#brian flynn

A review of And Cauldron Bubble by Brian Flynn – 250824 Double, double, toil and trouble. The thirty-ninth in Flynn’s Anthony Bathurst series, originally published in 1951 and the fourth in the batch of five recently reissued by Dean Street Press, takes its title from the famous witches’ scene in Macbeth. Set in Quinster and, principally, in the Red Deer where mine host is John Melville, it…

Is it just me or can you also not resist digging into a cultural reference that, presumably, resonated with contemporary readers but fly over the heads of modern readers? I was mulling the point as I looked into a couple of examples taken from Brian Flynn’s Where There Was Smoke. Mrs Parker is described as having elbows in hands and looking absurdly like the Rajah of Bhong. The Rajah is a…

A review of Where There Was Smoke by Brian Flynn – 250729 Originally published in 1951, Where There Was Smoke is the third of five Brian Flynn novels reissued by Dean Street Press in July 2025. The thirty-eighth in Flynn’s long-running Anthony Bathurst series, it is more of a thriller than a conventional whodunit. Nevertheless, the amateur sleuth is still capable of the odd Holmesian feat of…

A review of Black Agent by Brian Flynn – 250705 The thirty-seventh in Flynn’s Anthony Bathurst series, originally published in 1950 and the second of the latest batch of five reissued by Dean Street Press, takes its title from a quote from Macbeth, “good things of the day begin to droop and drowse/ while night’s black agents to their preys do rouse”. As the title suggests the story concerns…

A review of The Swinging Death by Brian Flynn – 240701 Rather like Anthony Bathurst, Flynn’s serial amateur sleuth attached to the Yard, as he pens a final letter to his professional colleague, Chief Detective-Inspector Andrew MacMorran, at the conclusion of this bewildering case, I had a metaphorical tear in my eye as I reached the last page. The Swinging Death, the thirty-fifth in the series,…

A review of Exit, Sir John by Brian Flynn – 240501 The thirty-fourth novel in Brian Flynn’s Anthony Bathurst series, originally published in 1947 and reissued by Dean Street Press, sees the amateur sleuth in full Holmesian mode, using all of his phenomenal deductive powers to crack a perplexing mystery set at a country house over the Christmas period. The eponymous Sir John is found dead in his…

My thoughts on The Sharp Quillet by #BrianFlynn reissued by @DeanStPress #CrimeFiction #BookReview

A review of The Sharp Quillet by Brian Flynn – 240303 After Conspiracy at Angel had been almost universally panned by critics Brian Flynn went back to basics and starts The Sharp Quillet, the thirty-third in his Anthony Bathurst series, originally published in 1947 and reissued by Dean Street Press, with quite a bang. In the prologue there are no less than fifteen bodies, the sex worker who was…

My thoughts on Conspiracy at Angel by #BrianFlynn reissued by @DeanStPress #CrimeFiction #BookReview

A review of Conspiracy at Angel by Brian Flynn – 240120 Conspiracy at Angel, the thirty-second in Flynn’s long-running Anthony Bathurst series, originally published in 1947 and reissued by Dean Street Press, was universally panned by critics and is said to have been the novel that precipitated his fall into obscurity. Flynn was a writer who was unwilling to rest on his laurels by repeating a…