A gem from our glorious past…

After Felicity posted about the Collins Crime Club last month I was curious enough to search out a few more of the classic jackets that make the books so collectable - only to find this minor masterpiece from 1935.

I know very little about Roger East, whose claim to fame now seems to lie entirely in his peculiar taste in titles. Indeed, Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors had been preceeded by both Candidate for Lilies and a debut delightfully entitled The Mystery of the Monkey Gland Cocktail. I kid you not - in fact the story of the Monkey Gland is even weirder than you think.

I was going to suggest that we just don’t name ‘em like we used to - but then that’s a hard line to pull off when our own Dry Store Room No 1 will be hitting bookshops near you in the New Year… Any other titles I should know about?