2012 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge

My reading is all over the place.  One month I'm hooked on detective novels and the next I'm devouring Russian history.  I could never join a book group because I like to read what I want to read, when I want to read it.  The exception for me was Bev's 2011 Vintage Mystery Challenge.  I signed up to read 16 books, and tried to choose authors I hadn't read in a while or had never tried.  I had so much fun that I'm ready for Bev's Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2012.  I'm doing two levels this year:  Golden Age Girls and something in the Murderous Miscellany category I'm calling "Persons of Interest."  These are authors who led very interesting lives.  We'll meet masters of real-life espionage, former POW's, dancers, and a woman who fled Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution.  This one will be fun.  Here's the list.

Golden Age Girls:

The Lighthearted Quest - Ann Bridge (1956)

The Shape of a Stain - E.X. Ferrars (1942)

The Bells of Old Bailey - Dorothy Bowers (1947)

Who Killed the Curate? - Joan Coggin (1944)

The Black Smith - Constance & Gwyneth Little (1950)

Green December Grows the Graveyard - Maureen Sarsfield (1945)

Home Sweet Homicide - Craig Rice (1944)

Murder on the Purple Water - Frances Crane (1947)

Persons of Interest (Murderous Miscellany):

Lion in the Cellar - Pamela Branch (1951)

An Oxford Tragedy - J.C. Masterman (1931)

Corpse des Ballet - Lucy Cores (1944)

Death in the Quadrangle - Eilis Dillon (1956)

Murder Makes Me Nervous - Margaret Scherf (1948)

She Shall Have Murder - Delano Ames (1948)

The Widening Stain - Morris Bishop (1942)

Be Shot for Sixpence - Michael Gilbert

The Vesper Service Murders - Van Wyck Mason (1931)