There’s no point suggesting books you already know or your friends bang on about. No, I prefer to drag out the obscure or sadly forgotten, the drunken great-uncle books with rich yarns to spin, but now shunned by the family after ‘the incident’ at the wedding.
The Club of Queer Trades
by GK Chesterton
Mad as a box of frogs, Chesterton spins detective tales upside down and back to front in this collection of short stories about Basil Grant, an insane former judge who investigates a series of very very odd mysteries, in each case discovering that it is down to an individual who has found a novel way to make a living, and suggesting that that person join the Club of Queer Trades, a sort of trade union for the wacky. And guess who the president of the Club is? Why it’s mad-ol’ Basil himself.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself: With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor
by James Hogg
You think the twentieth century invented the split-personality unreliable narrator. Well, here’s where it really began. Gothic Edinburgh streetscapes, blasted Lowlands landscapes and a whirlwind within the mind of the narrator all combine to create a remarkable novel that has influenced a thousand modern writers who have never heard of it.
The Third Man
by Graham Greene
Intriguingly, when Green was pitching his script for the classic film noir of black marketeering and moral nihilism in post-War Vienna, he did so by writing it first as a novella. The written form, of course, misses the movie’s unforgettable expressionist cinematography, but it has a number of interesting differences: a happier ending, no ‘cuckoo clock’ speech and the fact that it allows you into the mind of the story’s narrator, Colonel Calloway.
The Mask of Dimitrios
by Eric Ambler
A classic spying adventure story with a bit of a gothic vibe, as our hero, a mystery writer, attempts to unravel the life of the dead criminal Dimitrios, tracing him through a string of personalities, nationalities and personas. It’s both an exciting ride and a commentary on how we can be five different people at once.
Tales of Terror and Mystery
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Doyle grew to loathe his most famous creation, famously bumping him off at the Reichenbach Falls so that he would never have to write about him again – only to relent, some years later and bring him back from the dead. But during that Holmes-less period, Doyle wrote a number of short mystery stories which are just as good as those with the man in a deerstalker. Two (The Lost Special and The Man with the Watches) mention an unnamed character who might even be Holmes himself.
