It’s been a funny month, July 2017. For a couple of reasons, my reading’s been a bit wonky. Hopefully things are back on track, and, at the end of the day – well, the month – it’s meant eleven books under my belt, which is still pretty good for me, although not so much for the summer months. Not convinced that I’m going to make the Twenty Books Of Summer target this summer – well, I’ve already read twenty books, but not necessarily the twenty that I set out in my post. I’ve already fiddled with the list once, but if I do much more fiddling, it really counts as cheating.

Anyway, apart from the books, I saw a few films this month. Both Baby Driver and Spider-Man: Homecoming were great fun, but Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (on DVD) was possibly the single most tedious thing I’ve seen in an age.

Anyway, it’s Book Of The Month time, so the eleven books that I read were:

• Smoke And Mirrors by Casey Daniels
• Mystery In Olympia by John Rhode
• Herring In The Smoke by L C Tyler
• The Story Of Classic Crime In 100 Books by Martin Edwards
• Masters Of The “Humdrum” Mystery by Curtis Evans
• The Billiard-Room Mystery by Brian Flynn
• The Ha-Ha Case by J J Connington
• Death At The Seaside by Frances Brody
• Death Knocks Twice by Robert Thorogood
• Diabolic Candelabra by E R Punshon

A pretty good collection of books – the weakest points were the start and end of the month. Having said that, while I didn’t really get Diabolic Candelabra, I strongly suggest you read the various posts defending it. It would seem that I might be in a minority on this one.

Best of the month – well, I strongly recommend Herring In The Smoke, but I can see some readers possibly getting annoyed by the game that Len is playing with this one (although it’s not a straight rip-off of a classic like one of the reads this month) but just pipping it is (to probably no-one’s surprise) Death Knocks Twice by Robert Thorogood, the third Death In Paradise novel. Fully embracing the Golden Age style, with a dash of humour and one of my favourite detectives in fiction. The sequence where Richard is tricked into going undercover – i.e. not wearing his suit – is worth the cover price alone.

So, pretty good going for the series so far – three books, three Puzzlies. Looking forward to the fourth already…

So next month, we’ve got a few historicals, the latest Paul Halter, and then… who knows? Stay tuned.