Normally I’m one of those people who get a bit scratchy about the rampant commercialism in the shops, and the fact that Christmas items start sneaking onto the shelves as early as September; however, an unexpected arrival at the Ramblings courtesy of the wonderful peeps at British Library Publishing set me thinking about festive gifts, and I have to say it will be the ideal thing for anyone who loves Golden Age crime!

This is it – “The Pocket Detective”, compiled by Kate Jackson:

And great fun it is too! I was in the BL earlier in the year with my BFF J.; we’re both fans of the Crime Classics and were investigating the shop while visiting the place, and I’m pretty sure there was a poster up advertising this little book. It wasn’t available yet, but I imagine is being launched for the Christmas market, for which it’s of course perfect. It’s a fairly safe bet that fans of GA crime are also going to like puzzles (as the latter is a major element of the genre) and “The Pocket Detective” is stuffed with them.

There are crosswords; word searches; cross out the word; odd ones out; missing vowels; really, every kind of word-based puzzle you could imagine. Those would be treat enough, but the book goes a little further with a section about 30 pages long featuring colour visual puzzles. These are drawn from the wonderful cover images of the Crime Classics which have been tweaked or distorted so you have to spot the differences or identify which book the image is from. Great fun!

Although the focus is naturally on the books the BL publish, the riddles aren’t restricted to just those. In fact, they cover all manner of classic crime, and I was pleased to find that I sailed through several of the Agatha Christie-themed tests! (Well – I have been reading her work since I was about 12!) Sayers is there too, as well as the newly rediscovered names from the Crime Classics, and it’s fun to pit yourself against the compiler’s ingenious conundrums. Jackson blogs about classic crime fiction at Cross Examining Crime, and she obviously knowns her stuff!

Obviously, “The Pocket Detective” is the perfect gift; either for the reader of crime in your life, or just yourself! I can imagine that it would be the ideal thing to occupy yourself with while everyone else is sleeping off Christmas lunch – or in fact at any other time of the day. It’s ideal as the darker nights draw in, and I can see it keeping me very busy (and distracting me from actual reading) over forthcoming weeks. Do yourself a favour – add it to your Christmas wishlist… 😉