About this Blog

Welcome to my blog! This is a sporadic collection of reviews looking at various different strands of crime and detective fiction. With the labels/tags on posts, you should be able to search the reviewed books as they build up by author, genre, or decade published.

Here is a taste of the scope of reviews:

* Golden age
* Hardboiled
* Classical
* Quirky
* Postmodern
* Short stories
* Non-crime (titles by authors best known for crime-writing)
* Books about books

Every now and then, I post a bundle of five 'mini-reviews': that's five books, with a one to three-line review for each. This will either be when I'm too busy to write a proper review, when I've got too many ideas to bombard you with, or when I have OPINIONS OPINIONS OPINIONS but not enough to make anything substantial.

This blog will only very rarely feature anything but reviews. I have another, much more occasional blog on my website where I sometimes let loose my thoughts.

My name is Jamie and I'm an academic with special interests in golden age detective fiction -- I'm obsessed with Agatha Christie -- and gender and sexuality. In 2016, I graduated from the University of Exeter with a PhD in English Literature, and my thesis became a book: Queering Agatha Christie: Revisiting the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Currently, I have two jobs: teaching at Middlesex University and working as the thriller writer Sophie Hannah's right hand man. For a long time, I've lurked sinisterly around the internet, gorging on other people's blogs, and I'm very excited to be making my own contribution.

I am also the author of some comic short mysteries featuring Jessica Brick, a spinster sleuth with a difference ... she always gets it wrong!

If you'd like to get in touch, please leave a comment on any post you like (or hate). Alternatively, there is a contact form on my website: www.jcbernthal.com

Thank you for reading :)