On the day or recording, which Mervyn had no plans to attend, he receives a note:

“Dear Mervyn. If you want to prevent a murder, then you must attend the recording at the Sounderama studios on Thursday. Signed: a friend.”

Oh, I forgot to mention that Mervyn has solved a few murders in his time – so he races to the studio… and I’ll have to stop the synopsis there.

OK, first of all, this isn’t a book, it’s an audio-play, featuring a full-cast of characters played by two actors, John Banks and Nicola Bryant. Let’s get those plaudits out of the way first. I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t known in advance that it was only two actors, I probably wouldn’t have spotted it. Both leads demonstrate a fantastic range – although the highlight has to be Nicola as Vanity Mycroft, the former lead actress from Vixens From The Void, who presumably got the television part for reasons other than her acting talent. Which doesn’t really help her when recording an audio play…

Oh, there is a third actor, someone who’s appeared on a lot of Big Finish CDs before, but I’ll say no more about that for reasons that will be obviously when you listen to the play.

And you simply must listen to the play.

Right, let’s be fair. Anyone who’s read my previous reviews of Nev Fountain’s work, including the blatant plug for this play, will know that I absolutely love not only his Mervyn Stone canon – three books, one twitter novel and a series of podcasts – but his Doctor Who audios as well – Omega, The Kingmaker and Peri and the Piscon Paradox. You may think that I’ll praise to the hilt anything written by him. So, in the interests of balance, I didn’t love his recent Doctor Who book, Trouble In Paradise. Oh, it was good, and the Columbus character made me laugh a lot, but it wasn’t anything outstanding. Merely good with some very good bits.

OK, that’s the balance corrected.

The Axeman Cometh is the best murder mystery that I have seen, read or heard for absolutely ages. When presented with the opportunity to record an audio play, Nev has constructed an astonishing story that makes complete use of the format – indeed the format itself is part of the plot. I really cannot go into any of the reasons that I love the plot without spoiling it, and I would hate to do that. But there is an idea here, brilliantly executed, that ranks with those “special” novels, the one-off never-to-be-repeated ideas such as The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd or And Then There Were None. I honestly do not think that’s overstating the cleverness (and simplicity) of this play.

Seriously, if you’re a fan or murder mysteries (and if not, what on earth are you reading my blog for?) or cheesy old science fiction, you simply must get this CD. It’s available from Big Finish Productions and rest assured, you will not regret it. Not just Highly Recommended, this is a masterpiece of crime drama. Spread the word!

It’s been a while since I mentioned Nev Fountain’s name on the blog, so it’s well past time to correct matters. I was going to wait until The Axeman Cometh was released (see below) but a couple of things have cropped up to inspire me to bring this post version. One of which is completely free to you, dear reader, and one which is almost as good!

First of all, let me remind you. Nev is the author of the three Mervyn Stone mysteries, Geek Tragedy, DVD Extras Include: Murder! and Cursed Among Sequels, all of which detail the sleuthing exploits of Mervyn Stone, ex-script editor of the long-defunct sci-fi soap opera Vixens From The Void. Basically, the tone is very similar to that of Simon Brett (an inspiration for Fountain) but with much tighter plotting. It should be said that I absolutely love these books to pieces and they were in no small part one of the inspirations for me starting the blog that you are reading. Do click on the links above to check out my early (and probably rather rough) reviews of the books, but to summarise, these are three very clever, play-along-but-you-probably-won’t-work-it-out, fair-play mysteries.

So, on with the news!

Good News Part One: Free Book!

Well, sort of. Over at Nev’s blog, he’s reproducing The Pen Is Mightier Than The Nerd, the novel he wrote using Twitter featuring Mervyn on an episodic basis. It was a fascinating experiment, giving a first person story in 140 character utterances. Parts one and two are up at the moment and it’s well worth a read. I did review it here, but I did, without thinking, spoiler one of the best bits, hence the blank section in the middle of the review. So pop over and check that out.

Good News Part Two: Cheap Books!

Over at Big Finish, the publishers of Nev’s books (and much else besides), there’s a sale on until the weekend where you can get a softback, hardback or ebook of each of the titles for only £2.99 each. And if you buy a papery one, you get a free ebook too. I think. You usually do…

Good News Part Three: Cheap Audiobook!

And if that hasn’t whet your appetite, coming later this month for a paltry £5 is The Axeman Cometh, the first Mervyn Stone audio play starring John Banks and Nicola Bryant. There will be a review coming very soon.

