Margery Allingham
Two Christmas Mystery Short Story Anthologies
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 21 — Good Luck Charms and Traditions: Read a book from the fantasy genre, or one with something on the cover that refers to “luck”. Festive Tasks, Door 24 — Cherished Memories: Read a book with a split timeline, one that takes place in the present […]
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2020 in Facts and Figures
I already posted my main 2020 in Review and Looking Ahead to 2021 posts a while ago — only on my new blog (separate post to come) –, but I held back on my 2020 reading statistics until the year was well and truly over. And for all my good intentions when posting my mid-year […]
Read MoreThe Halloween Creatures Book Tag
Rules: Answer all prompts. Answer honestly. Tag 1-13 people. Link back to this post. ( For me it was SnoopyDoo!) Remember to credit the creator. (Anthony @ Keep Reading Forward)< Have fun! Witch A Magical Character or Book Terry Pratchett’s witches, particularly Granny Weatherwax. And DEATH (preferably in his Hogfather incarnation). No contest. […]
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Margery Allingham: More Work for the Undertaker
The thirteenth book in the Campion series; one of the few I hadn’t read yet and thus, a proximate choice for the “13” bingo square. In tone, I find that the post-WWII stories are markedly darker than the series’s very first entries, which by and large is all to the good, however; even if they […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: The First Week (+1 Day)
This year’s Halloween Bingo started a lot more promising than last year’s with a strong joint entry in Michael Connelly’s Bosch and Ballard series, and in fact, not one of the books I read earned less than a four-star rating — with the standout being Nicholas Blake’s The Beast Must Die, which turned out to […]
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BL-opoly, Pandemic Edition – Third Roll
Well, at least I didn’t DNF my last 2 reads (but then, at least with the Christie I didn’t expect that to happen anyway). Still, since I collared another double, let’s play it safe (again) in this round … Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/2626318/bl-opoly-pandemic-edition-third-roll
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Snakes and Ladders, 2020 Edition – TA’s Master Tracking Post: DONE!
Tracking courtesy of Charlie and Sunny, as always, of course! SPACES AND DICE ROLLS 1. Author is a woman — Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim’s Rest (finished April 1, 2020) 2. Genre: mystery 3. Set in the twentieth century 4. Published in 2019 5. Published in 2018 6. Title has a color word in it 7. Author’s last […]
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February and Mid-March 2020 Reading Update
I never got around to doing this at the end of February, so what the heck … I might as well include the first two weeks of March, since that month is half over at this point already, too. But then, February was such a universal suck-fest in RL that I didn’t even make it […]
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Margery Allingham: Death of a Ghost
Unlike my reading experience with Allingham’s fellow Golden Age Queens of Crime Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, that with Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion series is a rather checkered one, where instances of true mystery reader’s delight repeatedly follow hot on the heels of groan-inducing forays into clichéd, implausible plots populated by cardboard […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: Tracking Post — Blackout! (And bingos Nos. 12 and 13.)
Many thanks to Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue for hosting this game for the fourth year in a row, bigger and better than ever before! Witih today’s call, I’ve blacked out my card, in addition to collecting my final bingos (nos. 12 and 13). Somewhat to my surprise, after completing my books for my […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: Tracking Post — Bingo No. 3 and Reading Blackout
* Triple Bingo Happy Dance * Well, that went by much faster than I had anticipated … Many thanks to Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue for hosting this game for the fourth year in a row, bigger and better than ever before! I’ll continue tracking my bingos of course — and since we now have […]
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Margery Allingham: The White Cottage Mystery
Allingham’s first mystery, and it clearly shows off her talent as a writer from the start. As in the first Albert Campion book (The Crime at Black Dudley) and several of the subsequent Campion mysteries, there’s an international “detour” — here: literally so — that is not in any way, shape and form necessary to […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: The Third Week
Well, the third week really hit my bingo experience out of the ballpark this year — and not only Pbecause it finished with my first completed bingo; that was actually just the icing on the cake. But it included no less than three absolutely knock-out fabulous books, plus a fourth that was almost as good […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/09 (Day 9): Book Suggestions for the New Squares? Part 1: “Paint It Black”
Today’s prompt is for favorite horror reads; that not being much of my thing (outside, perhaps, the gothic classics and anything more edifying or funny rather than scary), I think I’m going to leave that prompt to Char, Bark’s Books (aka Bark at the Ghouls), and the site’s other horror fans. Instead, I’m going to […]
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Detection Club Bingo: My Progress So Far
Whee — only two squres to go for blackout! The Squares / Chapters: 1. A New Era Dawns: Ernest Bramah – The Tales of Max Carrados; Emmuska Orczy – The Old Man in the Corner 2. The Birth of the Golden Age: A.A. Milne – The Red House Mystery 3. The Great Detectives: Margery […]
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My Personal Literary Canon, Part 2: “Veteran” Readership
24 Festive Tasks, Door 5, Task 3: Tell us: What author’s books would you consider yourself a veteran of (i.e., by author have you read particularly many books – or maybe even all of them)? The authors by whom I’ve read the most books don’t coincide exactly, but substantially with those that I’d also consider […]
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My Comfort Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 8 – Penance Day, Task 1: “Confess” your book habits. Dog-earring? Laying books face down? Bending back the spines? Skimming? OR: Confess your guilty reading pleasure, or comfort reads. It’s probably no secret that my comfort reads are Golden Age mysteries — I’m slowly making my way through the works […]
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Women Writers Bingo / Project: Tracking Post
Read: A – Margery Allingham: The Crime at Black Dudley, Mystery Mile, Look to the Lady, Police at the Funeral, Sweet Danger, Death of a Ghost, Flowers for the Judge, The Case of the Late Pig, Dancers in Mourning, The Fashion in Shrouds, Traitor’s Purse, and The Tiger in the Smoke (all new) B […]
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Mr. Campion of 17A Bottle Street, Piccadilly, London
I started the new year with a minor Allingham binge and, having now read a fair number of her Campion mysteries (12, i.e. 2/3 of the 18 novels that she herself completed), I think I can safely say that while I won’t ever like this series as much as I do those of Christie, Sayers, […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Final Tally
The Markers: Stack of Books: Books read Red Bows and Ribbons: Other Tasks completed Joker cards used: The Squares, Books and Other Tasks: Square 1: November 1st: All Saints Day / Día de los Muertos & Calan Gaeaf Book themes for Día de Muertos and All Saint’s Day: A book that […]
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