#john bude

A review of Death Makes a Prophet by John Bude – 250712 The eleventh in John Bude’s William Meredith series, originally published in 1947 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, Death Makes a Prophet is very much a book of two halves. It should appeal to those of us who like their murder laced with humour and an intriguing puzzle that resolves itself neatly at the end,…

A review of Death on the Riviera by John Bude – 241207 The sixteenth in John Bude’s William Meredith series, originally published in 1951 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, is rather a strange affair, an investigation into a counterfeit money and cigarette smuggling racket which then veers around the two-thirds mark into a murder mystery. At times it reads like…

A review of The Lake District Murder by John Bude – 240508 Originally published in 1935 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, this is the first in John Bude’s George Meredith series. It is a book planted firmly in Freeman Wills Crofts territory, an exhaustive and exhausting police procedural in which the series detective grapples with a mystery which has two strands…

A review of A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude – 240406 A Telegram from Le Touquet, originally published in 1956, has been recently reissued as part of the excellent British Library Crime Classics series. Taxonomically it is the twenty-second and penultimate in John Bude’s long-running William Meredith series, but, in truth, he plays only a minor albeit vital part in the tale. The heavy…

The Cheltenham Square Murder - another fine piece of #CrimeFiction by John Bude reissued by @BL_Publishing

A review of The Cheltenham Square Murder by John Bude It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a fictional police detective goes on holiday, murder will seek him out. Even if you seek solace in a genteel square in Cheltenham, the grim reaper will call you into action. This is what happens to Inspector Meredith in John Bude’s entertaining The Cheltenham Square Murder, originally published…

The Sussex Downs Murder - an excellent John Bude murder mystery novel #CrimeFiction #amreading

A review of The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude 1936 was an annus mirabilis in Golden Age detective fiction which is great for the readers but makes it difficult for a novel which would be classed as well above average in most other years to gain the recognition it deserves. John Bude, the nom de plume of Ernest Elmore, has long fallen out of fashion, but in my experience, he writes solid,…

Book Corner – December 2020 (1) - Death Knows No Calendar by John Bude, not one locked mystery but two

Death Knows No Calendar – John Bude

This now rather rare John Bude novel, first published in 1942, has been revived by the excellent British Library Crime Classics series and, what’s more, it is in the same volume as Death in White Pyjamas, two for the price of one. Impossible crimes or locked room mysteries are staple fare in the world of detective fiction, although Bude only wrote two, Death…