P.J. Fitzsimmons's Blog, page 5
November 29, 2021
November 30th…
In The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine, great shoals of red herrings distract Anty from the twisty truth, and even the launch date is a daring deflection — officially, it’s November 30th, but a Boisjoly insider will know that the real launch date is November 29th, when The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine can be pre-ordered […]
November 14, 2021
Catt Out of the Bag, Clifford Witting, 1939
The title of Catt Out of the Bag doesn’t start to make sense until the last, I think, twenty pages, and even then it comes as a drop in a torrent of revelations that might have been more intriguingly distributed throughout the book. I enjoyed Catt Out of the Bag for a lot of reasons […]
November 6, 2021
The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine
Anty Boisjoly is back to fill the gap that overlaps between Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse, and where Jerome K Jerome meets Dorothy L Sayers. It’s another mystifying, manor house mystery for Wodehousian bon-vivant and problem-solver Anty Boisjoly, when his clubmate asks him to determine who died first after a duel is fought in a […]
March 14, 2021
The Christmas Hit of Early Spring
Just in time for Easter, The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning is finally funny enough for publication. It’s available on pre-order now for only 99 (pence in the UK, cents in US, Canada and Australia) and readers of this blog are among the few who know that, after launch, it goes to $/£2.99. […]
February 7, 2021
Jeeves and the Leap of Faith, Ben Schott, 2020
With his first departure from the canon — Jeeves and the King of Clubs — Ben Schott began the transformation of Bertie Wooster from Wodehousian gadabout and loveable dope to wise-cracking playboy and international man of mystery. Now, with this next installment, Jeeves and the Leap of Faith, the process is complete and the result […]
December 25, 2020
Cocktail Time, Wodehouse, 1958
I can’t get enough of Uncle Fred and although I prefer him as or introducing an imposter into Blandings Castle, it’s refreshing to see his irrepressible wit thriving in this new terrain. The title of the book is taken from the title of the book that Fred maneuvers his old friend Sir Raymond Bastable into […]
December 20, 2020
The Case of the Christmas Cover
The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning, the second mystery in which Anty Boisjoly pits his withering wit against an impossible murder, will be fashionably late in early 2021. So we’re using the time to solicit your help in choosing the cover. To vote for your preference (or express your dislike for both covers) […]
December 17, 2020
Leave It To Psmith, Wodehouse, 1923
Leave It To Psmith is, to my mind, the book in which Blandings finds its voice. There’s yet no Empress, and she’s sorely missed, but the absent-minded Lord Emsworth substitutes flowers for his prize pig and Connie is present, as is the efficient Baxter, romance, imposters, a conundrum and, above all, someone like Galahad. In […]
December 12, 2020
Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Wodehouse, 1939
Uncle Fred in the Springtime is the fourth time that Wodehouse has sent imposters to Blandings (the first being Something Fresh, in 1915) and the third time he did so on behalf of thwarted romance. He would go on to spirit imposters into the castle on no fewer than ten occasions, eight times in aid […]
November 14, 2020
Jeeves and the King of Clubs, Ben Schott, 2018
Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott has been received with such fanfare that I find myself in the ironic position of struggling to find something new to say about something which struggled to find something new to say. There’s been a rush to observe that this daring departure from the beloved Jeeves […]