Sorry if you thought that was a bit of a plug – I’m not on commission or anything – but anything I can do to spread the word about this great series, then I’ll do it. Then Nev just might turn to writing some more…

UPDATE: One day after doing this post, and The Axeman Cometh is now available. The price has changed from the pre-order price, but the download is still a snip at £6.99. And there’s another free adventure by downloading the seven part “Whatever Happened To Babel-J” audio story via a series of podcasts from here – you have to scroll down a little bit. Enjoy!

The horror that is reality televison has produced a search for a Shakespearean starlet to play Ophelia in a touring production of Hamlet and Charles has managed to snag the roles of the Ghost and First Gravedigger. Not due to his talent, such as it is, but due to the fact that since Hamlet is also being played by a reality star – this one not even an actor – the rest of the cast has been hired due to the fact that they are known to be biddable and will not cause a fuss.

But someone is causing a fuss. An “accident” causes the show to lose one cast member and soon another lies dead. Charles inevitably sticks his nose in – but with virtually everyone having a motive, from the cast to the production crew, will he ever get to the bottom of the case – or will he stick to exploring the bottom of whisky bottles?

Something odd has happened here. Tell you what, pop over to read my review of Cast, In Order Of Disappearance, and you’ll see that my biggest problem with the book was Charles himself. I didn’t particularly like the character and that was inevitably colouring my view of the book. I do li, ke Brett’s writing – the mystery is never too taxing, but he writes with a good sense of humour, but I found Charles an unlikeable lead.

That seems to have changed here.  Charles is the same character – an alcoholic, somewhat deluded about his own talents as an actor, and hardly the world’s greatest sleuth either. But in this book, I was totally engrossed in his adventures. It may well be that I share his (and presumably Brett’s) opinions of reality television, but I found myself really empathising with the character, in particular with his doomed battle with the bottle. I found myself willing Charles to sort himself out… it’s been a while since I’ve read a book with a lead that felt so real.

The mystery? Well, that was pretty well done as well. I completely missed something obvious and while the plot isn’t complicated or revolutionary, it pulled the wool over my eyes and I wanted to kick myself when the villain is revealed. So, from my point of view, exactly what I want to happen with a mystery.

So, all in all, a great read, a real page-turner and, while not a comic mystery, it is genuinely funny in places. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Highly Recommended.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?

Ah, there’s the rub. Go and pester your library as the publishers, Severn House, tend to produce high priced books for that market. It’s out on 1^st July but currently is on Amazon for a not-small price. But I’m sure your library will be more than happy to get the latest from Simon Brett. It can’t hurt to ask.

And if you can’t get hold of it, then take solace in the fact that ALL of Simon Brett’s Charles Paris mysteries are available for Kindle at approximately £3.50 a pop. And on the strength of this one, I’ll be checking out some of Charles’ older adventures soon.

Her point of contact at the University is Dr Evi Oliver – a psychology lecturer who is the one who spotted the beginnings of a pattern in the deaths. But Evi herself is being terrorised, haunted by images that only she knows about – or is it all in her head? Lacey starts to go beyond her brief as she starts to put things together – but then she starts having the nightmares…

I really enjoyed the first in this series when I read it – somewhat to my surprise. So, is it two out of two?

As with the first book in the series – now up to three books and a short ebook – this is more of a thriller than a mystery. Part narrated in the first person by Lacey, otherwise in the third person, this book contains a number of twists and turns in the plot before things reach their conclusion. However there is a strong whodunnit element to this one – not much of a spoiler that there is a hand behind the suicides – and there is a decent amount of logic behind the identity of the culprit. While it certainly isn’t a classic-style mystery (and doesn’t try to be), if you put your mind to it, you might be able to spot the villain.

What might hinder you, though, is some deeply bizarre behaviour at times from the villain. The overall scheme makes sense but some of the individual steps are extremely odd – certainly one or two aspects are the evil master-plan equivalent of urinating in your own swimming pool, and the bright police officer, or thriller reader, probably should spot it a lot quicker than actually happened. There are a couple of gaps in college life logic too – one major incident that happens to Lacey early in the book simply wouldn’t happen in a Cambridge college these days, and if it did, the college authorities would be all over it, rather than seemingly happily allowing it to happen.

But these are niggles, nothing more. This is a genuine page-turner and I honestly couldn’t put it down at times. It took me a little while to get used to the repeated switches between first and third person – often in the middle of a chapter – but once I did, I couldn’t put the book down. Oh, and major points for S J Bolton NOT spoiling the first book. I was rather impressed that she managed this, given the major events at the end of that one, but it was very well addressed.

Anyway, with the proviso that it’s more of a thriller than a mystery, Highly Recommended.

