There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
1961 is the year chosen by Kaggsy @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings and Simon @ Stuck in a Book for their first Reading Club of 2026. Here are short notes on some of the crime reads of the year. The Ballad of the Running Man by Shelley Smith RAF veteran, Rex, now a moderately successful writer … Continue reading #1961Club #ClassicsClub: Crime Reads
It is time for my second nomination for the Reprint of the Year Award hosted by Kate Jackson @CrossexaminingCrime. You can read more about the award and how you can get involved, over here. My first nomination can be found here. They liked a happy undertaker the same way that the Irishman likes a bottle … Continue reading Reprint of the Year 2024: A Grave Undertaking by Lionel White (1961)
The year is almost done and I have so many books yet to be reviewed so here are brief notes on five mysteries of the silver-age. An Affair of the Heart by Jean Potts (1970) Jean Potts is one of my favourite authors because of her hold on human psychology. In this book, an advertising-agency … Continue reading Silver Mysteries
In a competition organised by the Collins Crime Club for the best Crime Novel to be written by a University don, this book was adjudged the joint winner by the judges Agatha Christie, C. Day Lewis, and Julian Symon. As the author, R.J. White, was a lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge, it … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Smartest Grave by R.J. White (1961)
My last three reads of Joan Fleming were more or less a disaster and I was in no mood to read another book by her. However, I needed to read just one more book of hers, to partially complete Rick Mills' Six-Shooter Mystery Challenge (if you want to join for the 2021 edition of this … Continue reading Dare to Dream: In the Red by Joan Fleming (1961)
The first time I remember hearing (okay reading) about Ellery Queen was when I read a fine review of Cat of Many Tails at Yvette's blog, in so many words... Subsequently, I read my first Queen The Murderer is a Fox, and realised that there were not one but two Ellery Queen, the writer as well … Continue reading Ellery Queen: A Journey of Discovery
A couple of days ago, in mood for watching a b&w mystery movie, I decided upon watching the 1961 movie Taste of Fear, released in the US as Scream of Fear.The movie begins with the chirping of birds. The placid lake surrounded by mountains and lush trees seems like an ideal spot.The serenity is shattered, … Continue reading Tuesday’s Overlooked Movie: Taste of Fear
In 1953, a young psychiatrist was assigned to the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric hospital in Algeria, at that time a colony of the French. Battling a host of racial prejudices that even used scientific studies to designate Africans as little more than animals, Frantz Fanon started documenting the cases that came to him even as the Algerian … Continue reading ‘Scars and Chains’: Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
a hot cup of pleasure 