Robin's Random Rambles

  Carr, Queen and Sayers, three of the Golden Age giants:  After reading many, many, tickle me they did not, so on the rest I'm passin'   Happily, my mystery reading year was transformed by the Puzzle Doctor and Dean Street Press.   Steven Barge, aka The Puzzle Doctor , is an historian of crime fiction. His outstanding blog is a dangerously appealing treasure trove of reviews and articles about mystery and crime fiction, especially of the early-middle  decades of the 20th century. It  also prominently highlights the author whom he has almost single-handedly brought back to public attention, Brian Flynn with his Anthony Bathurst series. I say "almost" single-handedly because he has a partner in crime, Dean Street Press . This publishing house focuses on finding, tidying up, and reissuing books from the 1920s to the 1950s. Many of these are mysteries, and the Anthony Bathurst series is a testament to the hard work and dedication of both Steven Barge, f...

As my reading statistics at The StoryGraph for the year-to-date show, my leisure reading this year has been dominated by two genres: historical romance, and mystery. This post is about my mystery reading.  I had a mission in mind with my mystery reading for this year. I was determined to read more of the golden age giants of the genre. In my teens I read pretty much everything that Christie, Marsh, Allingham wrote. Of those three,  my preference order is Allingham, Marsh, Christie. However I hadn't read any JD Carr, Ellery Queen or Dorothy Sayers. I set out to correct that this year.   A content warning: The summaries below are not reviews. They describe my reactions to the reading experience provided by the three authors. They are utterly subjective, highly idiosyncratic and may be considered iconoclastic. You have been warned.    1.         Ellery Queen   3 finished, 2 DNF. Average rating at the Storygraph 2.9...