by Agatha Christie An interesting lecture on the 'Queen of Crime' during our recent cruise inspired me to re-read some of Christie's stories featuring her cerebral Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. Murder on the Orient Express, published in 1934, is one of her best known works, having been popular also as a drama for cinema …
Category: detective stories
The Devil's in the Detail
Rather Be The Devil by Ian Rankin 'Darryl Christie's closed eyes were puffy and bruised, his nose swollen with dried blood caking the nostrils. A foam head brace had been rigged up with further support around his neck.' Set in Edinburgh like most of Rankin's stories, Rather Be The Devil brings together all of the …
Getting Away With Murder (3)
The Retired Cop My third (and last) fictional detective of the week is not exactly a 'classic', but he has been around for a few years now. John Rebus, creation of Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin, was born in 1947 (we are told on Rankin's website). However, he did not make his appearance on the …
Getting Away With Murder (2)
The War Hero If I were into hard rock and heavy metal bands - which I'm not - I would have known that Career of Evil is the title of a track by the group Blue Öyster Cult. It is also the title of the latest crime novel by Robert Galbraith, a.k.a. JK Rowling. I …
Getting Away With Murder (1)
The Classic American As promised, I'm going to write this week about detective stories. The fictional detective and the typical fictional crime have changed a lot since back in the days ( I won't say how long ago) when at the age of about eleven I read my first Agatha Christie novel. Throughout my teens …
That which does not kill us . . . .
The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagerkrantz translated by George Goulding '. . . . makes us stronger', as the saying goes. That Which Does Not Kill Us (Det som inte dödar oss) is the original Swedish title of this new novel about Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist and Millennium Magazine. David Lagerkrantz has …
Lucky Strike
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith In her second novel in the persona of Galbraith, JK Rowling's war hero detective Cormoran Strike takes on a case involving missing writer Owen Quine. Quine has written a novel entitled Bombyx Mori in which he seems to have maligned and slandered most of his colleagues in the book industry. …
Welcome back, Lisbeth!
The Spider's Web I talk and write about books a lot, usually about books I have read. For this landmark post (it will be my 100th post on WordPress in my present incarnation), I'm going to talk about one I haven't read. In fact, it hasn't been published yet. Rumours of a new 'dragon tattoo' …
The Cuckoo's Calling
I knew before I even opened this book that the author, Robert Galbraith, was actually JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame. I think everyone knew that, almost from the day it was published. My hesitation and delay before reading it stemmed from my disappointment with The Casual Vacancy. That just wasn't my thing at all. …
"Everything's going to be okay."
The Truth Will Out by Jane Isaac Well, everything isn't going to be OK for Eva, one of two main characters in Jane Isaac's new detective thriller. And it'll be especially not OK for her friend Naomi, who is murdered in the first chapter. Eva and Naomi travel from England to Italy to collect a …
Bookheathen Scribblings 