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Murder on Christmas Eve by Cecily Gayford

Murder on Christmas Eve: Classic Mysteries for the Festive Season

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It is the time of the year for wintery,Christmas stories and short stories are well adapted to represent the different aspects of the Christmas spirit.
There are ten stories in this edition and I found perhaps two of them less attractive. Not too bad for an anthology. They are or charming and very Christmas minded or dark and very wintery.
There is a lovely story by Ellis Peters(The Trinity Cat),a rather sad one by Margery Allingham(On Christmas Day in the Morning),a closed room mystery by Julian Symons (the Santa Claus Club),a classic golden age one by John Dickson Carr (The Footprints in the Sky) and some stories by ” newer” authors (Ian Ranking,Val Mcdermid…).
All in all a very good compilation of Christmas mysteries.

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Deep Waters edited by Martin Edwards

Deep Waters - Martin Edwards

Sixteen short stories all relating to water,be it rivers,seasides,estuaries, pools and so on. And ranging in style from classic murder mysteries to tales of the unexpected. Some are good,very good indeed,and some do not quite enchant me so much. But one of the great advantages and delights of these anthologies is the fact that you are introduced to different writers(some famous like Arthur Conan Doyle,C.S.Forester,Michael Innes and some now long forgotten) and their different approach to the “murder mystery”. And notwithstanding the fact that some were written more than a century ago,they are still highly readable and are still a wonderfull source of bookish pleasure.

 

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Blood on the Tracks edited by Martin Edwards

Blood on the Tracks - Various Authors, Martin Edwards

Anthologies are always a tricky business. All the stories in this volume have a common denominator ,a train,trainstation,railroad, train travel…all play a major part in their criminal make up. And it is true that trains and stations create a very special atmosphere. This collection consists of contributions by Athur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L.Sayers,Baroness Orczy,R.Austin Freeman,Will Croft and other highly talented mystery writers. Some of these stories are very good(The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel,The Man with the Watch,The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway and many others…)and some were,well just average.

But as mentioned before,anthologies are tricky!

 

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Continental Crimes

Continental Crimes (British Library Crime Classics) - Martin Edwards, Martin Edwards

Anthologies are, generally speaking, a tricky business. Whether they are written by one author or by several authors. But “Continental Crimes” happily avoids these traps. These are solid British murder mysteries set in different countries on the continent. There are stories by Agatha Christie, Josephine Bell, Arnold Bennett, Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K.Chesterton and many others…Of course, not all the stories are brilliant, but they are very good and some are brilliant which makes this a surprisingly very good anthology.