CADS 59

As I grow older, I am less and less excited by the prospect of a year ending and another beginning, since it means that, well, I will age one more. Still, there are reasons to rejoice for as December comes again, so does CADS as an advance Christmas gift for the crime/mystery nut. Issue 59 is typically rich in well-written, well-researched and passionate articles on everything (fictionally) criminal. Stand-outs include one "revisitation" of John Dickson Carr's Locked-Room Lecture by my friend John Pugmire, a beautiful essay on Father Brown's philosophy by Josef Hoffmann and an examination of Anthony Berkeley's lesser-known work by Arthur Robinson - among lots and lots of interesting, fascinating stuff. (Especially delightful to me was Mike Ripley's paean to the wildly imaginative and inclassable John Blackburn, one of my favorites ever since I read his wonderful, way too little-known Blue Octavo.) I could go on on lines and lines without ever exhausting the plenty of great material this issue has to offer. 

If this post made you curious, you may ask your copy to Geoff Bradley, 9 Vicarage Hill, South Benfleet, Essex, SS7 1PA.  Believe me, you won't regret it.