Just a quick explanation – this is my 100th post on my blog. It’s been running now for about 10 months and seems to be doing a wonderful job of curing my reader’s block. One of the recent discoveries of mine is the huge back catalogue of Dr Paul Doherty aka PC Doherty aka Paul Harding aka Michael Clynes aka some other names as well, so in order to have a minor 100th post celebration, I’m declaring this week on my blog “Paul Doherty Week”!
Admittedly this is partly due to the huge pile of unread books of his that I seem to have recently acquired, but also because I do consider him my primary discovery from my blog so far. A thank you to Sergio, by the way, for pointing me in the right direction with the recommendation of The House of the Red Slayer, a review of which will be appearing in two days time.
So for the next week, you will hopefully be getting one review per day of Dr Doherty’s work – starting with Crown in Darkness, the second Hugh Corbett book, and then alternating in and out of the series, visiting Ancient Rome, Brother Athelstan and Roger Shallot along the way. There will also be a special review of An Ancient Evil, one of the Canterbury Tales, but that won’t be appearing here, exactly…
Hope you enjoy the reviews – if you do, go out and harangue your bookshop until they stock Dr Doherty’s books. It does work!!! And I promise, I’ll take a bit of a break when the week is out… possibly.
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 
Congratulations on your centenary mate – telegram from the Queen in the post hopefully! Your organised pages on Queen, Carr and especially the Doherty books is really terrific. As the good Doctor would have said in his tenth incarnation (and not entirely felicitously from a syntactical standpoint, ‘Molto Bene’).
Well done.
Sergio
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Well, as long as it’s not “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry” – worst catchphrase ever. Although appropriate for anyone waiting for the next Queen or Carr review…
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Congrats on your 100th post and beating me to The Red Slayer! 😉 Yesterday, I received a package stuffed with locked room mysteries, among them Doherty’s The Slayers of Seth and The Red Slayer. But I guess I have to bump the latter a few spots down on my TBR list, and try to get a buzz started for the impossible crime novels of Herbert Resnicow. I’ve said this before and I will say it again: the life of a mystery enthusiasts is littered with trials, tribulations and luxurary problems. Oh woe is us!
Anyway, here’s to the next 100 posts!
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Many thanks for the congrats.
BTW, (The House of) The Red Slayer isn’t really a locked room mystery – the only impossibility in it is the miraculously ringing of a bell despite it being surrounded by unbroken snow. Not wishing to spoil the end of my review, but it really is first rate – definitely among the best so far. Don’t let me delay you in reading it.
I’m keeping off the Egyptian ones for a little while so you’ve got time for Slayers of Seth.
Never heard of Resnicow – looking forward to reading about him.
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From the Egyptians, I also have The Assassins of Isis and The Spies of Sobeck, and with special review of The Mask of Ra coming up, making it an almost complete set of reviews of that particular series.
I thought the main problem from The Red Slayer was the murder of the Constable of the Tower of London inside a sealed and watched chamber, but the problem you described sounds intriguing as well. Like the playing harp in the locked music room from Paul Gallico’s Too Many Ghosts.
There are already several reviews of Herbert Resnicow up on my blog. The best, up till now, are The Gold Curse and The Dead Room.
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Um… How to explain The Red Slayer without blowing it… there’s an open window in the tower, a frozen moat below and handholds cut into the brickwork. That’s not a spoiler at all, it’s all found very early in the book. The room is in no way a locked room. But I can see why some people refer to it as such… To say any more would give the game away.
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[…] Post 100 – September 2011 – “An Announcement of Paul Doherty Week” […]
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