Holmes of The Opera

The Great Hiatus of Holmes’ life has always been a source of endless speculation, and inspiration to authors. “The Canary Trainer ” by Nicholas Meyer (published as ‘a lost manuscript by John H. Watson, M.D.’) is third in the series of his books explaining the absence of Holmes from his homeland.

Read Full Post »

A Deadly Game of Chess

 
Given my experiences with the writings of Spanish authors, especially Arturo Perez-Reverte, and their style, I was a bit reluctant to lay my hands of “The Flanders Panel ” (La tabla de Flandes). But then, I find chess-involved storyline hard to resist, and surprisingly, the book didn’t really step down into the pits of [...]

Read Full Post »

A Case of Catatonic Cobras

If asked which one person we would have liked to see again, true Holmesians would vote for Irene Norton née Adler with a huge majority, if not by an unanimous vote. A Soul of Steel by Carole Nelson Douglas is a novel from her Irene Adler series which tries to fulfill that fantasy.

Read Full Post »

It’s not what you think it is

We all know Isaac Asimov as the father of Three (sorry, Four) Laws of Robotics and the creator of the two Foundations, but he also created one of the most memorable groups of amateur detectives, The Black Widowers.

Read Full Post »

A Book to Bind Them All…

It is a rare Spanish author who does not get me down with the heavy tragic tones of his novel. And it is a rarer one still who does not make me want to finish the novel in one sitting, despite the fact that I am going to feel sad while reading it. “The Shadow [...]

Read Full Post »

A Week at The Museum

Museums, with their ancient and often half-known artifacts are always a place of mystery for everybody. Add a basement and a sub-basement storing millions of uncatalogued artifacts, and you have got yourself a thriller.
The first book in the Pendargast series, “The Relic” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child takes full advantage of the setting.

Read Full Post »

The Lady of Shallot

The Mirror Crack’d is a classical representative of the stories where Miss Marple solves the cases (sometimes literally) from her armchair, just based on psychology of characters involved.

Read Full Post »

A Bibliophile’s Fantasy

Have you ever felt like you are living in a book? Did you ever think that the feeling of deja vu you got was the result of the book you just read?Mysterious women… Devil worshippers… The lure of the greatest swashbuckling novel ever… Forget all that, a book about the world of booklovers and collectors [...]

Read Full Post »

Intrepid Lady Sleuth

No series on detectives will be complete without a review of lady detectives. Or at least, I thought so…
But, when I started searching for lady detectives in Indian fiction, I found a veritable dearth of them. Despite real life examples like Kiran Bedi and reel-life examples like “Udaan” (my recollections of which are very hazy, [...]

Read Full Post »

Comical Detectives in India

(and I don’t mean comical as in funny)
Try as I may, I cannot find any detectives in Indian comics. I mean, some (all?) of the Feluda stories was made into comics, and Fa Fe found his way into animated format via Tinkle, while we have a plethora of crime-fighters. But there are no detectives solely [...]

Read Full Post »