Hello everybody and I’d like to welcome you to another
edition of me bragging about recent acquisitions of mine. This is the part of
the show where I pretend to post in order to inflate my statistics, as well as
taking advantage of an opportunity to just get up and brag about the newest
additions to my collection. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this and
there have been many acquisitions along the way—I wouldn’t be surprised if I
managed to forget something along the way! So let’s get started.
Here’s a cheerful way to launch this list off—a set of Colin
Dexter novels that I discovered at an unbeatable price. They are: The Daughters of Cain, The Jewel That was
Ours, The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn, Last Bus to Woodstock, Last Seen
Wearing.
Next up is a book by one Curt Evans, blogger over at The Passing Tramp. It’s a book I’ve long
looked forward to: Masters of the “Humdrum”
Mystery. I have read a fair bit of the book and so far, my reaction is a
very positive one. Highly recommended to all even-slightly-insane mystery fans.
Here’s a book by Michael Gilbert entitled Flash Point. I just saw the name “Michael
Gilbert” and my wallet winced in pain.
Hey look, it’s Anthony Gilbert again! Although I still haven’t
read any of her books I simply couldn’t pass these up when I was at a used
bookstore.
Ah, Richard S. Prather, creator of Shell Scott. Strip for Murder is definitely one of
the funniest private eye novels I’ve ever read (even if not the world’s
greatest mystery), and so imagine my sheer, fangasmic delight when I entered a
bookstore and discovered what must have been a complete set of the Shell Scott
novels! There was no way I could afford all of them (and no way I could fit
them all in my bag, for that matter) so I had to contend myself with the three
that sounded best while giving a withering stare at the Colin Dexters that I
had already filled up my bag with.
From there on we move to Raymond Postgate’s Verdict of Twelve. It’s a book I’ve seen
often but have never really felt compelled to buy… and then TomCat wrote an
intriguing review of it. I cursed myself for a foolish mortal and bought
the book instead of sacrificing a stranger to the sun god to atone for my sins.
Next up is Robert Barnard’s Fete Fatale. I really enjoyed his Death on the High C’s, so this was an easy choice.
And now we take a brief detour to France—and yes, that is
the actual package that arrived for me from France, minus the heavenly glow
emanating from it. Please, non-French readers, bear with me. You’ll see that
the grand finale is well worth wading through all these mysterious titles that
will probably never be translated.
First up is a pair of novels by one Jean Alessandrini. These
are apparently young adult novels with an impossible crime problem thrown in
for good measure. Why yes, sign me up immediately! La Malédiction de Chéops (The Curse of Cheops) and Le Labyrinthe de Cauchemears (The
Labyrinth of Nightmares) are pictured.
Next up is an obscure novel by an obscure author: Gaston
Boca’s Les Usines de l’effroi (The
Factories of Horror). Michel Soupart, Philippe Fooz, and Vincent Bourgeois gave
it a very positive and intriguing three-star review in their work Chambres closes crimes impossibles (Locked Rooms Impossible Crimes— of
which, I am told, a second edition is currently being prepared with Roland
Lacourbe joining their ranks!)
After some discussion on the GADetection Yahoo group, I
simply couldn’t resist buying the book billed to Boileau-Narcejac (even though
Narcejac himself wrote the stories) called Usurpation
d’Identité (Usurpation of Identity), which contains a series of pastiches
of well-known authors!
And the last French books I have to show off (believe it or
not they all fit into one box) is a trio by Martin Méroy, an author TomCat hasoccasionally reviewed. They are Meurtre
par interim (Murder by Interim), Meurtre
sur un circuit (Murder on a Circuit) and Meurtre autour d’un ring (Murder Around a Ring).
All right, I’m a terrible liar. Those were all the books I
got in that box. But there are two more books that I want to show off by author
René Reouven. One of these looks familiar: Mort
au jury (Death to the Jury). Didn’t I show this book off last time? I did… but not quite like
this. You see, the author himself, M. René Reouven, kindly autographed two of
his books for me! The other book is a school textbook that collects three of
his Sherlock Holmes stories and has a bunch of notes on the era, the language
used by the author, etc. Reouven is one of my all-time favourite authors, so
needless to say, I’m very excited to get these books.
And now let us return to English authors for one whizz-banger
of a finale. (That’s right; that wasn’t
the finale!) As readers of this blog well know, I’m a big fan of Paul Doherty,
and my recent review of The Midnight Man
included a fangasm over my copy of the book which contained the author’s
signature. And so here are two books by the author: The Death of the Red King and The
Secret Life of Elizabeth I. Both are non-fiction books and have highly
interesting subject matter. But… I wonder. What happens when I open The Secret Life of Elizabeth I?
Wow!!! But wait… if that happens when I open one book… what happens
when I open The Death of the Red King instead?
[Patrick’s mind has officially exploded.]
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen—Paul Doherty himself had
the extreme kindness of signing two of his books and sending them my way! I
really cannot tell you how happy this makes me. After all, I am just a humble
reader who has gotten hours of delight from Mr. Doherty’s work. Once again,
thank you Mr. Doherty for the books, an act I can only describe as that of a
true gentleman.
As you can probably all tell by now… I’m going to really
enjoy reading these books in the foreseeable future!
Wow, I can't believe how blatantly you ripped off my acquisition/moviesique post title I used a while back, on the GAD group, to fondle my war booty in public.
ReplyDeleteNice haist, by the way. :)
What a great haul, and how very nice of Mr Doherty! Hope you'll post about the Narcejac stories after you've read them...
ReplyDelete@TomCat
ReplyDeleteI wasn't feeling very original and was wondering when someone would spot it. But also, because I wanted to post today's book review today, I wanted to hurry up with this post before I had to leave the house, hence settling on a ripoff title.
@J
Of course-- *everything* I read will be reviewed! And I don't see myself passing up those stories! :)