On 18th August 2025, The Invisible Event will have been running for ten years. And while I’m not a big one for introspection — I read books, I write about those books, some people read what I’ve written, rinse, repeat — a decade feels like a notable achievement and so some introspection is going to … Continue reading #1328: The Tenniversary – Ten Books That (Unwittingly) Shaped This Blog| The Invisible Event
An earlier British Library Crime Classics short story collection today, with The Long Arm of the Law [ss] (2017) featuring 15 stories of professional police selected by the hugely knowledgeable Martin Edwards. Like, I imagine, a lot of GAD readers, I was drawn to the genre by the histrionics of private investigators like Hercule Poirot … Continue reading #1318: “That’s the worst of these detective stories; every criminal knows that trick.” – The Long Arm of the Law [ss] (2017) ed. M...| The Invisible Event
Your typical Freeman Wills Crofts protagonist — fallen on hard times, usually following the death of a loved one — young widow Julia Langley enters into a marriage of convenience with solicitor Richard Elton. He will provide for her daughter Mollie, and she will run his house, Chalfont, as hostess for social events that singularly … Continue reading #1311: Fear Comes to Chalfont (1942) by Freeman Wills Crofts| The Invisible Event
Today is the tenth Bodies from the Library Conference, at which, until other considerations intervened, I was due to present on the topic of inverted mysteries. And you can bet I would at some point have talked about Six Against the Yard (1936), in which six crime writers put their ‘perfect murder’ on paper and … Continue reading #1309: Murderers Make Mistakes – Sudden Death Aplenty in Six Against the Yard [ss] (1936)| The Invisible Event
One of the things that I appreciate most about Freeman Wills Crofts as a writer was his refusal to rely on a formula. The more I explore his work, the more I have come to see it as an iterative process, experimenting with ideas, structures and forms.| Mysteries Ahoy!
I’m selling my detective stories – Freeman Wills Crofts and John Rhode / Miles Burton now on Ebay.| The Grandest Game in the World
I picked my ten favourite crime and detective novels published in the 1930s a little while ago for my online book club, but I only do a Ten Favourite… list every four months or so and thus am…| The Invisible Event