I finally got around to watching The Sheep Detectives. I loved it. The movie has a fairly long genesis. A woman by the name of Leonie Swann wrote a mystery entitled Glennkill: Ein Schafskrimi that was published in Germany in 2005. It became an international best seller and is better known in English speaking lands as … Continue reading The Sheep in the Meadow
Whodunits
What’s the Matter with Rachel Bennette?
“I like a good detective story, but, you know, they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that—years before sometimes—with all the causes and events that bring certain people to a certain place at a certain time on a certain day. … Continue reading What’s the Matter with Rachel Bennette?
What’s the Matter with Robert Graves?
Quote of the day: Very few of us are what we seem.—Agatha Christie Robert Graves, the writer of the novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, which were turned into the successful BBC TV series I, Claudius, became friends with Agatha Christie and her husband during World War II when they found themselves neighbors. Although they dwelt in … Continue reading What’s the Matter with Robert Graves?
The Mother of the Detective Novel
Quote of the day: The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.—Voltaire Everett Raymond had been a junior partner in the law firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond for about a year when a young man appeared at the office in the temporary … Continue reading The Mother of the Detective Novel
Have You Read These?
Once again I’m stealing from electoral-vote.com. On Saturday they had their usual Q&A along with their Reader Question of the Week which involved historical fiction. A lot of the Q’s and A’s are worth a read, if you have the time, so click here, but I want to concentrate on the some of the readers’ … Continue reading Have You Read These?
Kapell-detective Joseph
One of the fascinating things about Joseph Haydn’s life is that parts of it are very well documented, but there are long stretches where we have very little information about the day to day, let alone the month to month, aspects of it. All the more reason to try to fill in some of those … Continue reading Kapell-detective Joseph
Ringing the Changes
Back in the 70s when I used to go to the Lebanon Community Library, I would sometimes hear the ringing of church bells as I approached the library door. But these were not ordinary church bells. The weren’t just pealing an announcement that the service was about to begin or end, nor were they in … Continue reading Ringing the Changes
The Case of the Waylaid Wolf
My traversal of the the Perry Mason TV series has continued very slowly. I’m still in season four. When I saw that the next episode was based directly on a book by Erle Stanley Gardner, I decided to read, or in this case re-read, the novel before watching the TV adaptation. I recall reading The Case … Continue reading The Case of the Waylaid Wolf
The Notorious Cunninghams
Does guessing whodunit ruin a whodunit for you? It usually doesn’t for me unless it’s so obvious and unless there are no other pleasures to be found in the writing. In any case, about halfway through Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, I realized who the culprit had to be, and in … Continue reading The Notorious Cunninghams
The Other 10 Commandments
Ronald Knox (1888 - 1957) was a Golden Age writer of mystery stories (1920s and 30s) and a member of the Detection Club, a group of mystery writers which also included Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and John Dickson Carr, among others. Knox was monsignor of the Catholic Church and also wrote many religious works, … Continue reading The Other 10 Commandments