Nicks` Cabinet of Curios

  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...

  George Bellairs  - A Surfeit of Suspects - Charnwood  - 2022 2022 reprint of book first published in 1964 George Bellairs was a pseudonym used by Harold Blundell (1902-1982) Harold Blundell aka George Bellairs was never a professional writer despite having 58 novels and a number of articles published. Instead he stayed in his post as bank manager in Rochdale and pursued writing as a paying hobby.   It's often said that many writers of classic detective fiction treated their stories as a kind of puzzle to be solved, and often seemed set in a kind of hermetically-sealed bubble, divorced from most people's reality.  This story is nothing like that, with much of the plot centring around  a joinery business in the fictitious manufacturing town of Evingdon which has been hovering on the brink of bankruptcy for some time.   The author makes great play of the contrast between the expanding new town and the less salubrious old town with it's inadequately...

Leonard Gribble  - Notorious Crimes - Guild Publishing  - 1985 Leonard Gribble was an author and editor who wrote under a number of names, including Leo Grex and Bruce Sanders.  This true crime collection features lucid and readable accounts of a dozen cases, many of them I suspect largely forgotten now.   The book held my attention throughout and I would happily read another similar volume.   There are a number of minor errors, generally unimportant in themselves but notable for their frequency.  Generally these are just grammatical errors.  One more perplexing error comes in Chapter 6, 'One Way Ride in Essex'. In this case it is explained that, under interrogation, a suspect was unable to write out an address another man had previously given him, presumably some days earlier. The author states that "the inference was very clear to the police" , but it is not so clear to the reader. Given that the suspect was American, the address, that of t...

  J S Fletcher - The Lost Mr Linthwaite I am a big fan of J S Fletcher but I must admit The Lost Mr Linthwaite is not destined to become a personal favourite. The plot of the story is actually pretty good, but somehow neither the characters or the location really come to life in this one.    Very often, I encounter books/short stories from the `20s, or indeed from later eras, where there is no real need for much character development/background and/or too much description of locations. I`m thinking here of the works of E Phillips Oppenheim or some of the Sexton Blake Library stories.  In my personal opinion, this story really could have done with some of those things to give it a bit of zing. As it is, JSF has written a quite agreeable story but not a gripping one. I would mention that my download of this (see picture) has a number of typos. They didn`t really bother me, but I do notice that Black Heath Crime have re-issued it recently and their version might be a be...

  Gerald Verner  - The Vampire Man - Linford  - 2018 2018 reprint of book first published in 1940 Gerald Verner (1897-1980) also wrote using a variety of pen-names, including Derwent Steele, Nigel Vane and Thane Leslie. He wrote a number of Sexton Blake stories under the name Donald Stuart.  I don't suppose anyone believes that Gerald Verner aspired to literary greatness, but in the early part of this book, some of the writing was so bad I wondered whether to persevere. I'm glad I did however, as once I got into it I found The Vampire Man an absorbing and enjoyable read.   The story is an old-fashioned murder mystery, with our intrepid sleuth, amateur criminologist Conway Jackson, seeking the explanation for a number of killings but also, as the title implies,  investigating the nature of the person, or creature,  committing the crimes.  Some might say that aspects of the story are a bit daft but for me personally, I  read these things p...

  Leonard Gribble - Famous Mysteries of Modern Times - Muller - 1976 This followed the same authors` Famous Historical Mysteries and More Famous Historical Mysteries (both of which I have, but have not read yet), and was intended as a supplement to the m.  I did wonder if this might mean it was hastily cobbled together in order to cash in on the success of its` predecessors, but this does not seem to be the case.  I would query whether all of the cases discussed here really qualify as `mysteries`, but let`s not worry too much about that. Generally, the book is an absorbing read and does feature a number of intriguing mysteries, some of which were new to me despite my long-standing fondness for such things.  There were some points where I felt like the book could have been edited more thoroughly (did the author really intend to say that the inhabitants of Kirkwall were "understandably inbred" ?), but this is not a huge problem overall.  Recommended reading, but n...

  Bruce Sanders - Deadly Jade - Herbert Jenkins - 1947? `Bruce Sanders` was one of a number of pen-names used by Leonard Gribble, a writer best remembered for his many true crime and crime fiction titles. Set in the immediate post-war period, stylistically this seems very much like something from between the wars. Initially I was unsure if I was going to warm to this tale of the experiences of central character Simon and his business partner/ex-wife Hilda. However, the story improves with the introduction of two very strong characters, sassy modern girl Carol and her admirer, the charismatic Charles `The Duke` Bastion, reputed to be a figure from the world of organised crime. These two act as catalysts for a string of events held together by an intriguing, if occasionally muddled, plot. If the book has a weakness, it`s that it`s `neither fish nor fowl`. There is no puzzle that the reader can have any hope of solving, and neither is it a thriller in the usual sense.  While ther...

