Thomas F. (hardtack) -
Any time you read stories in an anthology, you find three different types of stories: really good, good, and better-left-unread. This collection of stories was unusual in that it provided tales from the early days of mystery fiction. As such, some of the themes are outdated and quite often the language in the stories makes you wonder if people really spoke like that. Bu then they, like I, would have trouble reading messages "texted" to them.
Many of the ways the mysteries were solved used a great deal of deduction, as that was a popular theme then. In fact, some of the authors spent most of their stories explaining how deduction solved the crime. And some of that deduction would raise eyebrows today, as in "We have an unsolvable crime---so I just use my exceptional intelligence to ponder it, and voila! Here is how the crime was committed and who the criminal is." There was one story about a racing scam which used men's cologne to commit the crime. It really required a stretch of my imagination to accept how that crime was solved.
And, one story, which went into great detail about how the crime was being committed---as it was in progress---ended with the criminal walking away unsuspected with the goods. Yet the author only hints as to why the crime was committed.
Still, most of the stories were entertaining reads. I think I only scanned one to get to the end. There are 31 stories in 571 pages, averaging 18-19 pages each. So you could easily read one or two stories at a sitting, then be off to do other things.
Many of the ways the mysteries were solved used a great deal of deduction, as that was a popular theme then. In fact, some of the authors spent most of their stories explaining how deduction solved the crime. And some of that deduction would raise eyebrows today, as in "We have an unsolvable crime---so I just use my exceptional intelligence to ponder it, and voila! Here is how the crime was committed and who the criminal is." There was one story about a racing scam which used men's cologne to commit the crime. It really required a stretch of my imagination to accept how that crime was solved.
And, one story, which went into great detail about how the crime was being committed---as it was in progress---ended with the criminal walking away unsuspected with the goods. Yet the author only hints as to why the crime was committed.
Still, most of the stories were entertaining reads. I think I only scanned one to get to the end. There are 31 stories in 571 pages, averaging 18-19 pages each. So you could easily read one or two stories at a sitting, then be off to do other things.
