The Big Re-Read (TBR 2)

I've let it slip here and there that I'm in the middle of a marathon re-read of almost all my mystery novels. I've skipped a couple of authors, either because I'd seen the TV show fairly recently (Agatha Christie), because I'd actually read them recently (Anthony Abbot, Anthony Berkeley and Anthony Boucher - hey that's a lot of Tonys) or because I just couldn't work up the interest to read them again (Dorothy Sayers, Michael Innes, Craig Rice, Rex Stout, R. Austin Freeman, Freeman Wills Crofts, Josephine Tey). Okay, "almost all" was an overstatement...

But that still includes a huge bunch of authors, because my collection is fairly large. To begin with I wasn't going to include Ellery Queen, but after some time decided to do so anyway. Otherwise, the main contributors to this re-read are John Dickson Carr, Ngaio Marsh, Helen McCloy, Q. Patrick/Patrick Quentin/Jonathan Stagge, Edmund Crispin, Rufus King, Margery Allingham, Nicholas Blake and some stray authors where I only have one or two books.

This undertaking has been under way now for three or four years, and I'm finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The above picture shows the coming 27 books.

Ellery Queen - Double Double
Rufus King - Valcour Meets Murder
Carter Dickson - A Graveyard to Let
Ngaio Marsh - When in Rome
Philip MacDonald - The Rasp
Ellery Queen - The Origin of Evil
E. C. Bentley & H. Warner Allen - Trent's Own Case
John Dickson Carr - The Problem of the Wire Cage
J. C. Masterman - The Case of the Four Friends
Patrick Quentin - The Follower
Sara Woods - Bloody Instructions
Helen McCloy - The Further Side of Fear
John Dickson Carr - The Man Who Could Not Shudder
Edmund Crispin - The Moving Toyshop
Ellery Queen - The Scarlet Letters
Ngaio Marsh - Tied up in Tinsel
Edgar Lustgarten - A Case to Answer
John Dickson Carr - The Case of the Constant Suicides
Margery Allingham - The Fashion in Shrouds
Patrick Quentin - Black Widow
Ellery Queen - Inspector Queen's Own Case
Alan Green - What a Body!
Nicholas Blake - The Sad Variety
John Dickson Carr - Death Turns the Tables
Nagio Marsh - Black as He's Painted
Edmund Crispin - Swan Song
Ellery Queen - The Finishing Stroke

Another bunch of 27 books.

Rufus King - The Case of the Constant God
Carter Dickson - Night at the Mocking Widow
Patrick Quentin - My Son, the Murderer
Margery Allingham - Black Plumes
Miles Burton - Where Is Barbara Prentice?
Ellery Queen - The Player on the Other Side
John Dickson Carr - Till Death Do Us Part
Edmund Crispin - Love Lies Bleeding
Marco Page - Fast Company
Patrick Quentin - The Man With Two Wives
Dilwyn Rees - The Cambridge Murders
John Dickson Carr - Below Suspicion
Ellery Queen - And on the Eighth Day
Ngaio Marsh - Last Ditch
Philip MacDonald - The Nursemaid Who Disappeared
Edmund Crispin - Buried for Pleasure
John Dickson Carr - The Dead Man's Knock
Helen McCloy - Mr. Splitfoot
Ellery Queen - The Fourth Side of the Triangle
Patrick Quentin - The Man in the Net
Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake
Carter Dickson - Behind the Crimson Blind
Edmund Crispin - Frequent Hearses
Rufus King - Crime of Violence
Ellery Queen - A Study in Terror
Patrick Quentin - Suspicious Circumstances
John Dickson Carr - In Spite of Thunder

The final 24!

Stuart Palmer - Nipped in the Bud
Margery Allingham - More Work for the Undertaker
Ngaio Marsh - Photo-Finish
Ellery Queen - Face to Face
Nicholas Blake - The Morning After Death
John Dickson Carr - The House at Satan's Elbow
Edmund Crispin - The Long Divorce
Patrick Quentin - Shadow of Guilt
Ellery Queen - The House of Brass
Ronald A. Knox - The Footsteps at the Lock
Carter Dickson - The Cavalier's Cup
Patrick Quentin - The Green Eyed Monster
Philip MacDonald - The List of Adrian Messenger
Ellery Queen - The Last Woman of His Life
Rufus King - Murder Masks Miami
John Dickson Carr - Panic in Box C
Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens
Margery Allingham - Coroner's Pidgin
Ellery Queen - A Fine and Private Place
Helen McCloy - A Question of Time
John Dickson Carr - Dark of the Moon
Patrick Quentin - Family Skeletons
Edmund Crispin - The Glimpses of the Moon
Ellery Queen - The Tragedy of Errors

As you see, I'm just in the middle of the best stuff from Carr, Queen and Crispin, while the Marsh, Dickson, Quentin and McCloy re-reads are getting into more iffy territory. When I reach the books in picture three I foresee a slower tempo due to a decline in quality almost everywhere. But that's the problem when reading authors chronologically - most of them will not write their best stuff towards the end of their career.

There are a couple of authors you didn't see in these pictures because I've already finished all their novels. You might have guessed that this was the case with Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge, since I mentioned them above. Other authors I've managed to finish off are Cyril Hare, Clayton Rawson and Christianna Brand.

You may also have noticed that two books are there in the form of paper copies - these are books that were never translated into Swedish in book form, but for some reason were published in magazines or newspapers instead. I have a couple of others elsewhere (another Palmer, two Van Dines, two Queens, five or six Carrs, one Abbot and one Rhode).

Anyhow, that's the re-read pile. Please don't call me crazy in the comments, I do that to myself often enough.