What a Friend I Have in Sarah

While I was celebrating my anti-holiday last month Pretty Sinister Books was being recommended by Sarah Weinman at both her blog devoted to Domestic Suspense and her Tumblr page.

DomesticSuspense.com began as a way to promote her excellent anthology Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (which of course I urge you to read.  Go and buy a copy now!). In her post dated December 23, 2013 she says the website will continue to focus on women crime writers who delved into that subgenre. She talks about Mildred Davis, her debut novel which won the Edgar in 1948 and points curious readers to my review of that book, The Room Upstairs. Though I know little of Davis' short fiction I suspect her work may appear in a second volume of domestic suspense if Sarah decides to do a sequel to Troubled Daughters.... I am hoping there will be one.

Many thanks also to Sarah (who confessed to me once she was a lurking fan of this blog for many months) who mentioned PSB along with Curt Evan's The Passing Tramp as two of the best blogs writing about vintage crime fiction.

Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2014

Who doesn't like a challenge?  Each year Bev at My Reader's Block asks readers to travel back in time and read the kind of books that this blog celebrates nearly every day - the vintage mystery. Last year she shook up the challenge by offering category labels for each book read.  This year the categories are still there and are arranged in the fashion of the old Bingo game with the choice of Golden Age Mysteries (1890 -1960) or Silver Age Mysteries (1961 - 1989). These are Bev's date ranges and not every subscribes to them.  Hey, I'm not going to quibble about it. It's basically a game.  You follow the rules of the gamemaster.

In order to finish the challenge any reader need only finish one line that would lead to the cry of "Bingo!" if you at your local church hall and were surrounded by a bunch of avid old lady gamblers armed with dabbers and sitting with fifteen Bingo cards in front of them.  The word Bingo has been replaced by GOLDEN and SILVER on each card -- only six books any reader has to read at a minimum in order to finish the challenge.  But that's no challenge for me.

I intend to fill out not just one card, but both. Now that's a challenge!

Seventy-two books with the constraints of date ranges and category labels.  Think I can do it?  I read 104 books last year and the majority were vintage mysteries.  As I said to Bev in my comment when signing up.  "72 books?  Piece of cake."

For those interested in the complete rules visit My Reader's Bock here.  The bare minimum needed to finish the challenge is six book, my friends. Anyone can do that.  Why not you?