November 13: Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts. A strange book, and I almost stopped reading at 30% or so because the protagonist was singularly unpleasant. I persisted, though, and at about 70% Inspector (Chief Inspector, even!) French showed up which made it much better. The ending is weakish, though. Index of reading notes
Read on »Posts Tagged: freeman wills crofts
Reading notes, week 45
(I was on holiday and didn’t note what I finished exactly when; they’re in order, anyway.) Wizard’s Holiday by Diane Duane. Goodness, this is so much more intricate (in both plotlines) than I remember! And there’s a strain of enemies-to-lovers, or at least “was sich liebt, das neckt sich” that faintly irks me but the
Read on »Reading notes, week 40
October 9: The Hog’s Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts. Comfort cozy mystery after the mad whirl of teenaged girls. Like many Inspector French books, it has a faux ending at 2/3 and then has a completely new take on the mystery and a resolution! Deftly done. I like the wrap-up at the end. October
Read on »Reading notes, week 30
July 29: The Second Mango by Shira Glassman. Re-reread, of course, likely to lead to a reread of the whole Mangoverse. July 27: Inspector French and Sir John Magill’s Last Journey by Freeman Wills Crofts. Trying to read all the Inspector Frenches I haven’t read yet in publication order (and fill up the gaps). Strange
Read on »Reading notes, week 21
May 28: A School Story by El Staplador. Miss Marple/Miss Silver vignette with a guest appearance by Miss Climpson. (I didn’t recognise Ada Doom though I did recognise her line.) Phyllis, a Twin by Dorothy Whitehill. Nice school (not boarding school) story with an actual adventure in it. It’s #2 of something Gutenberg doesn’t have
Read on »Reading notes, week 19
May 14: The Manor House School by Angela Brazil, who turns out to be real, not invented by Diana Wynne Jones for the Chrestomanci books! Somewhat harder to get invested in the characters as it is in the Enid Blyton boarding-school books, but there was a nice mystery, which twelve-year-old me would have been delighted
Read on »Reading notes, week 18
May 9: A Good Kiss is Hard to Find by Augustine Lang. Reread, but I’d forgotten most of the real meat of the story. I like these people! And it’s a kind of romance I can actually read without cringing, with very little failure-to-communicate. May 6: A Fairwell Friendship by Augustine Lang. Romance is not
Read on »Reading notes, week 17
April 27: The Cask by Freeman Wills Crofts. I can hardly imagine that this book is a hundred years old! (A hundred and one in fact: it was first published in 1920 though the epub I have of it is of a 1921 edition.) It’s long and convoluted, and I somewhat agree with one review
Read on »Reading notes, week 16
April 23: Polly’s First Year at Boarding School by Dorothy Whitehill. It took me a while to realise that this is a boarding-school book set in the United States. The usual boarding-school things happen but there doesn’t seem to be a plot, everybody likes the protagonist, and the only antagonist until now is the Latin
Read on »Reading notes, week 15
April 17: (Inspector French and) the Box Office Murders (both titles exist) by Freeman Wills Crofts. I’d forgotten the existence of Inspector French completely, and this is one I hadn’t read before! Very slight period-true cringe moments but the inspector is a decent, respectful human being, who listens to his wife when she has something
Read on »Books
Order from Ellipsis Press:
Free download, donations welcome:
Blogging without obligation
