Right, that’s April out of the way. Eight reviews but eleven actual reads, due to re-reading several Flynn titles. There will be more of this next month – more, in fact, as I’m a little behind – don’t tell Dean Street Press!

Right, on with it. The eight new books were:

• The Golden Hour by Malia Zaidi -perfectly fine, but flawed between-the-wars mystery
• The Waxworks Murder by John Dickson Carr – strong on atmosphere, less strong on the actual mystery
• Twisted by Steve Kavanagh – another fun thriller which everyone else seems to think is the best thing ever. I mean, it’s a really entertaining read, but unlike some reviewers, I didn’t need to change my underwear after reading it.
• A Fatal Mistake by Faith Martin – a good second book in this mystery series.
• The Mystery Of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah – that Hercule Poirot impersonator is back, in the best of the three titles, but still somewhat short of Christie herself.
• The Case Of The Haven Hotel by Christopher Bush – a promising look-forward to the next ten Ludovic Travers titles.
• The Orange Axe by Brian Flynn – one of my last unread Flynn titles has now been read… and you can read it too, in a few months time. And you should as well…
• They Can’t Hang Me by James Ronald – a rather bonkers, very fun read, ever so slightly let down by the obvious-to-me conclusion.

Book of the month this month? Well, it’s probably The Case Of The Black Twenty-Two, or The Mystery Of The Peacock’s Eye, as I reread these and they’re fantastic. But I’d better go for something now. Well, with one exception, the books got better and better as the month went on. All of the last three titles were great, but I’m going to make They Can’t Hang Me the book of the month. Keep an eye out for it in the second hand shops and there’ll be some more from Ronald here soon.