Tony Medawar

Mystery stories from Golden Age authors that haven't been collected anywhere since their original publication. Most of those original sources were fairly obscure, and there are a couple of stories here that were genuinely lost and are being published for the first time.

There are authors who are still read today -- Christie, Heyer, Brand, Milne, Berkeley -- along with authors who have fallen into relative obscurity in the 21st century, but were major names in their day -- Freeman Willis show more Crofts, Cyril Hare, H. C. Bailey.

The most striking thing about the stories as a group is how bare-bones they are. The facts of the case are presented, often in the form of one lawyer/policeman/detective talking to another, with no embellishment, followed without delay by the solution. There's no time wasted on red herrings, character development, subplots, or misdirection.

There are a lot of wills. A. A. Milne and Cyril Hare come at similar "who's in the will" stories from opposite angles in (respectively) "Bread Upon the Waters" and "The Euthanasia of Hilary's Aunt;" Hare pulls off his twist more effectively.

Clothing is integral to both Leo Bruce's "The Inverness Cape" and Freeman Willis Crofts's "Dark Waters." Two of the selections are actually short plays, Ernest Bramah's "Blind Man's Bluff" and Nicholas Blake's "Calling James Braithwaite," the latter written for radio.

Some of the stories carry introductory warning notes about the less enlightened social attitudes of the era. The worst offender here is Arthur Upfield's "The Fool and the Perfect Murder," featuring his series character Napoleon Bonaparte. No, not that Napoleon; this one is a mixed-race Aboriginal Australian detective, and there's a lot of unfortunate racial essentialism about how he has both "the white man's gift for reason and the black man's bush-tracking skills." A shame, because taken strictly as a mystery, it's one of the cleverer stories in the book.

Other highlights: Anthony Berkeley's "The Man with the Twisted Thumb," which starts with a mixup of identical handbags and becomes the book's most narratively complex story; J. J. Connington's "Before Insulin," the best of the collected stories about wills; and Georgette Heyer's "Linckes' Great Case," which gives us better character development than most of these stories.

Medawar has unearthed enough "lost" Golden Age stories that there are now six volumes in the Bodies from the Library series, with a seventh due in late 2025. I didn't love the first volume so much that I'll instantly rush out for more, but the next time I'm in the mood for more old-fashioned mystery, I might grab another. show less

A good collection on an excellent idea. These last several years I've found myself enjoying older mysteries over newer ones, probably mostly due to the lower body count and the awfulness of the victims. I appreciate that reading fiction is helpful in building empathy, but I am reading for distraction from the cares of the day, so a simple puzzle is more relaxing. And too, I'm tired of the modern victims so often being pretty young women, which probably makes it easier to sell to Hollywood, show more but is annoying. There are a number of authors who center women, and those I like very much indeed.
Anyway, enough "you young writers get off my yard." The glorious thing about the genre is that it contains multitudes: none of us is ever going to run out of really good reads.
The two primary advantages of this collection lie in its ability to bring "forgotten" authors and works to our attention. Most of the writers here were unknown to me, and discovering their often astoundingly extensive backlist is such a gift. But wait, don't answer yet, because the other cool thing Medwar has done is include works which aren't actually stories. Old radio scripts are totally fresh pastures. He does a nice job with the author blurbs, too, it's helpful getting pen names and series references. And I really like the the warnings for offensive racist content. One expects to encounter objectionable attitudes, but being forewarned is helpful.
I don't suppose anyone is going to really like all the stories, but they're a fair mix. Everyone is likely to find something new and delightful.

Library copy, as it should be. show less

As you might expect, this collection contains stories from notable authors of the Golden Age of crime fiction. The authors are chosen from the US and the UK, and some will be recognizable to readers who enjoy the British Library Crime Classics series (E.C.R. Lorac makes an appearance) and the new American Mystery Classics (Q Patrick, one of the variant names of Patrick Quentin). Big names include Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Christianna Brand. And some of the show more stories have never before been published, notably the Sayers and the Edmund Crispin stories.

I sampled a few stories from this collection and had better luck with the shorter ones. Some of the stories are novellas and feel a bit tiring for that reason, although that could have been down to my personal circumstances. And of course, because of the time period, there are some frustrating gender dynamics (the end of Q Patrick’s story infuriated me for that reason). But there’s a good range of stories, and I liked that the biographical profiles of each author were tucked in after their story, so if you didn’t want to read them, you could easily skip over them.

This collection is worth checking out if you like any of these authors or mysteries set in this time period. show less

This collection of short stories from various Golden Age mystery writers was a mixed bag. I mean, they all are but this one struck me as more so than others. Maybe this was because there was no overarching theme to this collection.

And it somehow felt as if the story by Agatha Christie was only added to carry the rest of the book.

Dame Agatha's contribution was interesting, but not a favourite.

One thing that I have taken away from this is that Cyril Hare is definitely becoming one of my show more favourite GA mystery writers. His works tend to have a dark side, but with quite a bit of humor and irony, too. show less