Blimey. 499 reviews so far. Book reviews that is. There have been a few film reviews, more than a few television reviews, some short stories and a fair amount of general old waffle – 672 posts in total, so 173 non-book reviews. Actually, that’s a lot of general old waffle. And on the vaguest off-chance someone’s checking, I’m counting original audiobooks in the 499…

So what does that 499 consist of, and which book is going to have the “privilege” of being the 500^th?

Most reviewed authors?

Well, the top ten (including pseudonyms) are (with no surprises really)

1. Paul Doherty – 79 reviews
2. Agatha Christie – 32 reviews
3. John Dickson Carr – 27 reviews
4. Ellery Queen – 23 reviews
5. Kate Ellis – 20 reviews
6. Peter Tremayne – 15 reviews
7. Michael Jecks – 14 reviews
8. Martin Edwards – 12 reviews
9. Simon Brett – 11 reviews
10. Paul Halter/Peter Lovesey/Steve Hockensmith – 8 reviews

Although actually, the most common author is none of the above – a grand total of 115 authors have made a single appearance on the blog. Not counting, but they divide nicely into Must Read Again/Perfectly Fine/Never Again. 199 count as historical mysteries – so it’s very tempting to do another for number 500 but…

So review 500 – what should it be? I’ve had a grand total of 1 suggestion, of The Murders In The Rue Morgue, but no, for two reasons. First of all, the solution is totally bananas in more ways than one, and secondly, the original point of the blog was to find well-constructed mysteries in modern novels. Of course, I’ve meandered away from that as the mood takes me, but I thought I’d make number 500 a trip back to the original plan.

So, one of the top ten, well twelve, authors? Nope, because I mostly know what I’m getting from them. I’ll always be heading back to those authors – in fact, the latest Joe Plantagenet book from Kate Ellis will be number 501 or 502 and I expect the rest will turn up sooner rather than later. But I thought I should use the “In Search Of…” bit of the name of the blog and pick an author from my shelf that I hadn’t actually read yet. I’ve avoided historical novels, and the classic cozies that I’ve picked up from the US – although I must get round to the “wonderfully” titled State Of The Onion, a White House Chef mystery (honest) that’s sitting on the TBR pile. So the honour of the 500^th review goes to the result of a charity shop visit that caught my eye – A Cotswold Killing by Rebecca Tope. I hadn’t heard of the author or the series before seeing it in the shop, so I’ll be taking a look at that one next. It might not be the book you expected – but that’s kind of the point of the blog. Let’s see if the Search For The Classic Mystery Novel bears fruit this time…