Great Cases of Scotland Yard

by Reader's Digest Association

Commissioned to investigate these cases and develop a classic mystery story, eight of England's most distinguished mystery writers have recreated some of Scotland Yard's most exciting and notorious cases.

690 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1978

About the author

The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. is a global media and direct marketing company based in Chappaqua, New York, best known for its flagship publication founded in 1922, Reader's Digest. The company's headquarters are in New York City, where it moved from Pleasantville, New York.

The company was founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in 1922 with the first publication of Reader's Digest magazine, but has grown to include a diverse range of magazines, books, music, DVDs and online content.

Reviews

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up from the used book rack at the hospital gift shop while my guy was in treatment. Rather good 1978 walk back through history with Reader's Digest, taking a look at eight cases in Scotland Yard's history. Unfortunately the reviewer who commented that two of the cases are presented fictitiously, meaning they purport to detail conversations and such which couldn't possibly be truly known, is an accurate assessment. Still worth a read. We'll call it 3.5 stars.

[Lawrence Hebb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who's read Sherlock Holmes, or seen any of the movies based on the character come away with the idea that detectives in the 19th century, and at Scotland Yard, in particular, were just bumbling men who didn't really know what they were doing.
This book sets things right with eight cases over a period of a hundred years showing how the work of the detective developed from the early days with very little forensic evidence, and it was sheer hard work that brought the first case (one that was contemporary with the infamous Jack the Ripper) to a close and caught a poisoner who had poisoned five women to Justice right up to the early seventies and a bungled attempt to kidnap the wife of a Newspaper owner with disastrous results.

Some of these cases are a great read in their own right, but one or two let down what is otherwise a great book.
What is enjoyable is to see how the work of the Detective changed over time, and how the men and women coped with the changes, even when they had to let their man go, knowing full well that 'he did the crime' but they just couldn't prove it!

[Lawrence Hebb]

Some very interesting cases here, some were from the same time as the infamous Jack the Ripper and showed how policing developed from its earliest times.
A great, but somewhat dated read as the book was written in the early 1970s

[Carolyn Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating procedurals

[Greynomad · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit long in the tooth but overall the stories were good.