Patrol (1926) by Philip Macdonald

Book Review by George Simmers: This is a Great War novel set in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), where British army units were fighting the Turks, and also local Bedouin tribesmen. A patrol of ten men has been sent in a mission across the desert, but on the first page its officer is shot by a distant … Continue reading →

Captain Bulldog Drummond (1946) by Gerard Fairlie

Book Review by George Simmers: In 1937 Herman Cyril McNeile who, as ‘Sapper’ had written the Bulldog Drummond thrillers, died. His friend Gerard Fairlie, who had collaborated with him on the novelisation of a Drummond film script (The series of Drummond movies were very popular in the 1930s) took over the profitable franchise. Captain Bulldog … Continue reading →

Bulldog Drummond (1920) by ‘Sapper’

Book Review by Jane Varley: This is the novel in which Hugh Drummond D.S.O., M.C. demobbed British officer bored with peace – and the reader – first encounter the international collection of crooks who plan to stage a coup in Great Britain and other capitalist countries and install a Bolshevist regime in order to gain … Continue reading →

The Launching of Roger Brook (1947) by Dennis Wheatley

In the middle of the 20th century, Dennis Wheatley (1897-1977) was a prolific and popular author of thrillers, best known for writing about the occult. I came across his books, I think, through a holiday job in my local library. There were plenty on the shelves, in the lurid dustjackets his publishers seemed to favour. … Continue reading →

The Haunting of Toby Jugg (1948) by Dennis Wheatley

Book review by George S: The premise of this story is a gripping one: During the Second World War, Toby Jugg, a fighter-pilot, crashes and is paralysed from the waist down. He is being looked after in a country house in Wales, under the care of Helmut, a teacher from his old school. The book … Continue reading →

The Black Baroness (1940) by Dennis Wheatley

Book Review by Jane V: Bond meets Biggles – way out of my comfort zone. But what interested me most about this story is the speed with which reporting on contemporary events, as they happened, was written up and published in no more than three and a half months. Wheatley must have written fast (376 … Continue reading →

Torment for Trixie (1950) by Hank Janson

Book review by George S.: Torment for Trixie is the seventeenth of the over two hundred novels published under the name of Hank Janson, and in this one the detective hero (also called Hank Janson) is on his best behaviour. . What makes the novel quite interesting is that it was written when local police … Continue reading →

Ride the Pink Horse (1946) by Dorothy B Hughes

Book Review by Jane V: I fetched a deep sigh on contemplating November’s ‘hard-boiled fiction’ assignment. I didn’t look forward to reading about testosterone fuelled guys gunning up freeways, slugging each other and knocking back immoderate amounts of whiskey. So I decided to find out if any female writers had attempted the genre, thinking that … Continue reading →

Adèle and Co., (1931), and Blind Corner (1927), by Dornford Yates

Book Review by Chris Hopkins Adèle and Co. is told in the first person by Boy, part of a close-knit group, made up of Daphne, his sister who is married to their cousin Berry Pleydell, Jonathan Mansel, whose sister Jill is married to Piers, the Duke of Padua, and Adele an American married to Boy. … Continue reading →

Blood Royal (1929) by Dornford Yates

Book review by George Simmers: This is the third of Dornford Yates’s ‘Chandos’ novels, and the first not to feature Jonah Mansel. Mansel had followed the Bulldog Drummond pattern for a twenties action hero – he was an ex-soldier sorting out peacetime problems by bringing into play the attitudes and skills learned in war. In … Continue reading →