Serpents in Eden: Countryside Crimes

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 276
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating:

Synopsis:

'The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.... Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.' - Sherlock Holmes

Many of the greatest British crime writers have explored the possibilities of crime in the countryside in lively and ingenious short stories. Serpents in Eden celebrates the rural British mystery by bringing together an eclectic mix of crime stories written over half a century. From a tale of poison-pen letters tearing apart a village community to a macabre mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, the stories collected here reveal the dark truths hidden in an assortment of rural paradises. Among the writers included here are such major figures as G. K. Chesterton and Margery Allingham, along with a host of lesser-known discoveries whose best stories are among the unsung riches of the golden age of British crime fiction between the two world wars.

As ever, the British Library Crime Classics series editor, Martin Edwards, put together a spread of stories by different authors and from slightly different periods for Serpents in Eden, themed around mysteries set in the countryside. Some of them are better than others, but overall I thought it was a pretty strong collection.

A highlight for me was the R. Austin Freeman story; he’s always so thorough, and while in this one I had an idea what Thorndyke was looking for, it was interesting to see the process unfold. At least as far as the detecting part goes — the spy stuff was a little less interesting to me, but that just provides the motive, and not much of the actual mystery part.

For some reason this one did take me longer to finish than I’d have guessed, so I guess it was a bit slow/the majority of the stories were quite long, but it’s not like I minded that.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Cyanide in the Sun and Other Stories of Summertime Crime

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating:

Synopsis:

“All about them, happy holiday-makers were strolling and laughing, evidently oblivious of the prevailing perils of their chosen resort...”

A cold case of poisonings heats up at a quaint guest house. A string of suspicious murders follows a crime writer’s tour bus. Two seedy stowaways uncover an infamous smuggling ring. Everyone needs a break now and then, but sometimes getting away can be murder.

In this new anthology, Martin Edwards presents a jam-packed travel-case of eighteen classic mysteries, featuring short stories from crime fiction legends such as Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley and Celia Fremlin alongside rare finds revived from the British Library archives. Including intriguing notes on the stories and their authors, this volume is your ticket to a thrilling journey from 1920s seaside skulduggery through to calamity in 1980s suburbia – perfect for armchair travelling or your own summer getaway.

Cyanide in the Sun and Other Stories of Summertime Crime is, as usual, edited by Martin Edwards and collects a range of “classic” crime stories (where “classic” means mostly within a certain period of crime fiction, rather than “well known and has stood the test of time”, etc), this time themed around holidays.

There’s a surprising number of short ones in this volume, which makes it speed by quite a bit, and I feel like there was less reliance on the same few obvious names (though of course Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley and Julian Symons do appear), maybe. Perhaps the net is being cast a bit wider now, with so many collections already out there.

As usual, there were one or two I didn’t care for, but it’s an interesting collection as a whole.

Rating: 3/5

Lessons in Crime: Academic Mysteries

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 336
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating:

Synopsis:

An Oxford Master slain on campus during Pentecost. A pupil and teacher face off with a conniving uncle suspected of murder. A sociology student turns the tables on the lies and fictions of an English undergraduate.

In the hush of the college library and the cacophonies of school halls, tensions run higher than is healthy and academic achievement can be to die for. Delving into the stacks and tomes of the British Library collections, Martin Edwards invites you to a course on the darker side of scholarly ambition with an essential reading list of masterful short stories.

With a teaching cohort including esteemed writers such as Dorothy L Sayers, Celia Fremlin, Michael Innes and the commanding Arthur Conan Doyle, this new anthology offers an education in the beguiling art of mystery writing.

Lessons in Crime is a pretty recent collection from the British Library Crime Classics series, edited as usual by Martin Edwards. Unsurprisingly, this one focuses on mystery stories set in academic settings — schools, weekend courses, and of course, universities.

There are some big names here — Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle — and some lesser-known ones, along with ones that are familiar to me from these anthologies, such as E.W. Hornung. As ever, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: I’m not a huge fan of Reggie Fortune and A.J. Raffles as characters, but in a collection like this, it all adds up to a feel for how writers viewed and used these settings, the trends in the stories, etc.

I was a little surprised by the heavy anti-Welsh sentiment in one of the stories: it’s been a while since I met that kind of thing so openly. (The Welsh character mutates ps and bs in English, lies habitually, etc, etc; we’re in “Taffy was a Welshman” territory.) I know the British Library Crime Classics series typically doesn’t edit this sort of thing out, and they do say so in a preface — they present the stories as part of their historical context, as well as for entertainment. But it was a little surprising, all the same.

A nicer surprise was a story by Jacqueline Wilson — yes, that one! Her earliest works were crime stories, and one of her short stories is included here to round out the volume with a recent story.

Overall, a collection I enjoyed!

Rating: 4/5

A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Mysteries

by Martin Edwards (editor)

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 304
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating:

Synopsis:

A Postman murdered while delivering cards on Christmas morning. A Christmas pine growing over a forgotten homicide. A Yuletide heist gone horribly wrong. When there's as much murder as magic in the air and the facts seem to point to the impossible, it's up to the detective’s trained eye to unwrap the clues and neatly tie together an explanation (preferably with a bow on top).

Martin Edwards has once again gathered the best of these seasonal stories into a stellar anthology brimming with rare tales, fresh as fallen snow, and classics from the likes of Julian Symons, Margery Allingham, Anthony Gilbert and Cyril Hare. A most welcome surprise indeed, and perfect to be shared between super-sleuths by the fire on a cold winter's night.

A Surprise for Christmas is the 2020 collection of short crime/mystery stories based around Christmas-time from the British Library Crime Classics series, edited as always by Martin Edwards. It’s a surprisingly star-studded volume, including stories from Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, along with other standbys that appear more often in the anthologies of this series (like Carter Dickson, AKA John Dickson Carr).

It’s a strong enough collection, much in the same vein as the others, without being surprising — after all, that’s somewhat part of the point in crime/mystery fiction of this general period. It usually isn’t too surprising, though here and there an author like Julian Symons is included (as in this one), someone who tends more toward a psychological story.

Oddly enough, the Symons story included here is a repeat with a different title, previously included in The Christmas Card Crime, from 2018. Weird that no one realised that. The other stories are all new to the series so far as I can tell, though I haven’t read Crimson Snow.

“The Turn-Again Bell”, the final story, has quite the atmosphere, and would’ve been my favourite of the book, except that it seems a little trite in how it all wraps up. It doesn’t feel quite at home with the other stories in this volume, to be honest, being less a crime/mystery, and more definitively a Christmas story. Maybe that’s just me.

Rating: 3/5