Friends, recently someone mentioned this Reginald Hill book. I had not read a Hill book in over 20 years, but based on the John L. Breen EQMM recommendation, ...
Richard - I'm a huge fan of both CSI and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The latter in particular to me is the best contemporary series, and I can't understand why...
Xavier- I'm glad you get those shows in France, I wasn't sure. I agree that Buffy has been unjustly ignored in the Emmys. But as Joss Whedon says: I just...
Hi Richard and Xavier Yes it is unpopular in this group, but I too have always enjoyed the Harriet Vane novels. I particularly enjoyed Gaudy Night. Sayers is...
Adrienne-First, nice to hear from you as always. You certainly brought up an interesting point. 'Not even the cleverest plot can survive hundreds of pages of...
Hi Richard I think you may have just hit upon an interesting strand that is going nowhere with me. I have become old and hairy enough to finally put down and...
There have recently been some unanimitied praise for Reginald Hill on this list, so I thought I'd better write and give my two cents on this author. I recently...
You read the wrong ones, in spite of the critical acclaim. Try "Killing Kindness" or "An April Shroud". "Walk in the Woods" is one of the best, too. Never...
Rodney D. Wingfield has written five novels starring highly ideosyncrastic Inspector Jack Frost. "Hard Frost", the fourth of them, was published in the US by...
Agree. There is too much padding in modern detective novels (to justify their high price?). And some of them are just silly, but sell well (like cat...
Oh. OK, thanks. Still haven't heard either of the author or the series. (But then the only television I watch all week is the occasional weather forecast, and...
Nice reviews, Nick, as usual. (But I don't catch the reference to Band 1, Band 4 etc. -- is that something from MTV? Have no idea.) Connington: If it is so...
Re: "Mist on the Saltings" by Henry Wade PS: That comment is defamatory. The plot device is very common (especially in the American hard-boiled school). If I...
My main objection to Van der Valk's death is that it was too easy. I would have expected from Freeling a subtler, gentler way to get rid of a character who,...
"Bad writing"... all depends on what you call so. I can think of many writers with a beautiful style yet whom books left me indifferent because stories they...
Well, everybody seems to agree that Lilian Jackson Braun or Rita Mae Brown are not the next Agatha or Ngaio. Indeed a lot of cozies are plain rubbish, giving...
<P> <P>Dear Wyatt, <P>The Band system is simply my grading system: Band 5: excellent, Band 4: good, Band 3: average, Band 2: below average, Band 1:...
Nick- I agree that your reviews are well written and informative. As you might expect, I have a few comments.... Back in the Golden Age, to have one's book...
Dear Richard, The only Crofts I have read are Fatal Venture (very poor) and "The Mystery of the Sleeping-Car Express" (one of the worst short stories I have...
Hi Im a newbie, love reading..als try my hand at writing.. (I am also a bad typist so please be patient) I "collect" deteticeves with strange idiosyncracies,...
Nick- Of the three Crofts I mentioned, I think you might like The Box Office Murders the most, The Sea Mystery second. I liked A Losing Game overall, but it...
Croft's first effort ("The Cask") is quite good too -- one of the best of the plodding investigation type, the painstaking analysis of the clues to a crime. In...
BTW, what was your problem with the Caudwell book ("Sybil...")? This is a classic English village cosy with a modern twist. And I'm surprised you never...
BTW, what was your problem with the Caudwell book ("Sybil...")? This is a classic English village cosy with a modern twist. And I'm surprised you never...
Dear Wyatt, No characterisation. Because the reader never "met" any of the characters, there was a distancing effect which, in my case, led to boredom and...
"Death-Watch" is not good Carr, although the plot is in a complicated way. Problem is that none of the characters have any appeal at all, either automatons or...
Dear Wyatt, SPOILER Dr. Fell is rather disingenuous--he describes the murderer, whose name I have forgotten, as "not the murderer, but the person who intended...