  Piers Marlowe* - Promise to Kill - Thriller Book Club - 1965 *Piers Marlowe is one of a number of  pseudonyms used by the writer Leonard Gribble, best remembered for his true crime and crime fiction titles. First, a quick grumble.  At the start of this book, a man is walking through the countryside with a shotgun. His intention is to kill another man.  He stops to watch a bird of prey hunting. It seems a funny moment for nature appreciation but as he`s a character in a novel and is himself hunting prey of his own, we`ll let it pass.  Musing on life some more, his thoughts turn to industrial relations. It seems wholly unlikely that such considerations would occupy his mind at that moment.  In my personal view, it can be unwise to introduce social/political concerns into the thoughts/speech of a fictitious character. If, as I suspect, the intention is to show that this particular character is a bit `different between the ears` then it seems to me that the r...

  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...

  Mary Danby (ed) - Realms of Darkness ; Nightmarish Tales of the Supernatural and Macabre - Octopus - 1985 Published for St Michael/Marks and Spencer, presumably to be sold in their stores, in 1985, the same year as the first edition was published (by Heinemann, I think). With introduction by Christopher Lee 73 short stories by 73 authors, including Martin Amis, Dennis Wheatley, Agatha Christie, F Marion Crawford, J B Priestley, and Bill Pronzini. Mary Danby was an author in her own right as well as being noted as editor of numerous anthologies of supernatural fiction. She also acted as compiler of various humorous anthologies - books of jokes, cartoons, limericks etc, though these need not detain us here. This impressive collection brings together the modern and the classic, the obscure and the well-known. It`s true that other anthologists - Richard Dalby springs to mind - have done very much the same thing, but let`s not worry too much about that.  With such a range of auth...

   Bill S Ballinger - The Longest Second - Mystery Book Guild - 1958 An absorbing read, with a touch of the Ed McBains about it.  The principal story told in this novel is of a man who wakes up in a hospital ward suffering from amnesia. He has a severe cut to his throat and it is unclear if this was due to an assault or a suicide attempt. He is told by a detective that his name is Vic Pacific, an identity they have established by checking his fingerprints against army records as he served in North Africa during World War Two. The second story concerns two detectives investigating the case of a man found dead with very similar injuries to the throat. They too check his fingerprints man`s against army records and they too find their man is Vic Pacific ! The larger part of the story is given over to the first man`s search for his own identity and the things he learns about himself along the way.  For him, people seem to fall into two categories, those who are useful to ...

  Jonathan Goodman (ed) - Medical Murders - BCA  - 1992 (Book originally published by Piatkus the previous year) Contributors ; Jonathan Goodman, Edward H Smith, Harold Eaton, Joan Lock, Rev Evelyn Burnaby and 8 others This was a book I found on a charity stall at my local supermarket. Having proffered what I hope was a suitable donation I trotted happily home, ready to immerse myself in the world of murderous medics, dangerous doctors and poisonous practitioners.  The book was enjoyable, but a bit patchy. Most of the pieces were originally published  in other true crime collections, a couple seem to have been written specifically for inclusion in this volume and two were originally  newspaper articles. Some contributors have done their homework - Albert Borowitz has clearly made a particular study of the murder of Dr George Parkman at Harvard Medical College in Boston (1849) - but while I may be treating them unfairly,  others may not have drawn on such a ...

Eric Ambler (ed) - Great Cases of Scotland Yard ; Volume One - Reader`s Digest - 1993   Reprint of book first published in 1978 Contents ;  Thomas Neill Cream, Poisoner - Elizabeth Jenkins Flannel Foot - Michael Innes The Strange Case of Stanley Setty - Andrew Garve  The Portland Spy Case - Ludovic Kennedy Clive Egleton - The Stealing of Muriel McKay The story of five historical crime cases told by popular writers of the day.  Generally, a very absorbing and satisfying read. The first three cases were very much my kind of thing and I enjoyed them immensely. I am not particularly keen on espionage stories, whether fact or fiction, but in fact Ludovic Kennedy`s account of the Portland Spy Case was fascinating  and very enjoyable. I was surprised to find that I was not so keen on the Muriel McKay kidnapping case, which is odd as  it`s a case that I`ve read about before and one that generally interests me. I`d have to also add that while the author quotes ...

