The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories

''Although one snowflake had already sifted past the lights, the great doors of the house stood open. It seemed less a snowflake than a shadow; for a bitter wind whipped after it, and the doors creaked. Inside, Rodney and Muriel Hunter could see a dingy, narrow hall paved in dull red tiles, with a Jacobean staircase at the rear. (At that time, of course, there was no dead woman lying inside.)''

Here I am, sounding like an awful broken record! Christmas is for classics, folklore, ghost stories, and mysteries. Lots of mysteries of the good, old times when quirky characters, quaint settings, and locked room crimes were enough to create perfect enigmas. You know, so unlike the contemporary ''mystery'' novels.

British Library Crime Classics show more aims to reintroduce writers who were famous during the Golden Age of Crime and then fell into undeserved obscurity. This collection of crime stories set during Christmas is my introduction to the series and it is fabulous.

A Christmas Tragedy by Baroness Orczy: The vice of a young woman leads to persecution and awful repercussions.

By The Sword by Selwyn Jepson: An ambitious young man who is constantly feeding his obsessions with signs finds himself in the centre of a family curse.

The Christmas Card Game by Donald Stuart: The eponymous story is an ingenious tale of identity and deceit, set in a viciously freezing Christmas Eve in Bodmin Moor.

The Motive by Ronald Knox: A successful lawyer narrates a strange case set in a train. But nothing is as it seems...

Blind Man's Hood by Carter Dickson: A haunting, atmospheric story set in an imposing estate, centered around obsession, secrecy, adultery and the ghosts of the past seeking justice. In my opinion, this is the finest story in the collection.

Paul Temple's White Christmas by Francis Durbridge: The Christmas adventure of a special couple, set in Switzerland.

Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech by Cyril Hare: A story of the past we can't leave behind, of pretense and blackmailing.

A Bit of Wire-Pulling by E.C.R.Lorac: A clever tale that reminded me of Christie's finest moments.

Pattern of Revenge by John Bude: Two men vie for the same women and the consequences are devastating. A story set in Norway.

Crime at Lark Cottage by John Bingham: A man finds himself lost in a snowstorm and in the centre of a strange family dispute.

'Twixt the Cup and the Lip by Julian Symons: Christmas shopping in Oxford Street and a cunning plan. And royal jewelry. Perfection.

This collection is perfect for the readers of British-style mysteries. Ghosts, strange footprints in the snow, mysterious estates, women and men with firm motives for murder, and a unique British Christmas atmosphere. Needless to say, I need to own the entire series...

''This was perfect December weather - crispy cold, the sun shining. Oxford Street was wearing its holiday decorations - enormous gold and silver coins from which depended ropes of pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds. When lighted up in the afternoon they looked pretty, although a little garish for Mr. Payne's refined taste. But still, they had a certain symbolic feeling about them, and he smiled at them.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

I have two things to get off my chest. In the interest of full disclosure, The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories proves not as good as editor Martin Edwards’ previous holiday anthology, Silent Night (2015). Also, I received this book from NetGalley, British Library and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

Still, Edwards has compiled some real gems in his latest anthology: “By the Sword” by Selwyn Jepson, “Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech” by Cyril Hare, and the final, lengthy short story, “Twixt the Cup and the Lip” by Julian Symons. The best of all was Carter Dickson’s “Blind Man’s Hood”; sadly, I read (and reviewed) Dickson’s The Mad Hatter Mystery, and I was not impressed by his renowned show more sleuth, Dr. Gideon Fell.

On the other hand, “Crime at Lark Cottage” impressed me so much that I will seek out other works by John Bingham. So did “Paul Temple’s White Christmas” by Francis Durbridge; I definitely want to read more Paul Temple book, although the stories may only exist as radio shows. John Bude contributed “Pattern of Revenge”; I have adored Bude’s series featuring the dogged Inspector William Meredith, and I have read each one as they have been re-released. (Thank you, British Library and Poison Pen Press!) Bude did not disappoint with the short story in this wonderful anthology.

