Mystery Scene

That excellent publication Mystery Scene has now reached its 113th issue – quite an achievement, given that so many magazines about our genre prove short-lived. I’ve contributed to it on a number of occasions, and the current issue includes a short piece about The Serpent Pool, as well as (and of course I was delighted to chance upon this) an extremely kind review of the book by Mary Helen Becker, quotes from which I’ve now included on the Lake District page of my website.

There are many good things in this issue, including a terrific piece by that fine writer Lawrence Block, who reminisces about a writer I have never read, Ross Thomas. Block’s account made me want to read Thomas, and is quite fascinating.

I very much enjoyed an article by Twist Phelan, ‘Romancing the Con’, about four couples who got together at mystery conventions. I’ve always been fascinated to find out how couples I know first met – some of the stories I’ve heard have been hilarious, some truly romantic – and the contrast between the four couples makes this a very interesting piece indeed.

I thought Nate Pedersen’s article about book collecting contained very useful information, and I liked William F. Hirschmann’s essay about Rupert Holmes, who has adapted Agatha Christie’s classic story ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ for a fresh stage production. Some readers of this blog may recall I wrote about Rupert in connection with The Serpent Pool, which features an extract from the lyric of his song ‘Him’.

There is much more besides, and if you are interested in crime fiction, you are sure to find plenty to like in every issue of Mystery Scene. If you aren’t familiar with it, I recommend you to give it a go