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From the Shadows: 11 Hidden Gems from the Golden Age of Detection
"They say that writers are really divided into two types; which exactly corresponds to cut-throats and poisoners. The cut-throats are those who, realising that the murder story must cut short the life, decide also to cut the story short. It is their pride as artists to deal in daggers; and startle the unfortunate reader with the stab of the short story." - G. K. Chesterton
Here lie 11 daggers that go straight to the heart of the matter; will the killer get away with it, or will the detective at hand, be they a Priest, a Nurse or simply a Stranger who was passing in their car, unveil them.
Stories in
The Biter Bit - William Wilkie Collins
The Great West Raid - E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Rope of Pearls - H. de Vere Stacpoole
The Mind Readers - Edgar Wallace
The Persistent House Hunters - C. E. Bechhofer Roberts
The Secret Garden - G. K. Chesterton
A Labour of Hercules - Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
The Lake - W. F. Harvey
In Confidence - G. R. Malloch
A Thread of Scarlet - J. J. Bell
Heredity - Antony Marsden
Here lie 11 daggers that go straight to the heart of the matter; will the killer get away with it, or will the detective at hand, be they a Priest, a Nurse or simply a Stranger who was passing in their car, unveil them.
Stories in
The Biter Bit - William Wilkie Collins
The Great West Raid - E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Rope of Pearls - H. de Vere Stacpoole
The Mind Readers - Edgar Wallace
The Persistent House Hunters - C. E. Bechhofer Roberts
The Secret Garden - G. K. Chesterton
A Labour of Hercules - Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
The Lake - W. F. Harvey
In Confidence - G. R. Malloch
A Thread of Scarlet - J. J. Bell
Heredity - Antony Marsden
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 8, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 26, 2025
A pleasant surprise.
Forgotten what I was looking for when I came across this book. I've read so many old mystery stories in collections and anthologies that I wasn't expecting to find anything new. But all eleven stories in this book are new to me.
Warning to purists: two of the stories are technically outside of the Golden Age of mysteries (between WWI and WWII.) "The Biter Bit" is a droll story by Wilkie Collins and was published in 1858. I don't associate Collins with humor but he punctured the outsized ego of a young detective in fine style.
And G K Chesterton's "The Secret Garden" appeared in 1910. It's a Father Brown story and you can have them. Too preachy for my tastes.
The rest are from the Twenties and Thirties. I thought E Phillips Oppenheim wrote only spy stories, but I was wrong. "The Great West Raid" and Edgar Wallace's "The Mind Readers" are about policemen who use psychology to stay one jump ahead of London's master criminals. In one case, the detective makes his collar. In the other, the inspector recovers stolen goods but the mastermind slips through his fingers. Win some, lose some.
I've never heard of H. de Vere Stacpoole or C E Bechhofer Roberts. Stacpoole's story of jewel theft and murder is a formulaic tale set Asia during the Colonial Era. Roberts' story is better if you can tolerate his slangy detective and swallow the premise that a gang would resort to such elaborate schemes instead of just breaking and entering in the time-honored fashion. I didn't look for other stories by those two writers.
OTOH, I liked Mrs Belloc Lowndes' story of a Hercule Poirot-like detective who rescues a kidnapped heiress from her captors. W H Harvey's "The Lake" is a good one about a sharp-eyed private nurse who's suspicious when her elderly patient dies. Not everyone is willing to wait for their inheritance. Some need the money NOW! There's a Kindle collection of his stories I'm considering. He wrote mostly paranormal stories, but I'm hoping he wrote some mystery stories, too.
If G R Malloch wrote a series featuring Detective Inspector Ego I'd break the bank to buy it. Inspector Ego has also adopted the new science of psychology to improve his chances of out-witting a successful con artist. Inspector Ego's superiors don't want to encourage him, but they also don't want an American conning a gullible English aristocrat out of his forture. It's a very entertaining story.
"A Thread of Scarlet" (J J Bell) is a grim tale of murder in a small village and a sad miscarriage of justice. I didn't care much for it. But "Heredity" by Antony Marsden reminded me of the old Jamaican saying "Every baby knows its mama, but it's a wise baby that knows its daddy." A doting father takes revenge against his late wife's lover. Another man fails to see the tell-tales signs and remains in happy ignorance.
Of these writers, Edgar Wallace was the only one who was prolific and whose works have survived. I love his "Mr J G Reeder" stories and his "P-C Lee" stories. The others either didn't publish many mystery stories or they're lost. It's great when an anthology leads me to other books, but I got several hours of pleasurable reading out of this one for a modest price.
Ironically, this author has another volume of old stories and I almost pulled the trigger. Then I realized that nine of the eleven stories are ones I already have in collections. The other two seem to be paranormal stories, so I passed. Those nine are great stories and I'm impressed with this author's taste. Hope he'll keep up the good work.
