Lighting the Pipes

In this gritty crime thriller, Detective Sergeant John Rebus makes his literary debut. Ian Rankin draws on rich material from the city of Edinburgh and his native Scotland in sculpting his protagonist's first adventure. From the dank alleyways of Auld Reekie to the spirited influence of Stevenson's "Jekyll and Hyde", Rankin works hard with his first Rebus novel to establish an immersive world of c...

A grizzly harpoon murder and a protégé inspector lure Sherlock and Watson out of London and into the remote Weald of East Sussex in this atmospheric adventure. Originally published in 1904, this yarn was collected and re-published a year later in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes". Our "Sherlock Selects" Summer mini-series continues here with a return to this dark story of revenge and retribution spa...

Our "Sherlock Selects" mini-series continues to buffer the Summer's bigger reads, this time with a conversation on "The Bruce Partington Plans" from May 2018. Originally published in 1908 (and featured in the later collection "His Last Bow") this story of stolen government plans in a fog-draped London overflows with intrigue and eventually ranked as one of Conan Doyle's own favourites. We had fun...

Published in 1977, "A Morbid Taste For Bones" introduced Brother Cadfael to the world, a Welsh Benedictine monk of the 12th Century with a penchant for solving crimes. Although Ellis Peters establishes a dynamic back-story for her protagonist, set amidst the turmoil of the First Crusade, the vibe of his first adventure is decidedly more "crofter intrigue" than "conflicts of war". Led by the suspec...

Second in our series of "Sherlock Selects" for the Summer is "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box". Originally published in January of 1893 (and first covered on LTP in June of 2017), Conan Doyle himself ruled against anthologizing this tale due to its controversial subject matter. But you can't keep a good story down and "The Cardboard Box" would soon enough see wide release in both the UK and Ame...

This season, we'll be buffering new episodes with re-introduced and smaller story reviews. For these selections, we reach back into our first season vaults and renew our love for some favourite Sherlock pieces and chats. First up is "The Abbey Grange", one of Josh's choices from The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Originally published in March of 2018, we had a great time talking through the beats of t...

"Later" marks the third and most recent crime story written by Stephen King for the Hard Case Crime label. Offering readers a predictable mix of the supernatural and police procedural, the horror master's latest tale continues his career penchant for coming-of-age narratives with soul-searching themes. Josh and Scott break down the narrative and weigh its subtle strengths as series three of LTP pi...

Josh and Scott kick off a new series of crime story explorations with a trip to Lindsey Davis's Ancient Rome, guided by Imperial Informant, Marcus Didius Falco. "The Silver Pigs" is set in AD 70, during the rule of Vespasian, and travels from the Aventine to Roman Britain where a conspiracy involving the trade of silver ingots propels Falco further into deep and dangerous territory. Join us for a...

For their series finale on the Philip Marlowe novels, Scott and Josh reflect on their reading of the canonical sweep and rank the stories and features of Raymond Chandler's enduring collection.

Chandler's final complete Marlowe novel was written at a time of deteriorating health and tumultuous circumstances for the author. Not surprisingly, some of these conflicts from 1958 find their way into the story. Marlowe is different here and the narrative is markedly unique, in ways both satisfying and off-putting to readers. Josh and Scott complete their "Marlowe Sweep" by examining the context...

1953 saw the publication of Raymond Chandler's sixth Philip Marlowe novel, "The Long Goodbye". Chandler himself regarded it as his best work and many fans agree. Nevertheless, behind the scenes it was getting harder for Chandler to find peace. Personal issues and professional conflicts continued to grow, marring his sense of contentment. Josh and Scott sit down to expose the context behind this pe...

Driven by amphetamine, Graham Greene knocked out this thriller in only 6 weeks of 1939 in a rented room of a Bloomsbury flat. He wrote fervently as premonitions of a second world war grew more tangible around him. Josh and Scott take a break from their Raymond Chandler campaign to investigate and weigh the merits of this compelling espionage adventure.

After a five-year hiatus, Raymond Chandler returns to the world of Philip Marlowe with "The Little Sister". His small-town client brings big-city trouble as the investigation into her missing brother turns up a lot of Tinseltown intrigue, including ice-pick murders and sexual betrayal. Coloured by Chandler's own experiences within the studio system, this fifth Marlowe adventure shows no mercy in p...

