tey's Inspector Grant novels (and her last novel altogether as this one was published posthumously) finds Grant on sick leave. His doctor advises a holiday with a hobby--fishing in Scotland will be just the thing. He's suffering from overwork and panic attacks which exhibit themselves primarily in claustrophobia and the train journey north to stay with friends is excruciating. The only thing that takes his mind off his troubles is a brief encounter with a man presumed passed out drunk. The conductor had tried to rouse him and asked Grant's help. Previous experience tells Grant that the man is dead and when the conductor wails, "What shall I do?" Grant tells him to call the police. The conductor is dismayed (he'll be delayed getting off to his elevenses), but Grant is glad that the affair is none of his business.

Except...he can't get the man out of his mind. The young man had an interesting face, even in death, and when Grant finds that he has absentmindedly walked off with a newspaper from the man's compartment...a newspaper that has an odd bit of verse pencilled in the margin...

        The beasts that talk,
        The streams that stand,
        The stones that walk,
        The singing sands
        .........
        .........
        That guard the way
        To Paradise...

he wonders what kind of man the deceased was. Who was he? Where was he going? What business would bring such a man to the rural area of Scotland? This puzzle helps Grant to recover far more quickly than any fishing for trout. to 

He writes to his office to confess to having abstracted the newspaper (and telling of the odd bit of marginalia) but finds they aren't interested. The man has been identified as a Frenchman who had had one too many and stumbled backwards against the washbasin in a deadly blow. Except Grant just can't believe it. He places an advertisement in the papers asking if anyone can identify the bit of verse. The advert produces one Tad Cullen, a flyer with a company that delivers to Arabia. Cullen is in search of a missing friend....a friend who just happened to quote that bit of poetry one night when a little drunk. Soon Grant and Cullen are off on a quest to prove that one deceased Charles Martin, Frenchman, is actually the missing Bill Kenrick. But who wanted to kill Kenrick and why stuff his pockets with the identity papers of a Frenchman? By the end of the story, Grant will know that answer and will also be cured of his claustrophobic anxiety.

I was much more enamored of this one when I read it the first time (30-ish years ago). I was just getting myself firmly planted in the vintage mystery world after flirting heavily with it about ten-fifteen years before that. Reading this now, there are two things that keep this from being a four-star mystery. First, it takes a very long time for the investigation to get moving. Grant keeps thinking about it and makes a trip all the way to the singing sands in the Hebrides (but doesn't really find anything there), but things don't start hopping until Tad Cullen shows up (at just about the half-way mark). One hundred pages out of a two-hundred page mystery is a fair way to go for the investigation to take off when the dead body has appeared in chapter one. And second, Grant doesn't exactly solve the case (yes, there is fingerprint evidence working its way to him, but...). The murderer sends him a nicely written confession before doing him/herself in. If the first half of the book hadn't been unsatisfying in its lack of detective action, then I might have been more amenable to the confession as wrap-up. But having both just didn't work so well for me. ★★★

First line: It was six o'clock of a March morning, and still dark.

Last line: What a most extraordinary idea.
*****************

Deaths = 3 (one hit on head; two airplane crash)

A Murder Is Announced

 A Murder Is Announced (1950) by Agatha Christie (read by Emilia Fox)

I was looking for something I had read before to listen to while I worked and also as a palate cleanser after the last two mysteries. I thought  that the fifth Miss Marple book would be just the thing. I was right. Since I've read and reviewed this her on the block before (HERE), I'm not going to rehash the plot or focus much on my reaction to it.  I'm going to give my attention to the narration/performance of Emilia Fox and my thoughts about listening to Christie's story again. 

Fox does such an excellent job providing a variety of voices for a fairly large cast of characters. There is never any doubt about which character is speaking and for the most part I think she gets the characters right. My two quibbles are with Miss Marple and Diana "Bunch" Harmon. The first quibble is more arbitrary--I will probably always hear Joan Hickson's voice in my head when it comes to Miss Marple and Fox's version of our elderly sleuth just doesn't match it closely enough. As for Bunch, she captures her muddled logic very well, but the voice qualities are just a little too precious. But these are minor issues in a performance that is so good overall.

Possible Spoilers Ahead! If you haven't read the story (or haven't seen one of the TV productions), then proceed with caution.

