Ngaio Marsh: Vintage Murder
Ngaio Marsh’s first novel, A Man Lay Dead, is a competent, entertaining mystery, and already quite distinct in tone from the work of Marsh’s contemporaries; yet, as I noted last week, it’s still...
View ArticleThey’ve Seen Him Out Dressed In My Clothes
Johnny Cash sings the best song about Original Sin I’ve ever heard: “The Beast in Me”. “…the beast in me/That everybody knows/They’ve seen him out dressed in my clothes…” Yes, I rather suspect they...
View ArticleNgaio Marsh: Death in a White Tie
I’ve been re-reading Ngaio Marsh’s “Roderick Alleyn” mysteries in publication order; and one of my favorites so far in this read-through is Death in a White Tie, which is set in 1938 or thereabouts but...
View ArticleJulian May: The Saga of the Pliocene Exile
Julian May’s Saga of the Pliocene Exile is a collection of four books: The Many Colored Land, The Golden Torc, The Non-Born King, and The Adversary. It was first published back in the 1980’s; I...
View ArticleNgaio Marsh: Night at the Vulcan
Night at the Vulcan, also published as Opening Night, is the sixteenth of Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn mysteries, and yet another set in the world of the theater; I had forgotten how many of these...
View ArticlePuttin’ on the Ritz in Fits: Fred Astaire meets Gene Wilder
Because these things make me smile, here are two famous performances of Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. First, let’s have Fred Astaire:...
View ArticleSteven Pressfield: The Lion’s Gate
Last year I read and reviewed Steven Pressfield’s excellent book The Lion’s Gate, which tells the story of many of the men and women involved in the Six Day War in their own words: I was surprised by...
View ArticleBook Review: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, The Gospel of John
I recently received a review copy of The Gospel of John, by Francis Martin and William M. Wright IV, from the series Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, and I’ve been perusing it. I’m not...
View ArticleThe Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey
Following a nudge by Tom McDonald I’ve just re-read Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, which is perhaps the most unusual whodunnit I’ve ever read. Tey was an English mystery writer of the Golden...
View ArticleIn which the Blogger is Very Truly Run After
Those happy few who have read Vikings at Dino’s sure seem to like it; the latest review up at Amazon, from a man I’ve never met or spoken to, goes like this: Anyone who’s a fan of Terry Pratchett or...
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