Forgotten what I was looking for when I came across this book. I've read so many old mystery stories in collections and anthologies that I wasn't expecting to find anything new. But all eleven stories in this book are new to me.
Warning to purists: two of the stories are technically outside of the Golden Age of mysteries (between WWI and WWII.) "The Biter Bit" is a droll story by Wilkie Collins and was published in 1858. I don't associate Collins with humor but he punctured the outsized ego of a young detective in fine style.
And G K Chesterton's "The Secret Garden" appeared in 1910. It's a Father Brown story and you can have them. Too preachy for my tastes.
The rest are from the Twenties and Thirties. I thought E Phillips Oppenheim wrote only spy stories, but I was wrong. "The Great West Raid" and Edgar Wallace's "The Mind Readers" are about policemen who use psychology to stay one jump ahead of London's master criminals. In one case, the detective makes his collar. In the other, the inspector recovers stolen goods but the mastermind slips through his fingers. Win some, lose some.
I've never heard of H. de Vere Stacpoole or C E Bechhofer Roberts. Stacpoole's story of jewel theft and murder is a formulaic tale set Asia during the Colonial Era. Roberts' story is better if you can tolerate his slangy detective and swallow the premise that a gang would resort to such elaborate schemes instead of just breaking and entering in the time-honored fashion. I didn't look for other stories by those two writers.
OTOH, I liked Mrs Belloc Lowndes' story of a Hercule Poirot-like detective who rescues a kidnapped heiress from her captors. W H Harvey's "The Lake" is a good one about a sharp-eyed private nurse who's suspicious when her elderly patient dies. Not everyone is willing to wait for their inheritance. Some need the money NOW! There's a Kindle collection of his stories I'm considering. He wrote mostly paranormal stories, but I'm hoping he wrote some mystery stories, too.
If G R Malloch wrote a series featuring Detective Inspector Ego I'd break the bank to buy it. Inspector Ego has also adopted the new science of psychology to improve his chances of out-witting a successful con artist. Inspector Ego's superiors don't want to encourage him, but they also don't want an American conning a gullible English aristocrat out of his forture. It's a very entertaining story.
"A Thread of Scarlet" (J J Bell) is a grim tale of murder in a small village and a sad miscarriage of justice. I didn't care much for it. But "Heredity" by Antony Marsden reminded me of the old Jamaican saying "Every baby knows its mama, but it's a wise baby that knows its daddy." A doting father takes revenge against his late wife's lover. Another man fails to see the tell-tales signs and remains in happy ignorance.
Of these writers, Edgar Wallace was the only one who was prolific and whose works have survived. I love his "Mr J G Reeder" stories and his "P-C Lee" stories. The others either didn't publish many mystery stories or they're lost. It's great when an anthology leads me to other books, but I got several hours of pleasurable reading out of this one for a modest price.
Ironically, this author has another volume of old stories and I almost pulled the trigger. Then I realized that nine of the eleven stories are ones I already have in collections. The other two seem to be paranormal stories, so I passed. Those nine are great stories and I'm impressed with this author's taste. Hope he'll keep up the good work.
September 25, 2023
Nine of the eleven stories in this collection date from the Golden Age, being first published between 1923 and 1935. Some are by lesser-known authors or by authors more associated with other genres and a few have slightly supernatural overtones.
The earliest, by Wilkie Collins, is highly amusing, if a little too easy for the modern reader to solve The Chesterton is well-known and much anthologised and of the others, my favourites were the final tales by WF Harvey,GR Malloch,JJ Bell and Anthony Marsden , none of which was earth-shatteringly brilliant but all of which showed interesting handling of mysteries in the short form, competently-written and neatly-plotted.
The editor provides very brief biography and the original source for each item.
I understand another anthology is on the way and I look forward to reading it.
Since first writing this a little research has led me to the 1935 anthology “A Century of Detective Stories “ with an Introduction by GK Chesterton in which all these stores may be found.
3.5 stars.
The earliest, by Wilkie Collins, is highly amusing, if a little too easy for the modern reader to solve The Chesterton is well-known and much anthologised and of the others, my favourites were the final tales by WF Harvey,GR Malloch,JJ Bell and Anthony Marsden , none of which was earth-shatteringly brilliant but all of which showed interesting handling of mysteries in the short form, competently-written and neatly-plotted.
The editor provides very brief biography and the original source for each item.
I understand another anthology is on the way and I look forward to reading it.
Since first writing this a little research has led me to the 1935 anthology “A Century of Detective Stories “ with an Introduction by GK Chesterton in which all these stores may be found.
3.5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews