Thursday, September 9, 2021

A Score of Fine Street Fare: The Best of John Rhode and Miles Burton

Now that I've rated all the John Street detective novels, I suppose the time has come to list my Top Twenty.  So without further ado, here they are, in chronological order, Rhodes first, Burtons following:

Dr. Priestley thinks it through, to the inescapable conclusion
You may recognize some of the names on the left!

JOHN RHODE (13)

The House on Tollard Ridge (1929)

The Davidson Case (1929)

The Claverton Affair (1933)

The Venner Crime (1933)

The Robthorne Mystery (1934)

Poison for One (1934)

Shot at Dawn (1934)

The Corpse in the Car (1935)

Death on the Board (1937)

The Bloody Tower (1938)

They Watched by Night (1942)

Vegetable Duck (1944)

Death on Harley Street (1946)

MILES BURTON (7)

The Secret of High Eldersham (1930)

Where Is Barbara Prentice? (1936)

The Platinum Cat (1938)

Murder MD (1943)

The Three-Corpse Trick (1944)

The Cat Jumps (1946)

Bones in the Brickfield (1958)


I had to include one 4-star only so out of the many I went with Bones in the Brickfield, just to show that there was life in the old dude yet, even as he neared the end of his long second career.  Revolving a whole plot around the discovery of a dinosaur fossil in an English village--that alone shows some charming originality, after nearly 140 mysteries! 

5 comments:

  1. Wonder if Death Sits on the Board by John Rhode is the same book in your list. Unfortunately the only two I can easily access are Death Sits on the Board and The Robthorne Mystery.

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    1. Yes, it's the same book. Mysterious Press is reprinting some of these, if that helps. I hope eventually they will all be brought back.

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    2. It seems Mysterious Press though only offers e-books? I really prefer an actual book and only settle for an e-book if I have no other choice.

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  2. Thank you. I am happy to have this Rhode / Burton overview. With prolific authors like Carr, Flynn, Gilbert, Quentin / Stagge, Queen, Bush, Lorac, McCloy, Connington, etc., it is helpful to have a guide of which works in their respective output are worth finding.

    This is especially useful with an author like Street under his various pseudonyms as so many of his titles frustratingly remain out of print ... and I don't want to spend too much money on a secondhand copy that turns out to be mediocre.

    Keep going ... you're blog remains a great source of GAD knowledge and I continue to learn much from you. Well done.

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