Tenant For Death (1937) by Cyril Hare

I am back for another installment of Crimes of the Century hosted by Rich over at Pastoffences. Each month Rich round-ups all of book and film reviews relating to a particular year in crime fiction, written by us bloggers. This month we are in 1937. A year which I know nothing about.

Tenant For Death

by Cyril Hare

An Inspector Mallett Mystery

Two young estate agent's clerks are sent to check an inventory on a house. Daylesford Gardens, South Kensington, is an unlikely address for the discovery of death by strangulation. Even more unusual is that the house does not belong to the deceased financier. In the meantime, the mysterious tenant, Colin James, has disappeared. Inspector Mallett of Scotland Yard is brought in to unravel a complicated trail. Mallett gets to work very soon, linking the murder with the release from prison of an ex-banker, who'd been connected with a notorious fraud case.

About the Author

Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark (1900-1958) was an English judge and crime writer who wrote under the pseudonym Cyril Hare. Gordon Clark's pseudonym was a mixture of Hare Court, where he worked, and Cyril Mansions, where he lived after marrying. Tenant For Death was his first novel in 1937. 

Bonus Cover 

 

Printing History

Faber & Faber, UK 1937 and 2008

Dodd Mead, US 1937

Dover Publications 1981 

Harper & Row 1982

Kindle Edition 2016

Thrills Incorporated #6

Thrills Incorporated #6

Contents 

Meeting On Mars 

Durham Keys
(Durham Keys Garton 1925-?)

Trapped by his own cleverness, in a world he plotted to destroy!

Spaceway's Checkmate

D K Garton
(Durham Keys Garton 1925-?)

All her moves had been checkmated, she had one more king, that move decided the fate of the world.

Dimensional Discord

Rick Harte
(Durham Keys Garton 1925-?)

With the twist of a knob, horror stalked the universe in the fourth dimensional realm.

Two Heads, One Tale

Ace Carter
(Gordon Clive Bleeck 1907-1971)

When a learned professor starts seeing trouble, he's headed for trouble, double trouble.

Murder In Tomorrow

Roger Garradine
(Alan G Yates 1923-1985)

Even in the future yesterday's murder can condemn a man.

 Printing History

Associated General Publications Pty Ltd

August 1950

Terror Comes Creeping (1959) by Carter Brown

We step back a year to 1959 in the Crimes Of The Century over at  Past Offences  Rich has been hosting this monthly event  that features a different year in which us bloggers contributes a post about crime fiction book, film, TV, comics, or a short story. For my contribution will be...............................

Terror Comes Creeping 

by Carter Brown

Danny Boyd goes on a back-to-nature kick that is murder

 

The beautiful brunette's mother had made her a millionaire. Now her father wanted to make her a corpse.

The brunette was very beautiful and very scared. She looked private Danny Boyd in the eye and shuddered once. Then she calmly told him that her father was planning on killing her. She claimed he had murdered her brother and was trying to get rid of her sister. And that she was third on the list. She had no proof to back her story, only cold green cash. She might be crazy, but she was also crazy rich. She was Danny's favorite kind of client. So Danny decided to take the lovely lady's case. And tag her father a killer. 

Printing History

Written by Alan G Yates (1922-1985)

Horwitz Edition

Numbered Series #81 1959

Signet Edition
December 1959

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

Clint Eastwood is an art history professor, mountain climber, and former assassin who was once employed by a secret United States government agency. He is blackmailed into returning to his deadly profession and do one more "sanction". He later agrees to join an international climbing team in Switzerland planning an ascent of the Eiger north face in order to complete a second sanction to avenge the murder of an old friend.

Cast

• Clint Eastwood as Jonathan Hemlock
• George Kennedy as Ben Bowman
• Vonetta McGee as Jemima Brown
• Jack Cassidy as Miles Mellough
• Heidi Brühl as Anna Montaigne
• Thayer David as Dragon
• Gregory Walcott as Pope
• Reiner Schöne as Karl Freytag
• Michael Grimm as Anderl Meyer
• Jean-Pierre Bernard as Jean-Paul Montaigne

 Trivia

Based on the 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction, by Trevanian (Rodney William Whitaker 1931-2005)

October 1972

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays

MacGyver (1985-1992)

MacGyver was an American action-adventure television series created by Lee David Zlotoff.  The show ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992. The show follows the exploits of secret agent Angus MacGyver, played by Richard Dean Anderson, who works as a troubleshooter for the fictional Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles and as an agent for a fictional United States government agency, the Department of External Services. MacGyver solves complex problems by making things out of ordinary objects, along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife. He favors non-violent resolutions and prefers not to handle a gun. The clever solutions MacGyver implemented to seemingly unsolvable problems‍, often in life-or-death situations, requiring him to improvise complex devices in a matter of minutes‍.

 

Cast 

Richard Dean Anderson as Angus MacGyver, secret agent

Dana Elcar as Pete Thornton, MacGyver's boss and best friend

Bruce McGill as Jack Dalton, MacGyver's comical best friend

Michael Des Barres as Murdoc, MacGyver's most frequent opponent

Season 1: September 29, 1985 to May 7, 1986

Season 2: September 22, 1986 to May 4, 1987

Season 3: September 21, 1987 to May 9, 1988

Season 4: October 31, 1988 to May 15, 1989

Season 5: September 18, 1989 to April 30, 1990

Season 6: September 17, 1990 to May 6, 1991

Season 7: September 16, 1991 to May 21, 1992

Death Of A Citizen by Donald Hamilton

 My contribution for the month of December for the Crimes Of The Century over at Past Offences will the first Matt Helm adventure, Death Of A Citizen. Rich hosts this monthly event  that features a different year in which us bloggers contributes a post about crime fiction book, film, TV, comics, or a short story. This month we are in 1960.

