Nicks` Cabinet of Curios

  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...

  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...

  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...