Luckily, Gert O’Connell happens to have two friends with her at the party, Judith and Henry Geeth. The last time they got together, they solved a perplexing murder. Can they rise to the occasion and find the truth at Castle Bronmore?

I was sent this a little while ago by the author, Steven Donkin. This is the second book in the series featuring Gert, Judith and Henry and Steven has gone the brave route and turned to self-publishing for this mystery series. So, was it worth the effort?

It’s a strange beast, this one. On the one hand, there’s a distinct attempt to emulate the classic style of mystery. You know, those ones with clues and everything. I’d say that Christie would seem to be the primary inspiration, but the talking skeleton seems more like something out of Rawson or even The Three Investigators! But on top of the talking skeleton, there’s a serious attempt to address the politics of the location at the time – part of which plays an important part to the story – and I’ve certainly never encountered this level of discussion, for want of a better word, in the classics.

But you’re here to read about the mystery – and there are some really clever aspects to the plot. There’s an aspect to the murder that I haven’t seen before and a clever trick involving a key that’s not easy to spot. Unfortunately, on the other hand, the book is relatively short, and by the time you’ve had a bit of a think about the mechanics of the crime, the solution has been revealed. A longer book may not be conducive to self-publishing, but there with a longer page count, we could have got to know some of the characters a little better – in particular the Geeths themselves could have done with a little more fleshing out. More time to develop the motive might have been useful as well, as it does seem a little extreme…

And while the mystery has clever parts, the murderer was pretty obvious to me. It might well not be to you – you know as well as I do that no everyone spots the same things. The author does try a variation of a common Agatha Christie trick – and in fairness, does it better than Agatha often did.

So, while there are some flaws, the successes outweigh them, and the book is certainly worth a look. It’s available from Amazon, so why not take a look? There’s a cheap Kindle edition too.

a) spots the silhouette of a plague doctor – complete with a beaked mask – not worn for centuries;

b) bumps into Dr Marcus, Doctor of Crime – wearing old-fashioned clothes – who promptly makes a plague-ridden corpse appear inside a dustbin that was empty seconds before;

c) comes across the boarding house where the victim stayed, only to discover that Dr Marcus and the plague doctors came to collect the victim – only for the victim to vanish into thin air in the middle of a corridor.

And that’s basically just the prologue…

This is the fifth of Paul Halter’s many mysteries to be translated by John Pugmire. I suppose I need to mention the oft-stated “heir to John Dickson Carr” quote about Halter but this is something quite different from Carr’s work. It seems to me that Halter is more willing to experiment with the locked room genre than Carr was. True, Carr did some genre-bending work – The Burning Court is the obvious example, but there others, such as The Black Spectacles aka The Problem Of The Green Capsule that are rarely, if ever, imitated, but of the five translated books to date from Halter, only The Demon of Dartmoor and The Lord of Misrule are what could be called “typical” locked room mysteries. The others have all had something rather special about them.

This book features Dr Alan Twist, Halter’s most frequently occurring sleuth and is a rollercoaster of a read. Once the introductory sequence is out of the way, we are introduced to a duel between a writer and an actor – the notion of the duel is, apparently, to successfully frame the other for murder. But are things as “simple” as that? How are these two characters related to

Basically, think an over-the-top version of Sleuth, with an impossible disappearance and appearance thrown in for good measure. If I was being picky, I think it’s a bit lacking as a fair-play mystery, feeling at times a little like an intellectual game of tennis, but that to criticise it for that would be missing the point of the book. As I said, Halter is trying something a little different within the genre and it works a treat.

And I should mention again the translating skills of John Pugmire. When you can’t tell that a book has been translated, then the translator has done their job perfectly, as is the case here.

So, this makes the ideal review for my 400th post – a modern day novel emulating the classic mystery novel with a new spin. Exactly what I was looking for when I started this blog. So, obviously, this is Highly Recommended.

As Devlin and his team investigate, all the while dealing with the rising tensions caused by the victim’s family, a second body is discovered – with the same photograph left near the body. Is it possible that the truth behind Angela’s murder lies not in the present but in the long-buried past? Devlin finds himself in a race against time to find the killer – and to find the next victims before the killer can strike again.

Yes, it’s true. A novel by someone who is not Paul Doherty being reviewed on this blog! See, it does happen on occasion!

Seriously, I’m taking a brief hiatus from the tried and tested authors and am going to spend the next month looking at new and neglected authors. Neglected? That means the authors who I’ve enjoyed in the past but have spent too long getting around to their next books, such as Paul Halter, Kate Ellis and Christopher Fowler. New? Well, here’s one for a start – Brian McGilloway.