  Anthony Berkeley -The Silk Stocking Murders - Collins Crime Club/The Detective Club - 2007 "A Roger Sheringham Detective Novel"  2007 reprint of book first published in 1928 It is a while since I read this. I usually like to review books promptly after reading them but in this case real life got in the way.  I remember this as an intelligent and ingenious novel, that I enjoyed very much.  It is said that the central character has may of the attributes of the author himself. I mention this is there ae two female characters, either of whom could very easily have taken on the role off the detective`s sidekick. Considering they are relatively minor characters, the author seems to go to some length to portray them, which made me wonder if they were based on women he knew.  I personally did work out the identity of the villain of the piece, which I actually found a bit disappointing. When I was younger I tended to be quite pleased if I could solve the case correctly...

  Jonathan Burke - Echo of Barbara - Mystery Book Guild - 1959 John Frederick Burke wrote under a variety of names, some being variations on his real name and others not. In his writing career he turned his hand to psychological thrillers and suspense stories, science fiction, travel and numerous novelisations of films and TV programmes, notably Jason King, The Protectors and The Bill.   I assume he is the same Jonathan Burke that wrote the Sexton Blake Library story Corpse to Copenhagen. I have to say E of B was a book I thoroughly enjoyed.   Although there is some action, the strength of the book is mainly in the portrayals of particular characters and how they became who they are. This is most notable with the character of former prostitute Paula Hastings, hired to impersonate the daughter of gangster Sam Westwood. While her character could easily alienate the reader and appear either objectionable or pitiful, in fact she comes across as neither of those thin...

  J V Turner - Below the Clock - Collins Crime Club - 2018 Reprint of book first  published in 1936 In the Detective Club/Detective Story Club series The author also wrote as Nicholas Brady and David Hume. John (Jack) Victor Turner was his real name. I can imagine that this book, describing the murder of a Chancellor of the Exchequer that actually takes place in the House of Commons (he dies whilst  making a Budget speech) may have been controversial in it`s day, particularly since we soon learn that the Chancellor was far from being a model citizen. The murder is investigated by eccentric Solicitor Amos Petrie and an increasingly care-worn detective, Chief Inspector Ripple. Some amusement is provided by Petries` nonchalant approach to dealing with both Politicians and his investigative sidekick, but the author wisely avoids turning it into a comedy. There are enough twists and turns to the plot to keep even the most ardent lover of old-style detective fiction happy, thou...

  Richard Garrett - Flight into Mystery ; Reports from the Dark Side of the Sky - W&N - 1986 This is a non-fiction work, from an author whose chief assets ae an engaging writing style and a level head.  Most of the mysteries he discusses here are aeronautical accidents and other mishaps, and as he rightly points out, are only mysteries until they are explained, though in some cases it`s highly unlikely now that explanations are forthcoming. His main aim in discussing these is to discuss various possible explanations for a given incident as dispassionately as possible, putting forward his own opinions only when he feels he has something to contribute. The Bermuda Triangle is mentioned once or twice, but it is clear he attaches no significance to the works of Charles Berlitz and others, commenting "my own attitude is to wonder why these writers found it necessary to invent such tales, when there is mystery enough in the actual world around us."  A short chapter on UFOs ...

  Stephen Ransome - So Deadly My Love - Mystery Book Guild - 1959 1959 reprint of book first published in 1957 Stephen Ransome   Stephen Ransome was one of a number of pseudonyms used by Frederick C Davis (1902-77), an American writer. In the UK his books were invariably credited to Stephen Ransome even if they had first been published in the US under another name. Some of his stories were published only in the UK  and in general UK editions of his books are more common than the equivalent US editions.  All of this probably indicates that he was more popular in the UK than in his homeland. So Deadly My Love SDML tells the story of a young woman`s experiences as a kidnap victim, of how she turns the tables on the man behind the kidnapping, and of the pressures she faces from those around her, who have their own ideas as to who is responsible and, in some cases, have their own agenda. It is a gripping story, told well and keeps your attention.  I have two grumbles...

  Sir David Napley - The Camden Town Murder - Weidenfeld and Nicolson - 1987 In the W&N `Great Murder Trials of the 20th Century` series This non-fiction book came to me  as a spontaneous gift from my son, who spotted it on a charity book stall in a supermarket. Prior to that, I had no knowledge of either the author or the case in question.  I did google Sir David Napley out of curiosity but I avoided reading anything else about the case in question until I had finished the book. The book concerns the 1907 trial of Robert Wood, accused of murdering a young prostitute. Sir David provides an articulate and readable account, stopping along the way to explain various points of interest relating to British legal history that have bearing on the case. Those of you who have read accounts online that suggest Mr Wood was provided with a dazzling defence by Marshal Hall KC may feel that the truth is rather different.   I`m not going to mention the outcome of the trial...