Nicks` Cabinet of Curios

H Douglas (ed) - The Mystery Book - Odhams - 1934 H Douglas Thomson was an editor employed by Odhams in the 1930s to compile a number of  anthologies of short stories. He was also the author of Masters of Mystery, a book about writers of crime fiction.  The Mystery Book is a particularly fine collection of 50 stories, divided into three sections; Stories of Mystery and Adventure, Stories of Crime and Detection and Stories of the Supernatural. The 50 authors include J S Fletcher, A J Alan, J Storer Clouston, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Michael Kent.  H G Wells' The Invisible Man and Henry James ' The Turn of the Screw are included in their entirety. E Bulwer Lyttons'  The Haunted and the Haunter (aka The House and the Brain) and Perceval Landons' Thurnley Abbey are also presented here in full and not in the abridged versions included in some anthologies. I have read and enjoyed the Lytton story in both forms but in my personal view, Thurnley Abbey needs to be...

  Ossie Scott and the Moonlighters - Memories Volume 4 ; Taurus Musicism - Undated Canadian Vinyl LP This is a recent addition to my vinyl collection and something I'm very happy to have. Ossie Scott was a Jamaican sax player, working mainly in the fields of jazz and reggae.  He apparently began his career playing big band jazz before joining Byron Lee and the Dragonnaires. This was the springboard for a solo career with he combined with work as a busy session musician. The Memories series of LPs is something of an enigma. The plan seems to have been to issue 12 albums, each named, for no obvious reason, after a different sign of the zodiac. The Moonlighters was a collective name for a group of Jamaican session musicians. While Ossie and the Moonlighters all had impeccable reggae credentials, the Memories albums that I have heard are firmly entrenched in the world of jazz.  This is probably my favourite of the Memories albums so far (I have two others), partly because som...

  Gerald Verner - The Grim Joker - Kindle Edition  Robert Budd Mystery Number 1 Gerald Verner was one of a number of pen-names used by John Robert Stuart Pringle (31 Jan 1897-16 Sep 1980). Other names used by the multipseudonymous Mr Pringle include Derwent Steele, Donald Stuart and Nigel Vane. First published in 1936, this is the first of quite a lengthy series of books featuring central character Supt Robert Budd.  I would say it is intelligently plotted, written in an engaging style and is likely to satisfy all but the most demanding of afficionados of detective fiction of that era.  Budd is an interesting and, mostly, engaging character. Known as `Rosebud` by his subordinates due to his interest in gardening, he is obese and cultivates a sleepy demeanour which hides an incisive mind.  His tendency to be abrasively rude to any Officer who he perceives as negligent, even when this does not seem to actually be the case, will not sit well with the modern reader ...

  V J Banis - The Mystery of Bloodstone  - Linford Mystery Library - Date uncertain V J Banis is best remembered as a writer on gay issues but had an interesting sideline as the author of a number of gothic novels.  These sounded tremendous fun so I enlisted the help of my local library service to give one a try.   One of his works involved a man who finds a skeleton with a stake where its' heart used to be.  That sounded intriguing but unfortunately Derbyshire Library Service were unable to provide a copy.  Undaunted, I opted for this one.  The plot sounded promising enough, involving a young woman who feels compelled to revisit Bloodstone Manor, the house in which she grew up, which overlooks a village named Skull Point.  Accordingly, she sets sail during a raging storm (not just an ordinary storm) accompanied by a servant who is soon found spending her nights attempting to make contact with the deceased.   Promising enough, and o...