OK, stay away from the blurb on this one – or at least the Amazon product description as it gives away a couple of the important early plot twists. Luckily, I hadn’t read them as I found it hidden in one of the long-unvisited corners of my Kindle. Seriously, there is a lot of stuff hidden away on there that I picked up at various times for a pittance or less, and it’s about time that I started reading them – hence this book.

It’s a very engaging read. Surprisingly, the border situation isn’t played out as you might expect – the usual trope here is for the two police forces to be constantly butting heads, but instead you get the sensible approach and both forces co-operate to find the killer. The borderland setting is used effectively to support the story but isn’t used to drive the narrative, exactly as it should be.

And the story is an absorbing one. It’s full of well constructed characters – some pleasant, some less-than pleasant, all of them behaving in ways consistent with their characterisation. The mystery plot makes a lot of sense, too. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s a traditionally clued mystery, but the twists and turns in the core plot are reminiscent of a classic mystery.

Devlin is a well-rounded character and an interesting lead. Although he does make a rather disappointing personal choice at one point, he is less flawed than some leads that I could think of, and I’m looking forward to reading more of him in the future. This is the first of (currently) five Devlin novels and I’ll certainly be returning to them in future.

This is despite it containing one of my bugbears – going to have to be vague about this. A character that plays a significant role in the denouement vanishes after their relatively brief appearance in the first half of the story, only to reappear only in the denouement. I had to look back in the book to remind myself who they were – this isn’t the best way of pulling a surprise.

But as I said, despite this, this is a great read. A police procedural with real hints of classic mystery with a fascinating setting, this is an extremely strong debut novel. Highly Recommended.

May has been a funny old month for a variety of reasons, and out of nine books read, one author has a bit of an unfair advantage as he wrote over half of them. Regular readers can guess who it is. But will he walk away with the Puzzly for May 2013?

As I said, nine books in total. They were:

• Smoke In The Wind by Peter Tremayne
• Ten Little Ni… um, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• The Waxman Murders by Paul Doherty
• The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards
• The Godless Man by Paul Doherty
• Cop Hater by Ed McBain
• A Time For The Death Of A King by Ann Dukthas aka Paul Doherty
• The Whyte Harte by Paul Doherty
• The Last of Days by Paul Doherty

There was also a couple of Sherlockian Shorts as well this month but a few things slowed me down this month – an irritating medical thing – too embarrassing to be called an illness but annoying nonetheless, and a prolonged (and failed) attempt to get through a book that was a long way out of my comfort zone – chick-lit noir, for want of a better thing. This was why I resorted to the tried and tested Doherty – including one of my two unread Hugh Corbett books! And then with Paul’s 100th book coinciding with my 300th review, it seemed an idea to do a little run-in to the 300th with a couple of his books that also investigated historical mysteries. I’m not one to normally make excuses, the blog “policy”, for want of a better word, has always been to read what I feel like reading, but even I can see that it’s been a bit unbalanced this month. So I’ll be looking at new authors for most of next month – let’s just hope that there’s not a mass release of a bunch of obscure Paul Doherty books as ebooks next month. Oh, whoops…

So, excuses over, on to the Puzzly. We can eliminate a few. I’m always wary of giving it to a classic (i.e. dead) author, and I can’t imagine that my review of And Then There Were None was fair, due to the fact that I knew something about the plot before going in. Hannah Scarlett’s weird choice of men to start fancying rules of The Hanging Wood (sorry Martin!) and Cop Hater is out for two reasons – stupid title and crass characterisation of every female character. So, can Peter Tremayne’s excellent Smoke In The Wind stand up to a five-book assault from Paul Doherty?

Actually – yes. The Doherty books were all excellent, especially The Waxman Murders – but the murderer was a bit too guessable – and The Whyte Harte and The Last Of Days – but they’re more historical conspiracies than classic mysteries. So, against the odds, the Puzzly for May 2013 goes for the second time in three months to Peter Tremayne for the excellent Smoke In The Wind.

As ever, this post is part of the Mysteries In Paradise Book Of The Month meme. Pop over and find out what my fellow bloggers enjoyed.

Will Somers has been court jester and confidant of the King for over twenty years, and is tasked by Henry to chronicle these final days. But there are people who see Somers as an obstacle to be removed – and Somers finds himself powerless to stop events spinning out of control.

Paul Doherty’s first book – The Death Of A King – proposed a possible alternative to the generally accepted story concerning the death of King Edward II. By drawing together a number of oddities concerning the events, he presented a plausible alternative. There’s a certain symmetry in Paul’s 100th book taking a similar line with another monarch. There are probably less questions concerning Henry’s end, but there are some odd issues – for example, why did Henry’s massive corpse explode within its coffin, despite having been previously embalmed?

