#booklook — Public Fediverse posts

#MurderEveryMonday Maps, Maps here, there and everywhere

When I saw today’s #MurderEveryMonday theme, created by the wonderful Kate Jackson from Cross Examining Crime, was crime fiction with a map on the cover or in the inside, my first thought went to this collection of short stories, Manhattan Mayhem, edited by Mary Higgins Clark and published in 2015 to celebrate the 70th of the Mystery Writers of America.

Not only the cover has a map of Manhattan, but each story starts with a street map: for this anthology, Mary Higgins Clark invited authors to choose a Manhattan neighbourhood and set a story there.

I read it many years ago, probably when it came out, and while I can’t remember all the stories (I still have a recollection of some of them), I really liked it. Maybe it’s time to re-read it. It’s also a beautiful edition with the slip cover and all the iconic photos inside.

And if you like classic or golden age crime fiction, there is no shortage of maps, so (yes, you’re right) I turned to Agatha Christie. First, with the map on the facsimile edition of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and then with the same map in a Portuguese edition.

Then I remembered there was a map of the plane in Death in the Clouds:

This is an edition from a Portuguese collection called The Golden Scarab and the previous owner inscribed it with the year 1952. The book also indicates it was translated from the original – sometimes Portuguese translations would be made from other translations – and the final pages have ads about flying insurance and an airway company.

It’s Weekend, Let’s Read: Who is the author with more works in the Guardian’s list of 100 greatest novels of all time?

The Guardian made a list of the 100 greatest novels of all time. You can see the list here, with links to how Guardian’s made it. First place of the list is George Eliot with Middlemarch, but I thought to check which authors had more works in this list. And it’s Virginia Woolf with five books!

Second place in the number of the novels in the list are Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, both with four books.

Best part? There all in public domain, so you want to start with any of these four authors, right here, right now, head to Project Gutenberg and let’s read!

Books by George Eliot – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/90

Books by Virginia Woolf – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/89

Books by Jane Austen – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/68

Books by Charles Dickens – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/37

#MurderEveryMonday Crime fiction title with an evaluative adjective

When Kate reminded us of this week’s #MurderEveryMonday theme, my first thought was for H. R. F. Keating because I had noticed a pattern in some of his books:

• The Bad Detective
• The Good Detective
• The Soft Detective
• The Rich Detective

These are standalone’s and I never read anything by Keating, but I’m curious about his writing. He was president of the Detection Club between 1985 and 2000. I do have two related books in my immediate TBR: Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime, essays edited by him, and The Verdict of Us All – edited by Peter Lovesey, a collection of short stories by The Detection Club’s members in honour of Keating’s 80th birthday, which include before each work a memory or contact these writers had of H.R.F. Keating.