It is that time of the year again when we nominate and vote for the reprint of the year, thanks to Kate Jackson @ CrossexaminingCrime. If this is new(s) to you, see this post. This year, it gives me great pleasure to nominate one of my all-time-favourite murder mysteries: The Clock in the Hatbox by … Continue reading Reprint of the Year 2025: The Clock in the Hatbox by Anthony Gilbert
Tag: Anthony Gilbert
Friday’s Forgotten Book: And Death Came Too by Anthony Gilbert (1956)
Are there people who are born under a dark star? People who are dogged by tragedy at every step? Arthur Crook's lawyer-friend, Thomas Fogg thinks so. He has saved his client, Ruth Garside, from being sentenced on the charge of trying to murder her father, but is not happy with the verdict of "not-proven". He … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: And Death Came Too by Anthony Gilbert (1956)
#1962 Club: No Dust in the Attic by Anthony Gilbert
Arthur Crook, travelling to London, comes across a couple at a Railway restroom and immediately suspects that something is amiss. It certainly is. Janice Grey, had in her young days married Pat Wylie after a chance encounter outside a phone booth (and phones play an important role in the story). However, when she realized that … Continue reading #1962 Club: No Dust in the Attic by Anthony Gilbert
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Footsteps Behind Me by Anthony Gilbert (1953)
By https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31018054941′, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69792289 Edward Lane - once almost awarded the Military Cross, for his valour during the first world war - has fallen so low in the aftermath of the second one, that he now blackmails people and both consumes and peddles drugs. When the novel opens, Ted is thinking of blackmailing four … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: Footsteps Behind Me by Anthony Gilbert (1953)
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Mouse who wouldn’t play Ball by Anthony Gilbert (1943)
"One of them did it, of course," he told himself, "but we shall never know which, so what the hell?" A tense figure waits near a staircase, in anticipation. Suddenly there is a cry of fire and panicked figures come running out of the dark, converging near the staircase. A candle is lighted but before … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Mouse who wouldn’t play Ball by Anthony Gilbert (1943)
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Treason in My Breast by Anthony Gilbert (1938)
Have you ever noticed in murder cases how often it's some trivial detail that tips the scale? Some flower-seller or some old woman running out to the post or a dog getting run over at a moment when you couldn't allow for any of those things happening... Janet Scott, wife of a young solicitor, Gerald … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: Treason in My Breast by Anthony Gilbert (1938)
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Passenger to Nowhere by Anthony Gilbert (1965)
"...there are old women living in big houses in all the country districts in France. Sometimes one remembers - they could die and who would know? They have no friends because they desire none - they have met life alone, they meet death alone." Sarah Hollis, nursing a broken heart after her fiancé breaks off … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: Passenger to Nowhere by Anthony Gilbert (1965)
Forgotten Books: Three Arthur Crook Novels by Anthony Gilbert
"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worldLike a colossus, and we petty menWalk under his huge legs, and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonorable graves...."One thing that I have always found problematic is the grading of writers. He/she is an A list author, we are told, the other is a B-lister. Who, I wonder, makes … Continue reading Forgotten Books: Three Arthur Crook Novels by Anthony Gilbert
The #1947 Club: Death in the Wrong Room by Anthony Gilbert
Anthony Gilbert is the pseudonym of Lucy Beatrice Malleson (1899-1973), member of the Detection Club and author of some seventy novels, a majority of which feature Arthur Crook, a lawyer from London, whom Gilbert deliberately created, in 1936, as a foil to the aristocratic amateur detectives who dominated the literary crime scene at the time.Death … Continue reading The #1947 Club: Death in the Wrong Room by Anthony Gilbert
Forgotten Books: A Murder Staged: Anthony Gilbert’s The Musical Comedy Crime
I experienced a sense of deja vu while reading Anthony Gilbert's The Musical Comedy Crime. A man is murdered and Inspector Field investigates. He zooms in on one suspect and despite misgivings arrests him. Then Scott Egerton, the Liberal politician- detective of Gilbert's early novels (before the advent of her most masterly creation, Arthur Crook) … Continue reading Forgotten Books: A Murder Staged: Anthony Gilbert’s The Musical Comedy Crime
a hot cup of pleasure