THE CRIME AT BLACK DUDLEY (1929)

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm ashamed to say that I have never read Margery Allingham before being offered the chance by NetGalley. Like my father, I seem to have a preference for British mysteries; and like my father, as he aged, I prefer the older titles with less detailed violence, sex, and language.

OPENING LINE: "The view from the narrow window was dreary and inexpressively lonely." This sets the atmosphere perfectly for what is to follow.

A weekend party at a rural estate is ruined when the host's uncle is murdered during a party game. The uncle had criminal connections and something he had that they want is missing. Who took it? The bad guys refuse to let anyone leave until that item is returned.

There are a lot of interesting characters to suspect among the guests, servants, and gang members. The plot has been described as haphazard but there's no problem following the story. The location allows for secret panels and passageways, which are great fun. This is certainly a classic mystery.

Apparently Allingham expected Dr. George Abbershaw would be her sleuth in this first book in the series, but it was the unusual and mysterious young man called Albert Campion, who captured readers and led to his promotion as hero of the series.

According to Mike Ripley "11 of her classic novels [will be} reissued this year and a further nine in 2016."

Bottom Line: If you love Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, you MUST READ Margery Allingham. These three are often referred to as the three queens of British Golden Age detective fiction.

Title: The Crime at Black Dudley

Author: Margery Allingham

Series: Albert Campion (Book #1)

Genre: Classic British Mystery

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Published: May 6, 2015 (Ebook)

ISBN-13: 9781448214211

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Source: NetGalley

Disclaimer: An advanced copy of The Crime at Black Dudley was provided to me by Bloomsbury/Net Galley for review purposes.

Margery Louise Allingham was an English writer of detective fiction, best remembered for her "golden age" stories featuring gentleman sleuth Albert Campion. (Wikipedia)

More Help to Achieve Your 2013 Reading Goals

A couple of posts back, I linked to a site suggesting short books to help everyone catch up on attempts to achieve reading goals for the year. Now Huffington Post has weighed in with even more classic titles (not much overlap) giving all of us no excuse for failure.

Check out These Amazing Classic Books Are So Short You Have No Excuse Not To Read Them.

How to Achieve Your Reading Goal for the Year

So I was definitely concerned about how far behind I am in my reading goal for 2013, currently six books, when I discovered this helpful list. Quick Reads (Dive into 55 Books Under 200 pages!) What a lifesaver! Check it out!

If You Prefer Real Books, Read This

 The Wall Street Journal just posted an article refuting the claims that ebooks were going to take over the world. Nicholas Carr suggests that might not be the case. You can read his comments HERE.

Returning a Kindle eBook

Thanks to my friend Marilyn the librarian, who linked to a brief article explaining how to return a Kindle eBook to Amazon. Who even knew that was possible? You can read the article HERE.

Gone Girl (2012)

My Christmas present this past year was a Kindle Fire, to which I have not entirely adapted. I've collected several books to read but still pick up 'real' books when the opportunity presents itself.

But then a couple of exciting things happened. I turned on my Kindle and it immediately downloaded Gillian Flynn's third novel, Gone Girl, which was just released on June 5th! Raves are popping up everywhere and the prediction is best seller lists in a week! On top of that, word is out that her 2009 title Dark Places will be a film. Guess I know what to read next!

The other exciting thing I discovered was something called Buzz Books 2012. The blurb in this weeks Entertainment Weekly read:

This new free e-book offers something usually reserved for publishing insiders: previews of major titles months before they're released. Read excerpts from more than 30 fall books by big-name authors like Dennise Lehane, Junot Diaz, and Barbara Kingsolver.

You can find this online at Amazon.com for free! And I did! Scanning the introduction, which covered other titles likely to be in high demand, I jotted down what appealed to me to take a more careful look. It will be interesting to see if my reading habits will evolve as I pursue the elusive perfect 'read' during the second half of 2012!.

An Interesting Library Service

A very 'hip' young friend suggested that I might want to check out LibraryBin. You might want to check it out too,  if you want to support your public library even while you are purchasing materials. The site states, "The proceeds of each sale, after deducting the payment to the publisher for the wholesale cost of the title plus a hosting and fulfillment fee, are donated to the participating library that you specify. These earnings can be used to purchase eBooks, audiobooks and other media for the library’s download website."

Unfortunately my library does not belong to the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services but these libraries do: Albion District Library; Ann Arbor District Library; Brandon Township Public Library; (Lansing) Capital Area District Library; Chesterfield Township Public Library; Fremont Area District Library; Grand Ledge Area District Library; Grosse Pointe Public Library;The Hastings Public District Library; Howell Carnegie District Library; Kalamazoo Public Library; Kent District Library; Loutit District Library; Orion Township Public Library; Plymouth District Library; Portage District Library; Royal Oak Public Library; Salem-South Lyon District Library; Spring Lake District Library; Sterling Heights Public Library; Troy* Public Library; Warren Public Library; and (Battle Creek) Willard Library.

*Noted in another post that this library is Closing.

The eBook Conundrum

I guess I haven't been paying enough attention. It turns out that not only has Harper Collins declared they want to limit public libraries who purchase eBooks from them to limit the check-outs to 26.

It turns out that two major publishers (Macmillan and Simon & Schuster) will not sell any eBooks to public libraries. According to something I read recently that makes "more than 25% of the eBook market unavailable to library patrons".

You can read more about it HERE in Library Journal.

The E Book Problem

Harper Collins, a publisher, has put Overdrive, an ebook purveyor, on notice that it plans to limit the number of times a library can 'check out' an ebook to 26. Apparently Harper Collins calculated that this is the average number of times a real book is read before it is used-up and withdrawn from the library collection. And actually 'limit' is the wrong word. They plan to make the ebook 'self-destruct'.

As you can guess, libraries are not happy about this latest attack on their dwindling budgets. Cory Doctorow has rightly pointed out that "the important thing to recognize is that the perishability of a print book is not a feature that we should seek to replicate in successive media". Read more about what he has to say by clicking HERE.