Seventy years ago, Charlotte Armstrong wrote what is probably her boldest and most radical novel, an unidentified literary object whose suspense rested not on some criminal scheme or lady in danger but on the whereabouts of a bottle of olive oil. A Dram of Poison read like nothing she or anyone else had written before … Lire la suite There Won’t Be Blood →

Frédéric Dard's novels don't have a dramatis personae - they don't need it. Dard, at least in the books he wrote under his own name, tended to operate with a very small cast of characters and showed the same economy with respect to setting. Typical Dard is a deceptively linear narrative taking place in a … Lire la suite Less is More →

Though it alas didn't translate in much blog activity, 2025 was a great reading year for me, so much so that I almost didn't issue a Top Ten - so many great books, so hard to rank them ! Since however it would've been two years in a row without a Top, I decided choices … Lire la suite The Ten, 2025 Edition →

One of the reasons why I've been posting much less here in recent times is that my reading diet has quite broadened, to now include stuff that would be off topic on a blog dedicated to vintage crime fiction. Also, it feels sometimes like I have said everything I wanted to say and I don't … Lire la suite The Way It Was →

It is funny that Wilkie Collins, for all the praise that has (rightly) been heaped upon him over the years is basically a writer without posterity. I can see the modern offspring of Poe, Gaboriau, Braddon or Green without too much difficulty, but Collins, while still widely read and discussed, remains a singleton. Even contemporary … Lire la suite The Singleton →

In the final edition of Bloody Murder, Julian Symons reported a conversation he had with Mexican fellow crime writer Paco Ignacio Taìbo III, in which the latter lamented what he perceived as the "backwardness" of the British school. The Brits just weren't going on with the times - and the times according to Taìbo were noir … Lire la suite The Crystal Ball, 30 Years On →

Asked about his take on religion, Noam Chomsky once said that the very act of getting up every morning is an act of faith - how can one be sure there is still a ground beneath one's feet, or a sun in the sky? These are things we take for granted, because they have always … Lire la suite Case Unsettled →

Old-time detectives had Watsons. Modern ones have sidekicks.  No, they are not the same thing.  Sidekicks are characters. Watsons are literary devices.  The Watson is not "just" the detective's "idiot friend" as Conan Doyle put it. They serve another and more interesting purpose, which is to make sure the reader sees and hears only what … Lire la suite Some rambling thoughts about Watsons →

One of my pet subjects since I launched this blog seventeen years ago has been plot and character in crime fiction and most crucially the big question of which one should be given priority. I must admit not to have firmly made my mind up yet about that, and I'm not even sure I'll ever … Lire la suite Personality Cult →

One of the side effects of the long writer's block that bugged me in the past year is that I failed to issue my Top 10 for 2022, much to your disappointment I'm sure. I may post it sometime but suffice to say that the top spot was hotly debated and ultimately went to Hugh … Lire la suite The Ten, 2023 Edition →