Review - Like a Bullet by Andrew Cartmel

Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 8 July 2025
Available as: PB, 304pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781803367941

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Like a Bullet to consider for review.

The return of Cordelia Stanmer, aka The Paperback Sleuth (she's had cards made and everything) is always welcome. Unlike her counterpart in the world or rare record collecting, Cartmel's Vinyl Detective, Cordelia's got few scruples (she's certainly up for a bit of burglary) when it comes to securing down a rare, pristine paperback volume, so life is always exciting when she's around. These books are a third mystery, a third scavenger hunt, and, perhaps, the other third has a distinct flavour of mild hedonism, Cordelia employing her gains in the pursuit of pleasures both licit and... not. 

In Like a Bullet, Cordelia's been engaged by wealthy, retired rock star Erik Make Loud (known to those who've been reading the Detective's adventures) to locate a copy of the legendary 1960s novel Commando Gold. This is a book so rare that online wars break out over whether it even exists. How can she resist that challenge (and the promised reward for achieving it)? 

Especially since, on acquiring the previous books in the series, she finds them eminently readable (not really what she'd expected from an author called "Butch Raider").

As ever, though, Cordelia doesn't really know what she's getting into. Someone really, really doesn't want that book found. There's more at stake here than a musty, mouldering volume of war stories. Soon, she' dodging a very determined enemy... one very familiar with the kinds of techniques described in the books.

As ever, I had great fun with Cartmel's latest. Cordelia's a very distinct, very well-formed character, more of a loner than the Detective (while she eventually has to ask for help in this story from her ex hard-man landlord Edwin, she generally handles things herself rather than travelling with an entourage like the Detective). She's a planner, often (but not always) one step ahead of everyone else. She inhabits the same slightly raffish south west London. Cartmel also has a good eye for location and geography, mapping out backstreets, pubs and routes into and out of London, as well as giving us glimpses of the strange characters (never quite too strange to be believable) who live there.

An excellent addition to the series.

For more information about Like a Bullet, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - Ashram Assassin by Andrew Cartmel

Ashram Assassin (Paperback Sleuth 2) 

Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 25 June 2024
Available as: PB, 320pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781803367927

I'm grateful to Titan for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Ashram Assassin to consider for review.

The Paperback Sleuth is back!

Yes, Cordelia Stanmer, brother of the execrable Stinky, the Vinyl Detective's nemesis, is in print again. Not to mention, in deadly danger.

Of course Cordelia's much nicer than her brother (though I wouldn't let her into my library and turn my back) and three hundred pages spent in her company was just what I needed among the current gloom (and manky weather). In this story, she's managed to weasel her way back into the yoga ashram from which she was earlier banned for dealing weed - but only if she can track down a cache of rare books that were stolen from the Silverlight Yoga Centre. (No, Cordelia didn't nick them herself). There's a substantial amount of money on offer too, so she sets about the task eagerly - but soon the bodies begin to pile up, and close to home.

Like the Vinyl Detective stories, Cartmel gives us a great sense of place in this story as Cordelia ranges through Putney and Barnes dodging various perils and meeting up with a number of curious characters (there is a little crossover with the other series, notably in an episode that involves Agatha and Nevada). Apart from the detecting, there's plenty of book-hunting in charity shops, sales and also a focus on food with poor Cordelia constantly baulked in her quest for the fine product from the kitchen of Carrie Quinn, the Curry Queen.

Carmel also has a good eye for character, and from the yummy mummies who seem to represent the modern clientele of the ashram to a medley of more raffish characters who have hung on from its past. he's good at exposing the contradictions and pretensions of modern life (sorry, yes that sentence is my entry for Pseud's Corner, but at the same time, it's true) especially in this perplexing semidetached part of London where buying a shed in the 70s makes you a millionaire in the 20s. I don't think there';s meant to be any moral in all that, but at the same time, the complexity of life and the murkiness of motivation behind the most seemingly noble actions is laid bare.

In Ashram Assassin, at any rate, this complexity also masks the truth about the theft. Red herrings abound and the Sleuth needs all her wits about her, because the disappearance of the books is entwined with an unlikely history that is rooted in the ashram's past, and which threatens its future - as well as hers.

With sharp characterisation, witty dialogue and abundant surprises, Ashram Assassin is compulsively readable, perhaps (slightly) even more so than Death in Fine Condition, but, above all, simply fun. 

Strongly recommended.

For more information about Ashram Assassin, see the publisher's website here.