The 39 Steps (1939)

I read The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan more than 15 years ago. I did not remember much about the book except that it was about a man on the run from a dangerous criminal mastermind who wanted to reveal the country's military secrets to the enemy. I also remembered that there was no female protagonist in the book, and that ( Read more... )

I went on a mystery marathon this 2015, pulling out old mystery books which had been made into movies or TV shows. So, in a way I cheated, but I blame it all on The Silkworm, which was my first mystery book in ages and which made me want to read again about the human propensity for murder and mayhem. Here’s the brief run-up:


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"Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority."
-- Francis Bacon

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey took me by surprise. A mystery book-- arguably, again in the top ten list of most mystery fans-- which begins when a convalescing detective from Scotland Yard finds something wrong in the portrait of King Richard III of England.


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The Man Who Was Thursday, the title alone makes you want to grab the book. It definitely helps that since its publication in 1908, the book has gone through a series of covers, each better than the next.


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Today I couldn't resist myself and bought The Complete Father Brown Stories by G.K. Chesterton. I have been meaning to read up on Father Brown for a really long time now-- he is supposed to be the most famous detective after Sherlock Holmes. In fact, in most of the greatest mystery books's lists, you will not find a single Sherlock Holmes mystery, ( Read more... )