The moor the merrier in ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ (1902)
Sleuthing Sunday (Book review): Doyle’s gothic-horror descriptions of the moor and its denizens stand out more than the clues.
Books
The moor the merrier in ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ (1902)
Legendary gumshoe takes first steps in ‘A Study in Scarlet’ (1887)
Sleuthing Sunday (Book review): Decades before Christie’s puzzles, Doyle popularized the procedural mystery via Sherlock Holmes.
Three-pronged plot of ‘The Dain Curse’ (1929) is worth the effort
Sleuthing Sunday (Book review): The Continental Op does meat-and-potatoes work to solve Hammett’s most multi-layered mystery.
Continental Op makes rip-roaring leap to novels in ‘Red Harvest’ (1929)
Sleuthing Sunday (Book review): One of the earliest hardboiled detectives is not merely a prototype, but also still among the best.
du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ (1938) a slower burn than the film
On a Hitchcock kick (Book review): Hitchcock’s faithfulness limits surprises for those tackling the novel afterward, but it has one key difference.
‘Last Bookshop in London’ (2021) blends love of books with WWII
Book club book report: In a young-adult style, Madeline Martin communicates the horrors of the Blitz to folks who’d rather curl up with a good novel.
Hammett’s ‘The Glass Key’ (1931) digs into city political games
Sleuthing Sunday (Book review): Though unavoidably a complex subject, Hammett and his most unethical detective make government corruption accessible.
Green beautifully tackles mental illness in ‘Turtles All the Way Down’ (2017, 2024)
Book and movie reviews: The author manages to make modern troubled teens not annoying. Just don’t come here for the mystery.
‘Earthlings’ (2018) gives shocking insider insight into outsiders
Book club book report: Japanese author Sayaka Murata daringly highlights taboos, forcing us to rethink what’s automatically “wrong.”
‘A Princess of Mars’ (1912) crumples under weight of what came later
Throwback Thursday (Book review): But readers interested in the chain of imaginative writings that led to “Star Wars” will want to check out Burroughs’ classic.