“Someone is manipulating evidence. Someone is being clever. And that, in my peevish way, I begin to resent.” Mr Abercrombie Lewker, actor-manager, mountaineer, one-time spy and occasional sleuth has an invitation to Buckingham Palace, where he is going to be knighted for services to the British theatre [note to the reprint editors, if you’re reproducing a newspaper announcement from a British newspaper, don’t miscorrect the spelling of the word “theatre”. It just looks wrong – well, wronger than usual…] Before the ceremony, he receives an invite to a get-together in Snowdonia from a fellow al ..read more

Adrian Monk thrives on order so when he has to leave his apartment for a few days when it is being fumigated, moving in with his assistant Nathalie possibly isn’t the wisest move. Thankfully, before he can tidy her house and throw out all of her cracked crockery (although he will do that) a distraction comes along in the form of a case from Natalie’s daughter, Julie. The dalmatian from the local firehouse, a favourite at Julie’s school, has been killed when the fire department were on a call. But who would murder a dog? When Monk discovers indications that the fire itself was set to cover up ..read more

Adrian Monk thrives on order so when he has to leave his apartment for a few days when it is being fumigated, moving in with his assistant Nathalie possibly isn’t the wisest move. Thankfully, before he can tidy her house and throw out all of her cracked crockery (although he will do that) a distraction comes along in the form of a case from Natalie’s daughter, Julie. The dalmatian from the local firehouse, a favourite at Julie’s school, has been killed when the fire department were on a call. But who would murder a dog? When Monk discovers indications that the fire itself was set to cover up ..read more

Donna Nightingale is at something of a crossroads in her career as a detective/perennial murder suspect, in part due to DS Joe Enys disappearing to work for the Home Secretary in London. But things will change when she attends a book launch at the Tate St Ives. The art on display is hardly to her tastes, apart from an impressive moving sculpture intended to emulate a trap designed by Wile E Coyote himself. Unfortunately, it probably wasn’t designed by Mr Coyote, as it succeeds in crushing the author to death. More deaths soon follow, but with witches, writers and artists at every turn, Donna ..read more

Anthony Horowitz has a problem – he has a deadline to meet for his new book featuring his investigations with ex-police detective Daniel Hawthorne, but there hasn’t been an investigation since the last one he wrote up. So he persuades Hawthorne to give him the case files on one of his old cases – but sometimes the past is best left well alone. When Giles Kenworthy moved into Riverview Close in Richmond Upon Thames, he shattered the idyllic community with his noisy children and even noisier cars. When he was shot dead by a crossbow bolt, the community closes ranks against the investigation – a ..read more

Martin Clarke has decided to buy a haunted house – it has a history of strange happenings, not least the evening when the octogenarian butler decided to swing on the chandelier until it came free and crushed him to death. When the guests arrive for the housewarming, it doesn’t take very long before strange things begin to happen. A ghostly hand grabs a guest by the ankle from out of nowhere. But most sinisterly of all, a gun lifts itself free from its display on a wall and shoots a man in the head. And nobody was anywhere near… A re-read as I reviewed this almost ten years ago. I wanted to re ..read more

Just for once, I’m not going to write a blurb, as the one of the back of the book speaks for itself… “The duel a l’outrance between Gideon Hazel, mountaineer-poet, and Knut Asbiorn, guardian of the strange secret of Hammer Island, ranges from a ‘pot-hole’ in Derbyshire to a death-trap in Commercial Road and reaches its climax among the crystal fjords and peaks of Norway. Blade meets blade in a real rapier-duel before all is done, and there is seafaring and mountaineering in plenty. Defeat might have meant another world conflict. But aided by that stout Shakespearean actor Mr. Abercrombie Lewk ..read more

The Hannya mask – from the Japanese tradition of Noh theatre – always foretold tragedy at the Chizui mansion. When Koichi Yanagi and Hiroyuki Ishikari see someone wearing the mask at an upstairs window, they enter the house where Koichi grew up, there is a strange tension abroad – and then Taijiro Chizui is found dead, locked inside his own study. His behaviour beforehand had shown that he was terrified of something – but the only sign of any foul play is the Hannya mask sitting on the floor in front of the dead body. The detective story writer Akimitsu Takagi arrives to help find the truth ..read more

Great TV shows never really die – and neither do some fairly terrible ones, if they have enough fans. Since being cancelled in the eighties, Vixens From The Void, a BBC show crossing Star Trek with Dynasty, has lived on due to a core group of followers who really put the “fan” in “fanatical”. And so script editor Mervyn Stone finds himself, twenty years later, at ConVix 15, a convention for all things Vixens. There’s even an actress there who was in more than one episode… Mervyn has enough on his plate trying to be in the right place at the right time (and, on occasion, with the right woman ..read more

Greetings from sunny/rainy Wales! Not actually sure about the weather, but me and Mrs Puzzle Doctor (in reality Puzzle Professor) are heading off to a holiday cottage on the edge of Snowdonia and I’m writing this a few days ahead of time. Who knows, either we will be lounging in the grass outside, watching the nuthatches scamper up and down the trees, or we’ll be sitting inside watching the rain pour down the windows. Ah, who am I kidding, I’ll be reading a book. Inside or outside doesn’t make a massive amount of difference. So, what have I been reading up to the 27th of March? Well, Challenge ..read more