I was struck again by how very awful the murders in this story are and how despicable the murderer really is. Of course, murder is always awful, but these fictional murders seem to hit me in a different way from others. Miss Marple says that the grief shown over Bunny's death was real. But I don't believe that it's really grief over having committed murder--merely grief on the murderer's own behalf that they are so very alone now. No one left who knew them. Grief over their loss, not the loss of the actual person of Bunny. Murderers are so very selfish. There is a great depth of feeling in these characters--from Hinch's loss of Murgatroyd to Edward's devotion to Phillipa. This is one of my favorite Miss Marple mysteries for good reason. ★★★★

First line: Between 7:30 and 8:30 every morning except Sundays, Johnnie Butt made the round of the village of Chipping Cleghorn on his bicycle, whistling vociferously through his teeth and alighting at each house or cottage to shove through the lette box such morning papers as had been ordered by the occupants of the the house in question from Mr. Totman, stationer, of the High Street.

Last line: "How else would they know what's going on around here?"

***************

Deaths = 9 (one shot; one poisoned; five natural; one hit by car; one strangled)

An April Shroud

 An April Shroud (1975) by Reginald Hill

Superintendent Andrew Dalziel has seen his right-hand man, Inspector Peter Pascoe, happily married and off on his honeymoon. Dalziel is off himself on a vacation--a rarity for the superintendent. He has no definite plans, just aims to drive off and see where it takes him. The mild rain that started with the ceremony soon turns into full-blown showers...and eventually into floods. Dalziel finds himself stranded near a small river and rescued by a floating funeral procession. The family of the deceased man take him to their home, Lake House, until things dry up enough to rescue his car.

There are a number of odd things at Lake House: a "medieval" restaurant--not quite fully constructed; a frozen rat in the freezer; the lovely mistress of the house who has now lost two husbands to death under mysterious circumstances--the latest (and subject of the funeral procession) stabbed by a drill to the heart; anonymous phone calls; insurance fraud; and a general air of secrecy and deception about the place. Two more deaths put Dalziel's detective skills to the test, but he won't figure things out until the restaurant has opened and Pascoe returns from his honeymoon.

Reginald Hill is another author with whom I have an on-again, off-again relationship. We're more off than on for this outing. Blurbs I've read here and there indicate that this is supposed to be filled with humor. I just don't see it. There's vulgarity and sex for the sake of vulgarity and sex (as far as I can tell). There's rather inexplicable conversations between Dalziel and the inhabitants of Lake House. There's a mystery that Dalziel doesn't really seem to want to solve and when he does, he doesn't give the local law enforcement the full story. It's a pretty unsatisfactory book all 'round. But, hey, it's got a near four-star rating on Goodreads and other bloggers seem to have enjoyed it more than I did--so your mileage may vary. ★★

Side-note on the title: Unless I missed it, we're not told explicitly (other than on the book's flap), but I'm guessing that all the action happens in April. Otherwise there's no reason for the title except it gives Hill the chance to quote John Keats:

...the melancholy fit shall fall 

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all

And hides the green hill in an April shroud

Honestly, I just figure he had a burning desire to use that quote because I don't really see a connection to the plot at all.

First line: No one knew how it came about that Dalziel was making a speech.

Last line: with a sigh he turned over on his side, reached out to the bedside table, picked up The Last Days of Pompeii and opened it at his place.
******************

Deaths = (3 one stabbed; one beaten to death; one drowned)

[Finished on 10/19/25--just haven't felt like reviewing it.]

Murder Every Monday: Where There's Smoke....

Kate at Cross Examining Crime hosts a fun mystery cover game on Instagram called Murder Every Monday. Our assignment, should we choose to accept it, is to display book covers and/or titles  from books we own that match the prompts she posts in advance (see link).

This week's prompt is crime fiction with a cover that depicts smoking. Some of the pipes/cigarettes may be a little difficult to see (kind of a "Where's Waldo" in smoking). I could have done a whole post of just Sherlock Holmes books and Holmes pastiches. But--given the size of my collection and the fact that in vintage mysteries it seems that everyone smokes--we really don't seem to want to depict smoking on the covers of my editions. And especially not women--not even the "bad girls."

