Nicks` Cabinet of Curios

  Ken Parker - Here Comes Ken Parker - Doctor Bird - DBGD094 - 2022 (includes 18 tracks by Hopeton Lewis) `Here Comes Ken Parker` was a 1974 LP issued by Duke Reid`s Treaure Isle label in Jamaica. In that form, it comprised 9 vocal tracks by Ken, plus two instrumentals by Tommy McCook and the Supersonics, who also provided backing on Ken`s tracks.  That album, including the two instrumentals, was issued in the UK by Trojan under the title `Jimmy Brown` the same year, taking the best known song from the album as the title track, perhaps because he was not having the success in the UK that some of his peers enjoyed. This CD re-issue omits the two instrumentals and instead provides Ken`s tracks plus the other three tracks of his that were released by Treasure Isle. Additionally, it also features all 18 of the tracks by Hopeton Lewis that were released on the Treasure Isle label.  In a way, this makes perfect sense. Like many of the `born in the `40s` generation of reggae sin...

  Frank Froest & George Dilnot - The Crime Club - Collins Crime Club/The Detective Club - 2016 Reprint of book first published in 1915 Frank Froest was a former Superintendent at Scotland Yard, a detective associated with many high-profile cases of his time. In retirement he decided to turn his hand to fictional crime, aided and abetted by his friend, journalist and author George Dilnot. The Crime Club is a short story collection I found hugely enjoyable.  It begins with a meeting of the eponymous Crime Club, detectives from around the world who meet regularly to compare cases. Having introduced that idea, Froest and Dilnot then forget about it completely, it is really just an attempt to introduce a collection of short stories featuring a variety of fictional detectives.  The stories themselves I found hugely entertaining, with the possible exception of The Mayors` Daughter, which attempts to bring in elements of American pulp fiction, not totally successfully. At reg...