For his fourth novel, Raymond Chandler sends detective Philip Marlowe away from the steamy tumult of Los Angeles and up into the fresh mountain air in search of a client's missing wife. The investigation starts simply enough but soon careens along a grotty path of quick-fire hunches and deadly secrets that take no prisoners. Josh and Scott drag the narrative waters of this complex caper as their s...

Commenting on the gigantic success of his company, Walt Disney once famously said "...it was all started by a mouse". Years later, it would again be a mouse that helped to safeguard Disney's future, this time by restoring hope and energy into its animation wing. 1986's "The Great Mouse Detective" is a smaller cog in the studio's machine but one full of curios and performances that merit discussion...

While it may snuff the hopes of Sherlockians in search of a faithful adaptation of Conan Doyle's detective, there's still a lot to enjoy about Netflix's "Enola Holmes". Scott and Josh are joined in this special episode by their "Bond By Numbers" co-host, Jeff Chapman, to review the film and discuss the controversies surrounding its release.

Raymond Chandler's third novel offers readers a different look at detective Philip Marlowe than afforded in his first two outings while expanding on themes of spiritual decay and corruption. A missing wife, a lost doubloon and a frightened secretary are three early clues that our protagonist follows as his case for the grizzled matriarch, Mrs Murdock, gains traction. What unfolds is a story of gro...

Raymond Chandler fought hard, insisting that the title for his second Philip Marlowe novel was right in playing off more erudite connotations of romance and drama. Like "The Big Sleep" before it, "Farewell" is a challenging text, at times both raucous and textured, driven by smoky characters, clever prose and explosive narrative impetus. Los Angeles and its criminal environs are again decorated fo...

Bowman and the BFG kick off their Raymond Chandler review series with "The Big Sleep". After introducing the writer's early life and formative years for the journey ahead, the foundations for the publication of his first novel are established. Finally, the PIPES are resurrected and "The Big Sleep" goes under the microscope.

Lighting the Pipes is returning! Join Scott and Josh (Bowman & the BFG) for a new season of reading, research and reviewing as they scour the streets with Raymond Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe. You heard right, sweethearts! So trade in the deerstalker and riding crop for a fedora and .44: dirty crime and social slime demands our attention this season!

The Finale! After nearly two years of happy hiking and in-depth analysis through the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle's canon, Scott and Josh descend from their adventures in this final episode with some well-deserved takes on the series. In addition to ranking some fun and key features of the canon, Bowman and the BFG take on the big challenge of selecting 25 stories from the canon to preserve and rec...

Ta-Da! Episode 21 sees Josh and Scott bring their 20-month canonical tour to an end with a final hurdle over the remaining stories of "The Case-Book" and reach the summit of Mt. Sherlockia. This final reading episode has got it all (for better or worse): jealous wives, monkey-men, dastardly jellyfish, suspicious dogs, circus tragedy and vengeful decorators. The heavy-lifting now done, "Lighting th...

Episode 20 sees Josh and Scott tackle four further stories from The Case-Book and creep closer to the conclusion of their exhaustive labour of love. First up is "The Mazarin Stone", whose dramatic, adapted features are more than evident than its supposed creativity (ooh, burn!). "The Three Gables" sees Holmes and Watson investigating a strange property proposal and a foreign "lady of favour", whos...

Recorded on holiday in Canada, Episode 19 sees Bowman and the BFG reunited in person after 3 years and lighting their pipes over the first two installments of ACD's final Holmes story collection. The adventure begins with the "Illustrious Client" where we meet one of the better villains seen for a while in the canon. Scott and Josh then chew the fat over the "Blanched Soldier" and its variety of p...

In Episode 18, Scott and Josh punch their first-class tickets and complete "His Last Bow", the penultimate Holmes collection, with an analysis of three remaining stories. After chasing Lady Frances Carfax (somewhat pointlessly) to Switzerland and back again, Bowman & the BFG pedicure the slopes and edges of "The Devil's Foot". They close shop by reviewing the titular story and its patriotic fa...