Nicks` Cabinet of Curios

  This is something the postman brought me last week, another addition to my collection of Detective Crime Club books.  I`m a bit of a latecomer to this series, and only started collecting them recently, though they`ve been around since 2017 I believe. An advantage of that is that many titles in the series can be found in very good condition at a reasonable price quite easily ! They reproduce the artwork from the original 1930s series - sadly usually without artist credits. I think in some cases they may have used the original artwork but made some changes to the way it`s presented. I`ve just started to read this one - seems pretty good so far and i have to say I really like the cover art !  

                                                   Brand New ; Ossie Scott at His Best is a compilation which has been around for some years now, and is different from the similarly-titled Ossie Scott - Brand New. It is available as a CD or a download I believe. As far as I know there is no vinyl issue. For anyone who doesn`t know, the excellent Ossie Scott was a Jamaican saxophone player who, despite the impeccable reggae credentials of himself and his sidemen* , nearly always produced straight jazz when performing as a solo artist.** Although I have some of the tracks on vinyl I bought this as a download so I can listen to it if I`m away from home. Also, by downloading it to my tablet I`ll still have access to Ossie`s mellifluous melodies even if I have no wi-fi access. That`s enough about me, how does it pan out ? This compilation contains all of the album...

  Delano Stewart - Stay a Little Longer - Dr Bird  DBCDD066 The postman`s been today to deliver this and as usual I`m like a big kid at Xmas ! This is a re-release of Delano Stewarts` 1970 album, which was produced by the late Sonia Pottinger, plus 48 other Pottinger-produced tracks, including 4 more from Mr Stewart, 60 tracks in all.  Some of the extras had been scheduled for a Trojan LP to be titled Dr No Go which in fact was never released. However, as it would have been a compilation, those had already been released in other forms. As far as I know there are no previously unreleased tracks on this album. Delano Stewart was and is a very talented performer, and Sonia Pottinger in my view was second only to Duke Reid as a producer, though some of the credit may be due to her engineer, Duke Reid`s nephew Errol Brown.  Aside from the 16 Delano Stewart tracks, others featured in this collection include Roland Alphonso, Marcia Griffiths, The Victors, The Conquerors and...

  David Stuart Davies (ed) - Classic Locked-Room Mysteries - Macmillan - 2016 Includes stories by R Austin Freeman, Edgar Allan Poe, Jacques Futrelle etc An interesting collection put together by veteran writer and noted Sherlockian David Stuart Davies. I`ll have to be frank and admit that a few weeks have passed since I read this. I do recall thinking that DSD, who I respect and admire very much, had allowed himself quite a bit of leeway on the question of what constitutes a locked-room mystery. If you`re a bit of a purist at heart and require all LRMs to conform to the classic format (A crime has taken place in a room which was locked from the inside before the event and which remains locked afterwards. How did the perpetrator enter the room and how did he escape ?)  then you probably won`t care for this. If you take a broader view of the matter then read on.  Some of the stories are better than others, but perhaps that`s to be expected. In his introduction, DSD remarks...

  Robert Dallas and Salute - Trust and Believe Vin Gordon and Salute - Warrior Charge This is a recent acquisition of mine that I thought people might like to see.  Robert Dallas I can`t tell you much about, other than the fact he is a British-based reggae singer living in Bristol and seems to have recorded quite a bit over the years. Generally speaking I am not a huge fan of modern reggae, but Mr Dallas is a singer I have a lot of time for and I hope more people will seek out his music. I certainly intend to seek out more of his tracks.  Vin Gordon is a very well-respected veteran reggae trombone player who probably needs no introduction to anyone with an interest in this sort of music. Always a pleasure to hear him play. 

  Basil Dearden (Director) - The Blue Lamp - Ealing - 1950 Recently had a welcome opportunity to watch The Blue Lamp, a film I`ve seen many times before. Many regard the film as a bit one-dimensional, a story of salt-of-the-earth coppers pursuing reckless young villains.  They can`t have been paying attention (or possibly they are confusing the film with the spin-off TV series Dixon of Dock Green). In fact, the film is a remarkably gritty depiction of a post-war Britain in which kids play on bomb sites and one officer has a spare room to let because his son is dead.  As the introductory voice-over makes clear, the young would-be hoodlums come from families damaged by war and are avoided by established organised crime as being undependable ("stick to gas meters" sneers one gangster when Dirk Bogarde`s psycho misfit Tom asks him to handle the proceeds of a proposed robbery). The signs of a war-ravaged city are all around, particularly in the scenes where the Police are out ...

David Stuart Davies - The Darke Chronicles Yorkshire man David Stuart Davies is, as you my know, a noted author, editor and playwright, a noted Sherlockian a member of The Detection Club, The Crime Writers` Association etc.  When I began reading this collection I was initially unsure if I would relate to the character of Luther Darke.  Needn`t have worried as in fact I thoroughly enjoyed the stories. In an interesting twist, Darkes` `Watson`, is a professional detective, Inspector Thornton, whereas Darke is a kind of `not-Holmes`. He sums up their relationship in the first story ;  "Ah, we see the world from different hilltops, you and I, Edward. You are the professional, scientific detective with a demand for rationality and feasibility ; whereas I am the amateur, an artist, doomed to view things from a different angle and able to see shifting and often unusual perspectives. We are two halves of the perfect whole." Whether he is quite as `not-Holmes` as...