Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Buy The Daughter of Time at Amazon.com (US visitors) Everything in that history had been hearsay. And if there was one word that a policeman loathed more than another it was hearsay. Especially when applied to evidence.

Eric Shepherd: More Murder in a Nunnery

This gallery contains 1 photo.

It is extraordinary how different the same thing may appear from an altered point of view. The body on the dump, which appeared to the Convent unmitigated misfortune, struck the police in quite a different way.

Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Crime isn’t a disease, it’s a symptom. Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumour, except that the cop would rather cure it with a blackjack. We’re a big, rough, rich, wild people and crime … Continue reading →

Margery Allingham: No Love Lost

This gallery contains 1 photo.

No Love Lost contains two non-series novellas by Past Offences favourite Margery Allingham. As the title suggests, the two stories are connected by the theme of love, although the damage caused by gossip in small communities is a strong secondary theme. … Continue reading →

Richard Goyne: The Missing Minx

This gallery contains 1 photo.

‘The only thing is for me to go over there, in a purely private capacity, as my celebrated self. Ex-Superintendent ‘Tubby’ Greene. I’m on a motorin’ tour of the Southern Marches, and, after reading about all the goings-on in Larne … Continue reading →

John Dickson Carr: The Devil in Velvet

This gallery contains 1 photo.

I had been long anticipating the moment when my reading of the CWA’s top 100 crime and mystery books eventually brought me to The Devil in Velvet. It’s going to take a lot to beat the oddity of this book’s … Continue reading →

Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate

This gallery contains 1 photo.

I was not at all expecting The Manchurian Candidate to be the book it is. It’s packaged, in this 2004 movie tie-in edition at least, as a slick-looking starring-Denzel-Washington-and-from-the-director-of-The-Silence-of-the-Lambs techno-thriller – ‘It’s not a nightmare if it’s really happening’. But what … Continue reading →

Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train

This gallery contains 1 photo.

We’ve covered Strangers on a Train previously on Past Offences. New-friend-of-the-blog Moira from Clothes in Books reviewed as a guest post back in 2012. I’d forgotten how we set it up: Rich had the idea that he should get someone … Continue reading →

Agatha Christie: A Murder is Announced

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Once more a murder is announced—for the benefit and enjoyment of Miss Marple.

‘She murdered minds as well as bodies.’ #1955book round-up

This gallery contains 15 photos.

Thanks very much to everyone who contributed to February’s challenge to read and review crime fiction from the year 1955. Apologies if I’ve missed anyone – this was a bumper crop or blog posts. 1955 seems to have been a varied … Continue reading →