The Measure of Malice, ed. Martin Edwards

As ever, this collection from the British Library Crime Classic series is, to me, more than the sum of its parts. The Measure of Malice collects stories that in some way lean more into the science of detection: nothing here is terribly complex (and some of it is bunk, like the idea that the human retina will hold an image of the last thing that person saw), but it’s all beginning to explore the idea that figuring out a criminal isn’t just a cerebral exercise, but one which involves practical, physical evidence that may not always be readily apparent.

I didn’t love all the stories for themselves, but I enjoyed the assembled selection and what it adds to my knowledge of the genre in that period. The obligatory Arthur Conan Doyle story is here, of course, but also a slightly more unexpected Dorothy L. Sayers story (though one I already knew from Wimsey collections).

Rating: 4/5

The Long Arm of the Law, ed. Martin Edwards

Okay, okay, all cops are bastards, but in crime fiction they don’t have to be. Of course these stories are mostly in the idealised mode where police just want to help and a lone girl can pop into the police station for protection — the world I thought I was growing up in, in fact.

It’s not a stand-out for me in terms of the stories or the quality thereof, but I was pretty entertained by Christianna Brand’s story with the Great Detective, and with Inspector Cockrill butting in and dismantling the whole story.

As ever, an interesting survey of the genre on this particular topic. And it includes a short story from E.C.R. Lorac, a rarity (though that one didn’t especially stand out to me).

Rating: 3/5

Capital Crimes, ed. Martin Edwards

This is an interesting bunch of stories, loosely connected by location, but somehow mostly hitting the same notes — I guess people felt a certain kind of way about London, and that comes through in this collection with a serious sense of unease about the way you can meet just about anyone in London.

The inclusion of Berkeley’s original short story on which he based The Poisoned Chocolates Case was an interesting one; the details seemed very much the same, and I can’t really remember how the novel turns out differently and which characters exactly get suspected there. It makes me a little tempted to reread it!

The truncation of the story set on the Underground feels a little odd — I guess it was long/rambling, but still, it feels like a key bit gets missed out here, the whole solution of the thing.

Overall, an interesting collection as usual.

Rating: 4/5

Murder at the Manor, ed. Martin Edwards

Another good collection of short stories, this time themed around that most Golden Age of set-ups: the country house mystery. I do have a weakness for those, and there are some fun ones here, though a surprising number that feel more like horror stories!

Individually, none of the stories really shone, but I really enjoy reading these collections. I’m rather enjoying seeing some of the serial detectives that existed in short fiction, after getting fairly familiar with some of the longer-form detectives — Raffles, for instance, who has appeared in at least one other anthology in this series.

A couple of the stories are a bit too histrionic — Ethel Lina White’s, for example — but mostly what you’d expect of classic crime stories (which is exactly what I want when I pick one up).

Rating: 3/5

Guilty Creatures, ed. Martin Edwards

Guilty Creatures has an interesting idea for a theme (crime/mystery stories centred around animals in some way, usually where animals are the culprits), and is an entertaining read in the aggregate, but I can’t say that any single story actually really stood out to me, except perhaps the one where a tuberculosis infection was a significant clue, given my interests! In some cases the theme was a little bit stretched, to say the least (I won’t say which, since it kind of spoils the point of the story to understand what happened).

The quality of the stories is variable, as so often in short story collections of any kind, but it overall manages to be a fun experience — in part because of the little windows into the author that Edwards gives at the start of each story, providing a little bit of context. It’s very easy reading, as well: if you don’t like one story or style, the next is coming up very soon.

Rating: 3/5

Crimes of Cymru, ed. Martin Edwards

These aren’t strictly all one thing: some are stories written by Welsh writers (and not necessarily set in Wales), while others are by non-Welsh writers (but set in Wales). As a result, it’s a fairly mixed bag, but still a fun collection.

I was pleased by the inclusion of a story by Rhys Davies, whose work I enjoyed when I was doing a Welsh fiction in English course — I do wonder if it might’ve been possible to find more works by Welsh authors, but on the other hand, it did seem that some of those included were already pretty obscure.

As always, I enjoyed this more than I expected to: somewhere in my head I have the idea that I’m not that into short story collections, at least not themed ones that can contain works of varying quality… but the British Library Crime Classic ones have been pretty universally entertaining.

Rating: 4/5