The Bronze Hand

Look, I’d love to be reading more. I feel like I should be reading more. But my brain mostly wants to a) cudgel itself into doing some work, and b) play increasingly arcane games of solitaire. Sometimes, though, what it wants to do most is: not sleep. One night last week I gave up on sleep around 3 a.m. and looked around for a book. What I found was a very battered copy of The Bronze Hand, by Carolyn Wells.

The Billiard Room Mystery

Hi there. My New Year’s resolution is to update regularly again. We’ll see how it goes.

Maybe starting with a bad book will make things easier? The Billiard Room, by Brian Flynn, is very bad. It feels like it was written by an alien whose only knowledge of human society was gleaned from other second rate country house mystery novels. Apparently it’s the first of a long series. I wonder if Flynn got any better, but I’m not curious enough to try to find out.

The Room with the Tassels

Carolyn Wells’ mysteries are…not very good, in general. The solutions to the mysteries feel like cop-outs. Her detectives and their weird child assistants are entertaining, but because she only ever brings them in for about the last third of the book, they feel like intruders. She’s excessively fond of secret passages, but rarely gets any fun out of them. The characters are inconsistent and usually unappealing, too.

What do you think might be the best book title ever?

I’m pretty sure I’ve never come across one better than Shirley Temple and the Screaming Specter.

Raspberry Jam and The Curved Blades.

So, I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’ve been on a Carolyn Wells kick lately. Having run out of Patty books for the moment, I’ve been reading a few of her mystery novels, like Raspberry Jam and The Curved Blades.

The Dana Girls #9: The Mystery at the Gatehouse

In The Mystery at the Gatehouse, Louise and Jean help investigate the disappearance of Mr. Warrington, a wealthy businessman who lives near Starhurst and is being investigated by the government for reasons that are never fully explained.

The Dana Girls #3: In the Shadow of the Tower

We next meet Jean and Louise Dana two books later, in In the Shadow of the Tower, an evocative title that has very little to do with the story.

The Dana Girls #1: By the Light of the Study Lamp

So, The Dana Girls books are nothing special, really, but they are kind of interesting. Apparently they were meant to be a sort of cross between Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

On the Hardy Boys side:

They’re siblings, and one has dark hair and the other has light hair.

On the Nancy Drew side:

They’re girls

Hmmm. That seems to be about it. The fact that they’re amateur detectives could count towards either side, and the fact that they’re in school and actually, you know, go to class sometimes couldn’t count towards either.

Ashton-Kirk, Investigator

I’m starting a ‘stupid leaps of logic’ category for books like this one: Ashton-Kirk, Investigator, by John T. McIntyre. It gets points for the fun illustrations, though.