The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Two Bronze Pennies ~Chris Nickson

Treasure Up in Smoke ~David Williams (this week's winner for most bizarre cover)

Death in the Quadrangle ~Eilis Dillon

Holy Disorders ~Edmund Crispin

The Scottish Decision ~Alan Hunter

Blotto, Twinks & the Rodents of the Riviera ~Simon Brett

Case for Sergeant Beef ~Leo Bruce

Twice Dead ~John Buxton Hilton

Murder on Delivery ~Spencer Dean

Inspector West Kicks Off ~John Creasey

Strong Poison ~Dorothy L. Sayers

Death at the Bar ~Ngaio Marsh

The Amazing Adventures of Father Brown ~G. K. Chesterton

The Velvet Fleece ~Lois Eby & John C. Fleming

A Three-Pipe Problem ~Julian Symons

More Holmes for the Holidays ~Greenberg, Lellenberg & Waugh (eds)

Watson's Choice ~Gladys Mitchell

Why Kill Arthur Potter ~Ray Harrison

A Bullet in the Ballet ~Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon

The Murder League ~Robert L. Fish

Puzzle for Fools ~Patrick Quentin

Innocent Blood ~P. D. James

The Dead Man's Knock ~John Dickson Carr

An African Millionaire ~Grant Allen

What's in the Dark? ~Ellery Queen

The Case of the Untidy Murder (Untidy Murder) ~Frances & Richard Lockridge

The Witch's House

 The Witch's House (1963) by Charlotte Armstrong

Academics are running amuck in Armstrong's book. Professors Pat O'Shea and Everett Adams disappear from their university one fine afternoon. The police think it's a coincidence and that both men are just off on a bender or visiting "friends" (for which read women other than their wives). Adams's wife doesn't seem concerned, but Anabel O'She knows her husband. He'd never go on a bender; there's no other woman; and if something came up and he could make it to a phone, then he'd call her to tell her what's up. So, she's convinced that something awful must have happened to him. Since the police won't search for him, she decides to find him herself. She teams up with Adams's daughter Vee to hunt for the missing men.

So, what became of the missing men? O'Shea was horrified to discover that Adams was responsible for the theft of a valuable piece of university equipment. A theft that has been blamed on the student who was last known to be in the lab where the equipment was kept. When he sees Adams pocket the expensive lens, he rushes after him for a showdown. But Adams isn't just a thief; he seems to have become deranged and after an altercation in which Adams leaves O'Shea for dead, Adams goes into hiding. O'Shea regains consciousness in a run-down house near an old dump. At first he thinks he's been rescued, but he quickly realizes that he's a prisoner. Mrs. Pryde swears he's her son Johnny who has finally come back to her. [Spoiler alert: Johnny was executed many years ago. He's not coming back.] And she has no intention of "Johnny" ever leaving her again. She sets her guard dog to make sure he doesn't. Meanwhile, Anabel and Vee are following a trail of evidence that will dig up family secrets in the Adams household, but will those clues be enough to lead them to the missing men? 

So....I know why I picked this one up--it has academics in a mystery plot. Love those. But Charlotte Armstrong and I have an on-again, off-again relationship (mostly off, looking at my previous three reads) and so far nothing has come close to Lay On, Mac Duff! which at 3 1/2 stars has been the highest rated (and that didn't exactly knock it out of the park). Ironically, her books with any sort of an academic bent have done little for me. I think part of the problem with Armstrong is I'm not a fan of knowing pretty much everything up front. There's not much mystery left with most of hers--except how and when will the villain of the piece get caught. I like a real mystery with proper clues and a chance to figure it out before the sleuth does. If you like an inverted mystery, then you'll probably like this one a lot more than I did. ★★ and 1/2

Side note with a SPOILER warning:

The plight of Pat O'Shea made me think of Misery by Stephen King. Not that the "witch" is O'Shea's biggest fan or anything like that. But we've definitely got a delusional woman keeping someone hostage in an isolated setting. All of O'Shea's injuries come from an altercation with Adams, so Mrs. Pryde doesn't inflict more on him (as in the King book) but she also refuses to get him a doctor--insisting on nursing "her boy Johnny" back to health herself. I wonder if King was aware of this book when he decided to write Misery?

First line: He happened to be standing perfectly still, considering what, if anything, he ought to take home.

Last line: He took the starched one firmly away.
******************

Deaths = 4 (one natural; two poisoned; one fell from height)

[finished 10/15/25]