P.J. Fitzsimmons's Blog, page 4

Reveal of the Riviera Royale

This headline is so wildly inaccurate that it amounts to a bait-and-switch. This isn’t a reveal of the cover of Reckoning at the Riviera Royale, which came out six months ago. It’s not even a reveal of the cover of the audio version of Reckoning at the Riviera Royale, unless a square version of the […]

Mystery Mystery Launch Solved!

Today is launch day for The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich, and the link is live at https://mybook.to/kilcladdich Anty Boisjoly travels to the timeless source waters of Glen Glennegie to help decide the fate of his favourite whisky, but an impossible locked room murder is only one of a multitude of mysteries that try […]

Mystery Mystery Launch

The precise release date of The Case of The Case of Kilcladdich, Anty Boisjoly’s sixth locked-room, laugh-out-loud stumper, is itself a mystery. At some point this weekend I’m clicking the ‘what ho’ button and waiting some unknowable period of time. I’ll probably go to the park with a book. So, there’s no hype-and-suspense-building pre-order period. […]

Anty Boisjoly Special Reserve

In Anty Boisjoly’s sixth mystery, he travels to the timeless source waters of Glen Glennegie to help decide the fate of his favourite tipple, a diplomatically delicate deed at the best of times, further complicated by not one but two impossible locked room murders. All Anty Boisjoly Mysteries are stand-alone stumpers, but there’s usually a […]

The Case of the Carnaby Castle Cover

The cover of The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse was, until recently, cursed. The original cover, it was observed, was better suited to a regional production of Macbeth in which Elsinore Castle is played by some broken glass. The short-lived replacement was judged to be more of a reaction to that than it was […]

Dateline… London

Certain books — say, for example, all of them — don’t adapt well to book trailers. This includes, with brass knobs on, Anty Boisjoly Mysteries. The conflicting concepts are the obvious problem but the greater obstacle to a compelling book trailer is probably budget, by which I mean production quality can only get so high […]

Modestly Marpley

Marple: Twelve New Stories has me reflecting on what it is that I’ve liked about other anthologies of this nature, most particularly Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration — they’re modest. That’s not to say Marple: Twelve New Stories is unambitious — it’s a collection of work by twelve accomplished authors offering their take […]

Anty’s back, and he’s brought his mum

Anty Boisjoly travels to the Riviera to finally have that awkward ‘did you murder my father’ conversation with his mother, but instead finds himself in the ticklish position of defending her and an innocent elephant against charges of a murder that no one could have committed. All Anty Boisjoly mysteries are stand-alone stumpers, but books […]

The Case of the Carnaby Castle Curse

Anty Boisjoly is back in a twisty tale of curses, crows, crypts, conspiracies, concealed corridors, and a generous overpour of locked room murder and bouyant Boisjoly banter. The ancient curse of Carnaby Castle has begun taking victims again — either that, or someone’s very cleverly done away with the new young bride of the philandering […]

Whose Body, Dorothy L Sayers, 1923

That which I like about Dorothy L Sayers is abundant in Whose Body and so I find myself wishing it were possible to know what it would have been like were it not the first Lord Peter Wimsey book and/or written ten years later, say about the time that she wrote Murder Must Advertise. Sayers’ […]