It occurred to me - if you're going through "golden age" mysteries, have you tried John Dickson Carr (who also wrote as Carter Dickson and Carr Dickson)? American, but he moved to England in the ... 1920s? 1930s? ... and set most of his stories there. He was known as "the master of the locked-room mystery" ... just thought of him because I'm re-reading one of his books now.

I read so many John Dickson Carr as a kid/teen!

I have not read John Dickson Carr - I put him on my list because I do like locked room mysteries and I have no idea why I haven't read him but he wrote a lot of books and has 4 detectives, apparently, and that's a little daunting. But he's currently scheduled in between Josephine Tey (reread) and Dashiell Hammett (I feel like I have to read The Thin Man for "gentleman detective" purposes and probably should read The Maltese Falcon on general principals)

Confession - the making of the spreadsheet portion of any project feels more rewarding than it probably deserves

I've also added Mary Roberts Rinehart who apparently wrote a book called The Bat that was made into a movie called The Bat Whispers that inspired Bob Kane so I have to read that and she also wrote a gazillion other mysteries that I will need to read at least some of...she actually started publishing in 1908 so she'll be a good pre-Golden Age datapoint at the very least

John Dickson Carr's detective, Dr. Fell, was supposedly based on G.K. Chesterton. And he had several that had others as the detectives (if I remember correctly).

I don't know if it was based on the Rinehart book, but I've seen a movie called "The Bat" with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorhead. It's better than you'd think. Murders - both serial and one-off, innocent person accused of embezzlement, secret rooms.

That's one of the 3 movies based on it. Apparently it was originally a play based on MRR's first book The Circular Staircase, the play was then novelized, and filmed in 1926, 1930, and 1959

I've read The Circular Staircase (mostly because I thought it was the inspiration for Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase, another Old Dark House mystery that was actually based on Ethel Lina White's Some Must Watch. She also wrote The Wheel Spins, on which Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes was based and which I have read as well. The movie is better.)

Regardless, The Circular Staircase contains one of my favorite lines anywhere: "I stirred my tea angrily."

I haven't seen any of the versions of The Bat though I'd like to at some point.

Goodreads reminded me that I could read The Ship of Stolen Words so that is now on my Nook. Yay!

I spent the weekend bingeing on Jenny Colgan novels. Which are not quite cotton candy: the writing is pretty good, and she spends a lot of time on scenery and food. And now I want to go visit the Scottish Highlands.

The b.org party in the chat at the bookstore last night filled me with so much joy. It was wonderful to see you, there's a whole lot of the livestream on my youtube channel, and good gosh I miss you all.