Category Archives: LP Davies

2014 Vintage Mystery Challenges – completed

12 months and 72 book reviews later and the Vintage Mystery Challenge bingos, both Golden (pre-1960) and Silver (1960 to 1989) varieties, are complete! The indefatigable Bev of My Reader’s Block gives structure and meaning to the reading habits of us mystery … Continue reading

Posted in 2014 Vintage Mystery Challenge Bingo, 87th Precinct, Agatha Christie, Bill Pronzini, Carter Dickson, Charlotte Armstrong, Cornell Woolrich, Dashiell Hammett, David Callan, Dorothy Dunnett, Ed McBain, Edward D. Hoch, Erle Stanley Gardner, Evelyn Anthony, Georges Simenon, Gideon Fell, Gil Brewer, Gillian Freeman, Graham Greene, Harold Q. Masur, Helen Nielsen, James Hadley Chase, James M. Cain, James Mitchell, John Blackburn, John Dickson Carr, John Sladek, L. Ron Hubbard, Lange Lewis, Lawrence Sanders, Leslie Charteris, LP Davies, Maigret, Marcia Muller, Miss Marple, Nero Wolfe, Ngaio Marsh, Noir, Orson Welles, Parker, PD James, Perry Mason, Peter Corris, Philip Marlowe, Philo Vance, Poirot, Police procedural, Private Eye, Raymond Chandler, Rex Stout, Richard Stark, Robert B. Parker, Robert Bloch, Roderick Alleyn, Science Fiction, Shirley Jackson, Somerset Maugham, SS Van Dine, Stanley Ellin, Stark House Press, The Shadow, Thomas M. Disch, Walter B Gibson, William Goldman | 24 Comments

A SCENT OF NEW-MOWN HAY (1958) by John Blackburn

I’ve been looking to sample this author’s weird fiction for years after hearing him compared with LP Davies, one of my favourite British pulp authors of the 1960s. So I have decided, in my usual fashion, to start at the … Continue reading

Posted in 2014 Vintage Mystery Challenge Bingo, England, Germany, John Blackburn, LP Davies | 30 Comments

Top 20 Amnesia Mystery Movies

Whether it’s the intrigue of Jason Bourne adventures or the farcical escapades of the Hangover films, memory loss remains a popular narrative device in fiction in general and at the cinema in particular. Here is a guide to my top 20 favourite … Continue reading

Posted in 'Best of' lists, Alfred Hitchcock, Amnesia, Billy Wilder, Boileau-Narcejac, Charlie Chan, England, Eric Ambler, France, Greece, Hammer Studios, James Hilton, Jimmy Sangster, John Frankenheimer, Len Deighton, London, Los Angeles, LP Davies, New York, Orson Welles, San Francisco, Spain, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | Tagged | 88 Comments

The Groundstar Conspiracy – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film

George Peppard plays a government agent so paranoid that he even bugs his own phone in this cult classic loosely based on LP Davies’ The Alien (which I previously reviewed here). Michael Sarrazin co-stars as the scientist whose face and … Continue reading

Posted in 2014 Book to Movie Challenge, Amnesia, Douglas Heyes, Friday's Forgotten Book, LP Davies, The 2014 Sci-Fi Experience, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | Tagged , , | 38 Comments

THE ALIEN (1968) by LP Davies

Leslie Purnell Davies was enormously prolific in the 60s and early 70s, crafting some twenty novels that combined SF and mystery in a highly distinctive fashion. This one later served as the basis for the cult classic, The Groundstar Conspiracy … Continue reading

Posted in 2014 Book to Movie Challenge, 2014 Vintage Mystery Challenge Bingo, Friday's Forgotten Book, LP Davies, The 2014 Sci-Fi Experience | 56 Comments

A is for … Amnesia

Kerrie’s Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog has returned for 2012. Each week those participating will post a review, author biog or a thematic item in which either the first letter of the title … Continue reading

Posted in 2012 Alphabet of Crime, Agatha Christie, Amnesia, Cornell Woolrich, Crime Fiction Alphabet, Ed McBain, Ellery Queen, Espionage, Film Noir, James Bond, LP Davies, Margaret Millar, Patrick Quentin | 33 Comments

M is for … MAN OUT OF NOWHERE (1965) by LP Davies

The Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog this week reaches the letter M.

M is for … MAN OUT OF NOWHERE by LP Davies

Leslie Purnell Davies is an author truly deserving of the ‘cult’ epithet. Not just for the two dozen novels and sixty or so short stories that has garnered him a small but dedicated following over the last 50 years or so; but also because, not long after bursting on the literary scene, he almost as quickly turned his back on it to become seemingly as elusive and mysterious as one of his protagonists. After an intense period of activity in the 1960s and early 70s, which saw him achieve a small measure of success in both the mystery and science fictions genres, Davies stepped back in the shadows and left his creative life behind – to be rediscovered by intrepid readers picking up copies of his books in second-hand bookshops. One publisher looking to reprint his work eventually had to hire a private detective to track him down, but found only a grave on foreign soil for his troubles. This is all well in keeping with Davies’ own fiction, which deals with identity, aberrant states of mind and loss of control. This is particularly true of Man Out of Nowhere, also published in the US as Who is Lewis Pinder?, his second novel and one of his most ingenious Continue reading

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