The other day I was sufficiently incautious to mention that 30-some years ago I had had a little side gig — in cooperation with the late great Greg Kramer, mystery novelist, stage magician, actor, and polymath — producing live murder mystery games. You demanded more details in the comment section, and I can but comply. […]| Noah's Archives
The other night I was re-reading an old mystery from the 1930s and muttered to myself, “Oh, pfui, this is the Birlstone gambit.” A family member in the room, who is probably accustomed to me talking to myself, said, “Huh? What’s the Birlstone gambit?” And so a conversation was born, and hence this post. I’m […]| Noah's Archives
I wanted to say to my few faithful readers that, yes, I realize I haven’t posted anything in a month or so. Certainly it’s been on my mind. I just wanted you all to know that I’ve moved house twice this summer and although I’m not finished unpacking from the second move, I’ve reached a […]| Noah's Archives
A little more than two years ago, I published a not-very-serious piece about zucchinis in murder mysteries. You can find it here. In it, I talked about an obscure mystery by John Rhode called Vegetable Duck in which a maid/cook scrapes out the inside of a zucchini and replaces it with minced mutton, parsley, onion, herbs, […]| Noah's Archives
As I mentioned the other day, I have acquired enough Michael Gilbert novels in the last while to devote an entire post to them en masse. Lately I picked up an armful of paperbacks, and I went out and supplanted that with e-books as my fancy took me. As you will soon see, when I want […]| Noah's Archives
It may well be that I’ve been concealing my reading habits from my friends and blog followers. It’s true that I’m relatively lazy about writing blog posts about books I’ve been reading, at least compared to other bloggers; I’m always astonished that my fellow bloggers can come up with so many interesting things to say […]| Noah's Archives
My readers have spoken; I had so many complimentary comments the other day on my attempt to provide very brief comments about some books that, yes, I see your point and I’ll try to do more. Today’s exercise is looking at the books that have been hanging around at the bottom of my iBooks list, […]| Noah's Archives
I am indebted to the insightful critic (and Gladys Mitchell expert) Nick Fuller for the impetus that produced this post. His post of today’s date (found here) wherein he talks briefly and concisely about a number of different books, very few of which found sufficient favour with him to generate a full-on blog post, seems […]| Noah's Archives
A few years ago I happened to mention a Valentine Williams novel in the course of a piece on mysteries written by bridge players (found here). Williams himself was not a bridge player but his co-author of Fog (1932), Dorothy Rice Sims, was a national champion. In the brief paragraph about that particular book I mentioned […]| Noah's Archives
I had a small stroke of luck a few weeks ago and found a handful of Patricia Wentworth titles in a charity shop that included a couple of my personal favourites; it seemed like an opportune time fo…| Noah's Archives