It’s been a bit of a Paul Doherty month on my blog, as you may have noticed. Five out of the nine reviews this month (including this one) have been his books, in part due to the need for a reliable read during some enforced bed-rest at the start of the month and in part due to me realising that this book, Paul’s 100^th novel, almost perfectly coincided with my 300^th review – so it seemed apt, in a mini-celebration, to review a couple of more obscure titles from his back catalogue. Well, The Whyte Harte and A Time For The Death Of A King will still be obscure until early June 2013 when virtually all of Paul’s back catalogue arrives on ebook.

Those two books were quite apt choices, as they took two historical mysteries – or at least historical events that have raised a few questions over time – and weaved a narrative around the events. This is a style that the author has returned to with The Last Of Days.

I think it’s safe to say that King Henry VIII is not someone who you would care to meet, even in his prime. A ruthless man at the best of times, he was accustomed to being an absolute ruler. But as he aged, and his health worsened, he became truly terrifying.

The narrative is littered with tales (all of them undoubtedly true) from throughout Henry’s reign, all of them demonstrating his ruthlessness, whether it concerns his dealings with his wives, his enemies or his (former) favourites. There are other chilling demonstrations of Henry’s opinion that he could do no wrong – did you know, for example, that  during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, he destroyed the bones of Thomas a Becket by shooting them out of a cannon. Because he could. Nice man. No wonder people plotted against him.

The first half of the book sets the scene, introducing, through the eyes of Somers, the principle players, the Council surrounding Henry and their machinations. As the story progresses, everyone’s loyalty comes into question as both Henry and his “loyal” servants make their moves.

I’m wary of saying too much as the structure of the book is one of its strengths, so I’ll leave the summary there. What I would say is that anyone coming to this book expecting an Athelstan-eque romp around Bluff King Hal should probably look elsewhere – the Roger Shallot books, for a start. This is definitely not a traditional murder mystery in any way, shape or form, but it’s all the better for it. In fact, it’s closer in structure to a spy thriller – rather than questioning who is the guilty party, it’s much more of a question of what each member of the cast is guilty of – and virtually everyone is guilty of something.

As ever, Paul Doherty paints a vivid picture of a time long gone, and the characters leap off the page – which is very important as most of the book consists of people talking. As the book goes on, you get to know the individuals, such as the rather terrifying Chancellor Wriothesley, someone that I’d never heard of, but am now rather fascinated by.

There’s also a fascinating epilogue, set several years after the rest of the narrative, where we discover what happened to the various members of Henry’s council after his death, and much of that will come as no surprise.

All in all, the book is much more history than mystery – so probably the worst choice I could have made for my 300^th review – but Paul was nice enough to send me a limited edition proof of the book, so I’ll turn a blind eye to that. It’s a riveting read and anyone who is interested in King Henry VIII should pick it up – and if you’re not, read it anyway and you will be by the end. Most works about Henry detail his life, so it is refreshing to read about the end of his days.

One quibble – now I want to know what happens next – as Somers survives until 1560 (he, alongside almost everyone else in the book, were real people), I’d love to see a similar book detailing the fate of Queen Mary*. Or I could do what Paul’s work has inspired me to do in the past, whether it be for Edward I, Edward II or Richard II, and go and read about it myself. Paul Doherty’s work has sparked a genuine interest in history, in particular the medieval world, and that in itself is the highest praise that I can give him. Highly Recommended and roll on the next 100 books!

* Just realised that there is one – the fourth Nicholas Segalla book, In The Time Of The Poisoned Queen.

What’s It About?

Lestrade interests Holmes with a tale of a man who seems to be breaking into peoples’ houses to smash plaster busts of Napoleon Bonaparte. Holmes senses there is more to it than a lunatic with a grudge against Bonaparte, and investigates. Before long, another bust is found smashed only this time with a dead body next to it.

Is It A Mystery?

Not in the whodunnit sense, but there is the mystery of why someone is breaking the busts. Although only the basic reasons are guessable – and I imagine you’ve already guessed why – as the majority of the detail is plucked from thin air at the end of the story.

Is It Any Good?

Perfectly fine, but nothing special. An almost perfectly average Holmes story – the sort of thing I expected to find more of when I started these Sherlockian Shorts.

Anything Else?

It’s an idea that I’m sure has been repeated elsewhere – although I can’t put my finger on an example at the moment – but, without spoiling anything, can anyone think of a similar tale where it’s not the last one?

Oh, and according to Wikipedia (so take it with a  pinch of salt) this is the last appearance of Lestrade (although he gets a couple of later mentions). Anyone want to confirm/deny that for me?