The Morgue the Merrier

I reported yesterday on a new bounty from some of my favorite small presses, and now comes a rich package of Golden Age delights from Rue Morgue Press. Catherine Aird won a rave ("a most ingenious writer") from The New Yorker for THE RELIGIOUS BODY when it first appeared. It sends Inspector C.D. Sloan into a nunnery to great effect.

And Manning Coles' two Tommy Hambledon stories set in mid-1930s Germany and London caused critic Anthony Boucher (the man who invented us all) to call them "a single long and magnificent novel of drama, intrigue and humor." Drink to Yesterday and A Toast to Tomorrow were written by two neighbors -- Cyril Henry Coles, a British Army Intelligence officer, and Adelaide Oke Manning. All great reads from the Morgue.