The eponymous “The Christmas Card Crimes” by Donald Stuart, “A Bit of Wire-Pulling” by E.C.R. Lorac, and “The Motive” by Ronald Knox were pleasing but nothing special. Even so, without a single dud in the bunch, Edwards has compiled an anthology that will make your holiday merry and bright. show less

This is a splendid selection of Christmas-themed murder mystery short stories. It gets off to a particularly strong start with a trio of robust seasonal murder mysteries. For example, the anthology's namesake "The Christmas Card Crime " starts like Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express "-- a group of train passengers marooned in a snowstorm and left to their own devices as a murder is committed. Of course, one or more of the passengers are not who they say they are. The next story, "By the Sword" is an excellent country house mystery. A story of a daring daylight jewelry robbery by a pair of thieves disguised as Santa Claus is the end piece of the anthology.

It's a collection of eleven short stories of even quality by well-regarded show more golden age of mystery authors. Several of them rarely wrote short stories. There's even a "ghost story" which may send shivers down a reader's spine. Others are "howdunits", where the story is about how the nasty deed was done, more than who actually did it (e.g. Lorac's "A Bit of Wire-Pulling").

This anthology shares a feature with the other British Library Crime Classics: a fine Introduction written by its editor, Martin Edwards, for the collection as a whole, which is in turn supplemented by one for each individual story. These provide interesting and helpful background on each author and their selected short story.

It's a solid collection of readable crime fiction and is a worthy potential travelling companion on a Christmas junket. The cover art is a bright winter scene that brings cheer to the season. Highly recommended by this reader.

I received an advance readers copy of this book from Poisoned Pen Press via Netgalley. The comments about it are my own. show less

The Christmas Card Crime & Other Stories are a collection of vintage short murder stories, all
with a Chismas setting. Written by popular authors of the day such as Cyril Hare, E. R. C. Lorac and John Bude, this enjoyable anthology is presented by author Martin Edwards from the British Library Crime Classics.

This collection contains 11 stories and as usual in collections such as this I preferred some of the stories over the others. In particular “By the Sword” by Selwyn Jepson and “Crime At Lark Cottage” by John Bingham were favoirites but all the stories encouraged the reader to curl up in a cozy chair and enjoy the mystery. I also enjoy that Martin Edwards always includes information about each author as I enjoy learning about show more them and I hope to see more of these editions in he future as I am a huge fan of these vintage mysteries. show less

Overall this is a solid collection of Christmas stories. I liked this one about the same as Silent Nights, the first Christmas-themed collection under the British Library Crime Classics imprint. This one has a more puzzley kind of feel, with a couple of stories that neatly hoist the villains by their own petard, whereas the first collection had more spooky stories. I liked that both collections felt a bit different from each other.

This collection features British Library Crime Classic authors Julian Symons and E.C.R. Lorac, among others, so if you've liked what the British Library has published of their works, you might like this collection too.

The third British Library Crime Classics seasonal collection (after Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries and Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries), this collection contains 11 stories as opposed to the usual 14 or 15. This allows for longer stories that feel more complete, which was definitely a plus to me. Not all of the stories included are super long; there are a couple of less than 10 pagers from authors who don't normally use the short form, like ECR Lorac and John Bude, so there's some variety.

My favorites from this collection are:

[+] "By the Sword" by Selwyn Jepson (1930)
[+] the titular story "The Christmas Card Crime" by Donald Stewart (1934)
[+] "A Bit of Wire-Pulling" by ECR Lorac (1950)
[+] "'Twixt the Cup and the Lip" by Julian Symons show more (1965)

Interestingly, only two of the included stories in this collection contain series characters. Of those two, only one was hard for me to get into (the Paul Temple short), because it's basically a vignette and we're dropped into the middle of the character's life. If you have no familiarity with said character (as I didn't) it's a little confusing.

All in all, these holiday collections have gotten better and better with each passing year. I'm looking forward to the next! show less

I'm sure I've tried reading this collection of short stories before but somehow couldn't get into it.
Right, now this feels like a wonderful time to listen to while pottering about doing other things...and defrosting the fridge.

The first story, The Christmas Tragedy by Baroness Orczy, seems quaint, but would have been thrilling at the time, and it fits in right with the likes of Sherlock Holmes.

The rest of the stories in the collection are more appealing to me now too than last year as I have read some of the authors' other works this year, and it helps to gauge what kind of stories and styles to expect. For example, there are stories by Cyril Hare and Ronald Knox in this collection, which I now know had a completely different style show more from each other.

So, while sometimes short story collections are a great way to explore new authors, it seems to work the opposite way for me with this one.

Also, I am looking forward to the Paul Temple story in this one. I'm sure I've read it before, but I love revisiting a Paul Temple story. And after all, is there anyone who can tell the Paul Temple stories apart? ;P show less