The Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog has reached the letter S. My second recommendation this week is …
SPADEWORK by Bill Pronzini
“Hardboiled shockers, offbeat whodunits, exercises in ratiocination, impossible crime puzzles, attempts at social commentary, light-and-wry near-cozies, pure slapstick farce …” – Bill Pronzini
Next month will see the return of Bill Pronzini’s ‘Nameless’ private eye in Camouflage, some 40 years since the publication of his first case. This will be the 38th volume in the series, one that, if publishers Macmillan are to be believed, will end when it reaches its 40th. 
Fans will doubtless hope that this is not so, but if it is then this is a character that has already had an enviably long run – and a remarkably varied one at that. One shouldn’t need much of an excuse to celebrate the work of a master like Pronzini, but here, courtesy of the letter S, is a brief look at Spadework, his second collection on ‘Nameless’ short stories . It was originally published by Crippen & Landru in 1996, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the characters (where has the time gone?) but sadly now appears to be out of print. It contains fifteen short stories together with a delightfully biased introduction from fellow crime writer Marcia Muller, who is also Mr Pronzini’s wife. Continue reading →
The plan was to come up with a top 100 that I was prepared to stand by – but I wanted to re-read so many of the books that I might have included but now remembered too vaguely (such as Ngaio Marsh’s output or books like Tey’s hugely popular The Daughter of Time) that I thought I should publish only a partial list. Not to mention finding it a bit hard to just settle on one book by Georges Simenon given the enormity of his output – I have placed a list of 80+ titles on the site and am extremely open to suggestions …
Tipping My Fedora 