From the Shadows Volume 3: 11 Hidden Gems from the Golden Age of Detection

by Barton Stacey, William Le Queux, Robert Barr

"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 villain get away with it, or will the detective at hand foil them. This volume stretches its legs to the pre-war period which laid the foundation for the 'Golden' age to come.

340 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 30, 2023

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eleven pre-WW1 outings for a variety of detectives, mostly dealing with theft and deception , with a couple of murders thrown in. Some of these I have read before and many outstay their welcome. There are a few good wheezes but often the prolixity of the writing rather gets in the way of one’s appreciation of the plot.

For me the Meade and Eustace story was the “find” of this otherwise fairly routine collection. Here are my thoughts:-

William Le Queux:”The Secret of the Foxhunter“(1903)
A typical spy/ murder tale of the pre-WW1(and after) type in which British interests are threatened by Continental alliances, related in a rather matter-of-fact manner.

Robert Barr:“The Absentminded Coterie”(1906)
Taken from “ The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont” this is an overlong and tediously facetious tale of detective failure.

Jaques Futrelle:”The Problem of Cell 13”(1905)
Well-known and highly regarded story of the application logical mind as exemplified by “The Thinking Machine” aka Professor A S F X Van Dusen.

George Griffith: “Five Hundred Carats”(1897)
One of the author’s IDB (Illegal Diamond Buying) series. It takes a long time to get to the interesting point - how the robbery was done.

Max Pemberton:”The Ripening Rubies”(1894)
A jeweller turned detective exposes the perpetrators of a series of thefts. Rather pedestrian in the telling.

Clifford Ashdown aka R Austin Freeman: “The Assyrian Rejuvenator”(1902)
The first Romney Pringle tale is of a conman conned.Dated and unpleasant.

Baroness Orczy: “The Woman in the Big Hat”(1910)
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard uses her female instinct and knowledge to pinpoint a murderer.

LT Meade & Robert Eustace:”Madame Sara”(1902)
This is of considerable historical interest- a feminist criminal, “The Sorceress or the Strand”, who outsmarts the establishment but ultimately loses the game.

William Hope Hodgson: “The Horse of the Invisible”(1910)
One of the nine stories of Carnacki, detective and “ghost finder”, by a master of the macabre. It is rather repetitive and
too long.

Guy Boothby:”The Duchess of Wiltshire’s Diamonds”(1896)
Boothby invented the “gentleman thief” sub genre.Here we meet Simon Carne and Klimo the detective in a well-known story.

Arthur Morrison:”The Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Company Ltd. “(1897)
One of six stories featuring the unscrupulous Horace Dorrington who here outcrooks a crook in a lightly amusing tale.

3.25 stars.