crossexaminingcrime

Carter Dickson a.k.a. John Dickson Carr, certainly knew how to make an intriguing sounding title. Since this is not a fantasy novel, we know there will be no literal unicorns in this tale, so what will the unicorn be? A precious treasure of some kind? Unicorns are mentioned early in the story when Evelyn quotes from the nursery rhyme ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ when trying to tes...

When I saw this book advertised I was intrigued by the premise, due to its setting, its choice of victim; a writer, and the fact this victim had a history for faking events in his life. Witting dedicated this novel to Sir Derrick and Lady Verner. I think this would have been Sir Edward Derrick Wingfield Verner, 6th Baronet and his wife, Lady Angèle Verner, although I could be wr...

It’s the end of the month so that means it is time to take a look at my reading during May. There are two contenders for Book of the Month, and it was a tough choice choosing between them. However, in the end I went for…

Today’s post is the third instalment in my series of posts which are taking a brief peek at Anthony Shaffer thoughts on crime fiction, which he shared as a reviewer for London Mystery Magazine. He took on this role in 1955 and continued for 6 years producing quarterly review roundups. Previously I have looked at issues from March 1958 and December 1958, but today’s issue jumps u...

Today, to commence my monthly blog housekeeping for May I am posting about the themes #MurderEveryMonday participants were challenged to find covers for over the past four weeks.