Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

> FAQ Home
> Tag: 1940s

Alas, Not As Fun As the Last One, Still Can’t Go Wrong with PM.

The Case of the Crooked Candle by Earle Stanley Gardner

by Leave a Comment

Quick question for any of you nautical types out there.  You can see from the title that a key clue involves a candle.  Said candle has been burning in an interior cabin on a small yacht, completely unattended for a period of time.  Is this a thing, even in the 1940s?  Seriously, Gardner?  Aren’t those vessels infamously, well, woody?  SMH. OK, aside from blatant safety violations, this case had to do with a lot of trotting back and forth along the Ventura coastline, with the […]

Perry Mason without a courtroom in sight. This is a total trip.

The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito - Perry Mason #23 by Erle Stanley Gardener

by Leave a Comment

cbr square series Well, now, it’s been a minute, hasn’t it?  Man, I love this series, and this one, #23, was just plain fun.  Not a courtroom in sight, and instead of Paul Drake putting in a bit of sleuthing footwork for Perry, he gets to be bait.  A good time was had by all. Banning Clarke and Salty Bowers are a pair of prospectors, seeking lost gold mines in Southern California. (Ahahaha, sure, boys.)  But Banning got mixed up with a wealthy dame (now […]

Fiction or no? Doesn’t matter, SO good!

Storm by George R. Stewart

by Leave a Comment

Some things about California never change.  Water is the essential element in this state, and there is always either too much or not enough.  And sometimes the difference between these two states can be measured in a matter of hours.  Much like our recent storm, this one sprang up mid-Pacific, got shoved down by frigid air from the Canadian prairie, and ended up in northern California, dumping rain through the mid-state and heavy snow in the Sierras, with some rain heading off to southern California, […]

Guinness book of world records, record for least Miss Marple in a Miss Marple book.

The Moving Finger (Miss Marple, #4) by Agatha Christie

by 1 Comment

This was fun, but it felt much less like a whodunit than I wanted it to, and Miss Marple came in late to the story even for Miss Marple. I think it may be a record of some sort, how little and how late she was in this book (and her parts were the best parts). Our narrator is actually Jerry Barton, a man who has moved to the small village of Lymstock on the advice of his doctor. Jerry is recovering from a plane […]

Love, Hound Dogs and Country Music

Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt

by Leave a Comment

I like Kimberly Willis Holt as an author. I think most things she has written, even if I am not a huge fan, I will enjoy. Yet, I really went at Dear Hank Williams with no expectations. Granted, my first thought was “How many kids are going to know who Hank Williams is?” But soon realized that is not the important part. This book might be set in the late 1940’s but in many ways, it could be set almost anytime. There is some history […]

I Loved Laura, Except for . . .

Laura by Vera Caspary

by Leave a Comment

Another book from my personal challenge of reading the source material for favorite classic movies: Laura, by Vera Caspary. This book is a detective noir, as hard-boiled and cynical as any of the genre, but written by a woman. It was originally published, a la Dickens, as a serial, “Ring Twice for Laura,” in Colliers Magazine in 1942/43. The  classic film noir, starring Gene Tierney as Laura and Dana Andrews as a detective who finds himself falling in love with a dead woman as he […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo