Jessica-sim’s Comments (group member since Jan 01, 2016)

Jessica-sim’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

I’d like to nominate Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston

Originally Published 1936

When Bobbie Cheldon falls in love with a pretty young dancer at the Frozen Fang night club in Soho, he has every hope of an idyllic marriage. But Nancy has more worldly ideas about her future: she is attracted not so much to Bobbie as to the fortune he expects to inherit.

Bobbie’s miserly uncle Massy stands between him and happiness: he will not relinquish the ten thousand a year on which Nancy’s hopes rest. When Bobbie falls under the sway of the roguish Nosey Ruslin, the stage is set for murder in the heart of Piccadilly—and for Nancy’s dreams to be realised.

When Chief Inspector Wake of Scotland Yard enters the scene, he uncovers a tangled web of love affairs, a cynical Soho underworld, and a motive for murder.

Yay! Reading an AC favourite. Best way to start the new year off!

all right Im starting off on my journey! But not in the order the books are presented in in this collection, that would be so boring haha

so my number 1 is: Calamity Town by Ellery Queen

Why it is included in this selection? Apparently this was the first of a series of books set in Wrightsville and it has a quicker pace compared to the books earlier in the series. The puzzle is no longer the sole focus but there is more storytelling.... let's see!

Update after reading: * decent plot insufferable character behaviour

Susan in NC wrote: "Judy wrote: "What did anyone think of all the other solutions by the various authors at the end of The Floating Admiral? I found that I glazed over a bit by the time I'd read a few of them, but I d..."

Same! (ahum I am still suffering from a slight AC bias ;-))

It also might have been helpful if they agreed on a plot or at least the killer beforehand.

I also agree with all Judy’s point!

Adding that if I hadn’t known that each chapter was written by someone else and that it was a kind of writing game for them I probably wouldn’t really enjoy the book. Then I would suddenly judge it to be clunky and not going anywhere…

Sid wrote: "Jessica wrote: "There is a goodreads list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
It seems I have read 12 so far."

Gosh - I think I've read 26 of these over the years, which is far more than I e..."

Wow 26 that's a good score! I'm sure there are less interesting books included, but maybe I'll discover a new favourite too!

Judy wrote: "PS I hadn't seen Storygraph before - looks like an interesting site."

Yes Storygraph is an interesting compliment to GR. They want to be a replacement but the social aspect with the many reading groups is very much in GR's favour. What I love about Storygraph is the way you can join and create reading challenges and track your progress very easily. They also are more accurate than GoodReads in their recommendations.

I didn't want to hijack Christine's post here but she completely inspired me to get a hold of The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books by Martin Edwards and read my way through all the books he chose to illustrate the literary history of crime fiction of the first half of the 20th century, focusing mainly on the British tradition.

I love crossing off lists and I love reading GA detectives, no surprise there, but I have a huge bias towards Christie. Using this anthology as a guide I am sure to come across different authors and expand my horizons. For that reason I also enjoyed the Detective Club challenge this year but I found it difficult to get my hands on many of the selections for the challenge. This book by Martin Edwards serves as a companion to the Classic Crime series of the British Library, so it should be possible to access most of the titles.

There is a goodreads list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
It seems I have read 12 so far.

I also made a challenge on Storygraph (because I love to cross off lists...) https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading... feel free to join in! :-)

Well ain't this fun! I think I'm gonna

1. get a copy of this book!
2. read my way throughs these 100 stories!

A very nice podcast episode is out: https://link.goloudplayer.com/s/pGcVe...

About Agatha Christie, her life and legacy

For a long time I was sure Bridget was the killer and that that would validate the love story…. I was wrong 😅

I agree not her best work but a very entertaining AC nonetheless.

“Here the discussion turned severely mechanical ” 🤣 I love reading a Christie again!

Yay Agatha Christie!!! … runs off the get the book and start immediately…

What I liked about the book was learning about the existence of thumbographs haha must have been such fun at dinner parties. I also love that The World Rugby Museum has an online exhibition of some of the thumb prints of then-famous rugby players: http://www.rugbyrelics.com/Museum/exh...

I am having such a difficult time finding the books in this challenge without paying extra 😅. Low and behold I took out a new book subscription and it has this one included. I’m really liking the Sherlock holmes vibes, but I suspect it might get annoying

I lost my way in this challenge with Ronald Knox... but I'm back now for Dorothy Sayers. Im happy to meet up with Peter again

Thanks! But oooh shall I now first start the podcast (so tempting) or start the audiobook....

Hm I enjoyed the book but the solution was a bit too much for me. Very unplausibly complicated plan they made…

I’m being very late to the party due to library access issues but now I’m back. I dove in yesterday and am so tremendously enjoying the book that I fear I might have found a new favourite 😱 curious to see how I’ll feel by the end!