Showing posts with label 1961. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1961. Show all posts

Monday, February 12, 2018

Three Books by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1958-1961)

I'm beginning to think I should re-name this blog "I Found It At the Lifeline Bookfair"!  I found these on a small table devoted solely to the books of Agatha Christie at last weekend's Autumn book fair:

A Pocket Full of Rye (1958)


"An unusual sound penetrated through the almost sound-proof door of Mr. Fortescue's office.  Muffled, it was yet fully recognisable, a strangled agonised cry..." 
Even as Miss Grosvenor, Mr. Fortescue's secretary, came up to him, his body was convulsed in a painful spasmodic movement. 
Words came out in jerky gasps. 
"Tea—what the hell—you put in the tea—get help—quick get a doctor—"
And that is, unfortunately, the end of Mr. Fortescue—but the beginning of one of Agatha Christie's most ingenious stories that takes all of the skill of Inspector Neale to solve.
 

The Labours of Hercules (1961)


A modern 'Labours of Hercules'—it was an idea that appealed to Hercule Poirot.
In the period before his retirement, he decided to undertake twelve cases with special reference to the twelve labours of ancient Hercules.
Amusing and original, each case more baffling than the last, we guarantee the Labours of Hercules will test the wits of the most ingenious armchair detective.


Peril At End House (1961) 


An
unknown
agent
was
methodically
planning
her
death 
—the heavy picture that fell across her bed
—the rock that landed at her feet
—the car brakes that failed

NOW—a bullet that missed her head by inches

Fontana cover artists of the late 50s and early 60s clearly had a thing for depicting young women in peril!

Friday, September 23, 2016

The Lion of Sparta by John Burke (Pan, 1961)

Another find in the dusty recesses of the Green Shed:


BARBARIC
SPLENDOUR

ELEMENTAL
SAVAGERY

SUPERB
HEROISM

The countless hordes of Asia surged onwards towards Greece--an irresistible wave spreading  fire, pillage and rapine.  Xerxes, King of Persia, had sworn to annihilate the Greek States.

But at Thermopylae waited Leonidas, King of Sparta--blocking the narrow pass with his immortal Three Hundred.

These were no ordinary men.  For Spartans there was no retreat, no surrender.  Their highest hope a glorious death.

This is the story of those men--and their women--and of the days which led them to Thermopylae, that desperate, glorious battle which changed the course of history.

"As filmed by 20th Century Fox starring Richard Egan"... another long-forgotten CinemaScope epic, starring an actor I've never heard of.  And yet, strangely enough, Ralph Richardson appears in a supporting role!

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Ravens' Blood by E.F. Benson (Popular Library, 1961)

Found on a charity bookstall at the markets:


THE CURSE OF THE PENTREATHS

Lovely young Nell Robson had heard fearful stories about the old mansion of the Pentreaths ever since she was a little girl in the isolated English village of St. Columb's.  Some said the very ground the house stood on was accursed.  Others whispered of horrifying rites performed in the meadowland under the moon.

Now Nell had come to live within the mansion's walls, and all rumors paled beside the truth.  The master of the house called himself a man of God, but minister of Satan would have been a better name.  The Pentreath women seemed puppets of the shameless sensuality and sinister evil that poisoned the air.  And even as Nell desperately sought to escape, she felt herself falling under the spell of handsome, powerful Dennis Pentreath, heir to the Pentreath curse, who spoke of love even as he drew Nell toward the abyss...
  Ravens' Blood is most definitely NOT a gothic romance, and anyone anticipating one will be disappointed upon opening the book.  What on Earth possessed Popular Books to market it this way?

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

A Tale of Two Murders by Elizabeth Ferrars (Fontana, 1961)

Bought in the same batch of books as Always Say Die.


It entertained Hilda Gazely to speculated about the strange woman who walked the river bank at sunset.  But murder and the facts which came to light afterwards made her ask herself desperately how she could have been so complacently blind to what had been happening around her.  Hilda was unusually impressed by Inspector Crankshaw and told him all she could--then she became uneasy.  She was sure that something she had seen, done or said was utterly wrong.
 The problem with writing about mysteries is you really can't say too much without giving away important plot points.  Suffice it to say that a thoroughly nasty character is murdered, and almost all the suspects have good reason to do away with him.

A Tale of Two Murders also introduces the delightfully cynical, "heard-it-all-before" Inspector Crankshaw:

    Not impatiently, but in a considering tone, as if , as if he were speaking mainly to himself, to clear his own mind, Crankshaw said, "A widower, faithful to the memory of his wife, not many friends, but such as he had, good ones--that's the picture, then."
    She raised her head quickly, grateful that he should have understood, and was shocked to see the irony in his small, sly eyes.
 Oh, and in the end, Crankshaw gets his man.