Melodie’s taking a travel day and invited novelist and newspaper columnist Jane Heller to sub for her. As some of you probably know, I’m a typical American sports fan, and my first love was baseball, a sport that figures prominently, by the way, in short mysteries—among which I may single out the works of Ellery […]

I guess maybe sometimes crime does pay, at least according to Herodotus, whose name was recently invoked by both Steve and Rob. Here the Father of History ’splains it. —JLW THE GREAT EGYPTIAN TREASURE CAPER by Herodotus of Helicarnassus (c. 484 B.C. – c. 425 B.C.) Translated by George Campbell Macaulay (1852-1915) This king [Rhampsinitos1], […]

Robert Lopresti wrote an article for today, but it was lost during its transit through the aether, and like the completely self-absorbed egotist that I am, I utterly failed to notice it was missing. This is rather embarrassing, as I endeavor never, never to miss anything written by Rob. So in his stead, I have […]

Melodie has taken the week off. In her place, thanks to the good offices of our own “A.D.D. Detective,” Leigh Lundin, we welcome the talented Hal White, waxing eloquent on a subject near and dear to him, and to us all. Hal has been practicing law in the State of Washington since 1984, and for […]

Melodie Johnson Howe is taking a well deserved break from blogging today, just in time for us to welcome back crime fiction historian Barry T. Zeman and his informative series concerning Queen’s Quorum, the definitive list of important mystery short stories. READING QUEEN’S QUORUM-CONTINUED The First Golden Era by Barry T. Zeman As this article […]

Those of my Gentle Readers who are of some long acquaintance will know that I am categorically not a Hemingway fan. But Ernie and I do share our regard for certain authors: his three favorites were Henry Fielding, Frederick Marryat, and Ivan Turgenev, who also inhabit the Olympian summit in my own literary pantheon. Marryat […]

Mr. Joseph Addison, editor (along with Mr. Richard Steele) of both The Tatler and The Spectator, has long been deemed one of the most gifted English prose stylists of all time. Because all writers long to move their readers, and insofar as those readers also long to be moved by what they read, I asked […]