Death Of A Citizen

by Donald Hamilton

When danger strikes, who is the man to take control? 

Matt Helm!

 

Name: Matthew Helm

Code Name: Eric

A citizen dies and a wartime special agent is reborn, as the girl with the code name of Tina walks into a cocktail party and 15 years of Matt Helm's complacent post-war life slips away. Suddenly the old automatics reactions take over and Matt is thrust back to the time when he had been a lethal young animal trained to kill. And she had been his partner.

After the war. After the carnage. After being labeled a lethal weapon. It was time for a little peace and quiet. Married life agrees with him.

Cover by John McDermott

  Printing History

written by Donald Hamilton (1916-2006)

Fawcett Gold Medal World Library

February 1960

Ballantine Books

November 1984

March 1988

The Jerusalem File by Linda Stewart

I am back for another contribution to the Crimes of the Century meme, hosted by Rich at Past Offences. Every month he designates a year and bloggers contribute a post on a crime fiction book (or film, TV, comics, or short story) published in that year. This time around we are in the year 1975.
My contribution will be...........

The Jerusalem File
By Linda Stewart

Arab terrorists have kidnapped the world's ten wealthiest men and it is up to Nick Carter, "Killmaster", to find them.

Four Savage Men

Leonard Foxx: American millionaire, kidnapped in a bloody shootout.

Jackson Robey: AXE's man in Tel Aviv, found dead in an alley, knifed in the back.

Al Shaitan: Leader of a ruthless terror gang, missing along with a billion dollars in untraceable cash.

Nick Carter: Killmaster, N3, on a lethal mission to rescue the world's ten most important men.

Al Shaitan

Its name is "The Devil"

Its work is terror.

Its aim is....

No one knows its aim for sure

Not the CIA

Not AXE 

Not Nick Carter

It was Nick Carter's job to find out what Al Shaitan is after and just what kind of terror they think their ransom will buy.  But first Nick had to find Al Shaitan. For Nick there is only one sure fire way to find the enemy, walk into an alley and see who tries to kill you. Then make sure you kill them first.

Printing History

Written by Linda Stewart

Award AQ1400 1975

Charter  38951 1978 ($1.50)

Universal 426 18470 1978

Star 352 30666 1980

Licence Renewed by John Gardner

Relaunching the James Bond literary franchise

In 1979, Glidrose Publications approached John Gardner and asked him to revive Ian Fleming's James Bond series of novels. Gardner was tasked with updating James Bond and his allies and transporting them into the 1980s. Updating the time frame to the 1980s, Gardner's series picks up the career of James Bond some years after the Fleming novels ended.

 

When Licence Renewed begins, M reminds James Bond that the 00 section has in fact been abolished. But M retains Bond as a troubleshooter, telling him "You'll always be 007 to me". Bond is assigned to investigate one Dr. Anton Murik, a brilliant nuclear physicist who is thought to have been having meetings with a terrorist named Franco. Franco is identified and tracked by MI5 to a village in Scotland called Murcaldy. Since Murcaldy is outside of MI6's jurisdiction, the Director-General of MI5, Richard Duggan requests that M send Bond to survey Murik. Relying on information that MI5 did not have, M changes Bond's assignment to instead infiltrate Murik's Scottish castle and gain Murik's confidence. James Bond makes contact with Murik at Ascot Racecourse where he feigns a coincidental meeting, mentioning to Murik that he is a mercenary looking for work. Later, Bond joins Murik in Scotland at Murik's behest and is hired to kill Franco, for reasoning at the time unknown. Franco in turn has been tasked by Murik to kill his young ward, Lavender Peacock because she was the true heir to the Murik fortune, which could only be proved by secret documents kept in a hidden safe within the castle. Murik's plan is revealed to hijack six nuclear power plants around the world simultaneously with the aid of bands of terrorists supplied by Franco. To ensure that Murik can never be associated to this deal, he attempts to use Bond to assassinate Franco. Ultimately terrorists do take over six nuclear power plants, but are prevented from starting a meltdown when they are given an abort code by Bond, believing him to be Murik. Murik is eventually defeated by Bond and Lavender before his demands are met.

Printing History

Written by John Edmund Gardner (1926-2007)

UK first hardback edition: May 1981 by Jonathan Cape
US first hardback edition: April 1981 by G. P. Putnam's Sons
UK first paperback edition: 1982 by Coronet Books
US first paperback edition: May 1982 by Berkley Books

 

Trivia

The U.S. hardcover edition sold more than 130,000 copies.

Bonus Cover

 

Point Of No Return (1993)

Point of No Return (1993)

A violent and unstable female drug addict is found guilty of murdering a police officer, and is sentenced to death by lethal injection. Her death is faked, and a secret government agency informs her that she is to become an assassin. She is given a makeover and training that transform her into a beautiful woman, and she is also trained as a killer. Her career as an assassin goes well at first. Then, after a mission goes awry, the agency sends out a "cleaner" to kill everyone and destroy the bodies.

  Cast

Bridget Fonda as Maggie Hayward/Claudia Anne Doran/Nina
Gabriel Byrne as Bob
Dermot Mulroney as J.P.
Anne Bancroft as Amanda
Harvey Keitel as Victor
Miguel Ferrer as Kaufman
Olivia d'Abo as Angela
Richard Romanus as Fahd Bakhtiar
Lorraine Toussaint as Beth

 

Note

Remake of the 1990 film Nikita.