Calamity in Kent by John Rowland

This week I am recuperating in Broadgate, a pleasant little seaside resort town in Kent. OK. Not really. But, I am doing the next best thing and reading a tale about a young journalist who is recovering in the south of England after surgery. 

It is June. Jimmy London takes his morning stroll along the boardwalk before breakfast at Mrs. Cecil's boarding house. But one morning calamity strikes and he comes across a murder scene. You have most likely heard of the locked room mystery? Well, this is a locked lift puzzle. 

The operator of the lift (elevator to those of us in America) that takes bathers from the boardwalk down the cliff to the beach has opened the cage for the day and discovered the body of a man. With a knife in his back. The operator swears he locked the lift doors the night before and the locks had not been tampered with. 

Jimmy is young and ambitious and sees this as his opportunity to wrangle a job with The Daily Wire, a Fleet Street paper. He is the man on the spot. And, as luck would have it, his friend from Scotland Yard, Inspector Shelley is also visiting the town. He asks Jimmy to do some side investigating thinking that people might be more apt to share information with a journalist than the police. 

Jimmy will get his scoop and Shelley will get his murderer.

That's the plan anyway in Calamity in Kent another of those wonderful books from the British Library Crime Classics series (here and here).

This is the second one written by John Rowland that I have read that features Inspector Shelley. The other was Murder in the Museum that I didn't write about here. It was a good one, too.

I love that in the day, recovering souls were sent off to the seaside to rest and relax. I wish someone would send me. I also have a fondness for mysteries set in this time (before a bunch of technology) and place - England, of course.

Merry reading.

A Sampling of Classic British Mysteries and Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See

About a year ago, I wrote of the British Library Crime Classics with their terrific, artful covers (here). I never did get around to purchasing any of these delights, but I recently discovered that my library has added 15 or so of them to its ebook collection.

I have been reading them in between other books and so far have read three. Each of the ones I have read is a collection of short mysteries edited by Martin Edwards who introduces the stories with information about the author.

Murder at the Manor: A gathering of suspects and victims at a variety of country houses. A favorite setting of mine. Oh, how wonderful to spend a weekend - without a murder, of course - at one of these stately British homes.

Capital Crimes - These short mysteries by various authors all take place in London. Stories by Margery Allingham (author of the Albert Campion series) and E.M. Delafield (Diary of a Provincial Lady) show up in this one. It was fun tottling around London via these stories.

Resorting to Murder - I found this just in time to read and enjoy on summer vacation. These mysteries all take place in holiday locations - the Swiss Alps, seaside towns, a small hotel in Paris. Sherlock Holmes shows up in this collection as he takes a well-earned rest in a "cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula."

Although The White Cottage Mystery is not part of the British Library series, its cover is just as attractive. It is one of the stand-alone crime novels by Ms. Allingham and I was led to it by her short London mystery.  The story involves the murder of a blackmailer who just loves to hold on to secrets and torment his victims with exposure. Nasty fellow. A terrific read featuring a Chief Inspector Challenor and his son (who has a romantic crush on one of the suspects) and a denouément that quite took me by surprise.
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In other news, I was saddened to read of the death of Carolyn See. She wrote mostly novels - I think she put Southern California on the literary map. One of her non-fiction books, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers, I hold dear to my heart. Unfortunately I don't own a copy and I see that my library no longer has the title in its collection (darn that discard policy). I read this book many years ago, it was published in 2002, and found it to be funny and tender. One piece of advice that I still remember was to write a "charming note" to those who helped you on your way to becoming and being a writer. Alas. A suggestion I have often recalled but not so often acted upon. 

I will definitely be on the lookout for this book to add to my shelf of writing books.

Have you read Making a Literary Life or any of Ms. See's novels? Any recommendations?

British Library Crime Classics

Knowing that I am always on the lookout for a new/old mystery to read, Tullik, one of my most erudite and sharp-eyed readers, sent me a notice about the British Library Crime Classics series. All on the heels of the History of Mystery class that I have been attending.

The series includes Golden Age mysteries that the British Library has rediscovered and republished. The covers alone are worth the price of the book (each paperback costs about $12). You can order them from the BL although I don't know how long it would take for them to arrive in America. I do see that some are available in the US from Amazon (of course), and others are due to be available in the next few months. They are or will be available for Kindle but then one wouldn't have the lovely covers to gaze upon.

In further news, on June 20, the BL is having a conference, The Bodies From the Library, with all sorts of discussions and sessions on the greats from the The Golden Age: Allingham, Christie, and Carr. You would want to attend if... 

...you like puzzles - the body found in the middle of a snow-covered lawn with no footprints, the corpse found in a room locked from the inside; unbreakable alibis and unexpected murders; books with floor-plans of the manor and timetables of the suspects' movements; surprise solutions on the last page, the last paragraph, the last line.

Oh, yes. I love all of that and I do so want to attend, and would be thrilled to buy the entire series from the British Library, but it is short notice and airfares are quite high. Alas, I suppose I will have to wait and enjoy the books from my own armchair.

There are 20 or so books in the series, of which I have only given you a sampling of the colorful covers. You can see them all here.

Enjoy.