September’s been an odd month for my reading habits – it started exceptionally well, with five books in five days, but when the school term kicked in, my job took priority with the same number of books in the entire rest of the month. A few other bits and bobs got in the way too, so in a minute, I’m off upstairs to find an old favourite author to kick-start my reading. Oh, I did get a quote and a link on the Big Finish website for my review of The Sacrifice Of Sherlock Holmes. That was cool, although it would have been nice if they’d got the blog name right…

Anyway, as I said, ten books this month. Let’s see who’s providing the wallpaper for the next month and is walking off with the Puzzly…

So the books in question were:

• Stop Press Murder by Peter Bartram
• A Deadly Thaw by Sarah Ward
• The Polo Ground Mystery by Robin Forsythe
• Capacity For Murder by Bernadette Pajer
• The Verdict Of You All by Henry Wade
• It Walks By Night by John Dickson Carr
• Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode
• The Devil’s Work by Mark Edwards
• Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah
• The Four Armourers by Francis Beeding

Well, biggest disappointment goes to The Four Armourers – such a comedown from Death Walks In Eastrepps – and biggest surprise to Closed Casket, not perfect, but a massive improvement on The Monogram Murders. One big high-point was A Deadly Thaw, a cracking follow-up to In Bitter Chill, from fellow blogger Sarah Ward (and thanks for the invite to the launch party).

The winner of the Puzzly this month, though, is the first for a frequent visitor to the blog – namely John Rhode – for Peril At Cranbury Hall. A cracking tale from the Golden Age with a clever central idea and is a lot of fun along the way. Good luck finding a copy that doesn’t need a second mortgage to buy but I was lucky – keep your eyes open. It’s definitely worth it.

Next month – a couple of historical novels, an Historical Dagger winner and its sequel, and a big pile of Golden Age goodies from the nice folks at the British Library and Dean St Press that I’ve been neglecting a bit. And hopefully I can get my reading back on track. Fingers crossed. Oh, and with luck, my 1000th post (this is number 987) where I have second stab at a competition which hopefully will last more than ten minutes this time…