The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, Vol 3

by Mike Ashley

The third new collection of historical murder and mystery stories A brilliant new collection of thirty stories of mystery and intrigue spread over three thousand years, from Ancient Egypt to spies on the Titanic. Selected by bestselling editor Mike Ashley, the stories include brand new contributions as well as rare reprints, from writers such as Ian Rankin, Lynda Robinson, Sharan Newman, Gail Frazer, Gillian Linscott and Peter Tremayne. Among the characters featured are the Queen of Sheba, Attila the Hun, Hildegarde of Bingen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry the Navigator and Benjamin Franklin. And with settings as far-ranging as Botany Bay and ancient Pisa, New Amsterdam and old Edinburgh, ancient Greece and the court of Kublai Khan.

Genres: Short Stories, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Anthologies, Historical Mystery, Fiction

Paperback

First published June 23, 2005

About the author

Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is the author and editor of over sixty books that in total have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Chatham, Kent.

Reviews

[Princessjay · Rating 3 out of 5]

His Master's Servant - Philip Boast
Sir Roger, a Knights Templar of great faith, is summoned by Saladin to Jerusalem to solve the murder of his cousin and the theft of Saladin's favorite jewel. Poetic more for the journey to Jerusalem and Sir Roger fighting his demons of temptation, than the mystery itself. A lovely story and I like how he does NOT get the girl in the end.

Death in the Desert - Jean Davidson
The Queen of Sheba, on her journey to King Solomon, was beset by bandits. A story that seemed all over the place..

The Judgment of the Gods - Rob Reginald
The Great King Sennacherib of Assyria was killed by a statue of the god falling over him as he prayed. His son allowed two Greek merchants to solve this mystery, in return for favorable trade relations. Lovely.

The Oracle of Amun - Mary Reed & Eric Mayer
Herodotus solves the death of a rich man in Egypt.

Cupid's Arrow - Marilyn Todd
Again, more than a tinge of romance. A young robber is killed in broad daylight, right before wealthy widow Claudia's eyes. It seems too blatant to be real..

The Spiteful Shadow - Peter Tremayne
Sister Fidelma encounters a young woman who hears voices, and accused of murder because her voices told her to act.

Catherine and the Sybil - Sharan Newman
Hildegarde von bingen is trying to set up a priory of her own. Yet, the construction has been full of setbacks, and even a death.

The Jester and the Mathematician - Alan R. Gordon
The Fool's Guild--a medieval MI6, but composed of clowns and jesters--solves a murder in Pisa that involved the young Fibonacci, famous for the mathematic series.

The Duke's Tale - Cherith Baldry
Chaucer catches up to the English Duke Lionel in the Italian city of Alba, just as he lies dying of poison.

Sea of Darkness - Sarah A. Hoyt
Prince Henry of Portugal, deep lover of the ocean and its navigation, investigates the death of a young man on the islands of Madeira where he'd set up colonies for education in navigation. His personal secretary at first feared he might be suspected, as he'd scheduled to secretly meet with the now-dead young man, but of course it all comes down to a woman in the end.

The Stone-Worker's Tale - Margaret Frazer
Dame Frivesse investigates the vanishing of a young lady and a talented stonemason from the site of St Mary's church at Ewelme. They were in love and planned to marry; did they ran away to do so, or was there some other plot at play?

The Witching Hour - Martin Edwards
SKIPPED.

The Dutchman and the Wrongful Heir - Maan Meyers
Novella set in the times just after New-York was overtaken by the English from the Dutch. Tonneman, the Dutch sheriff, sets about investigating the death of a maid who was the sole inheritor of a wealthy widow's assets, and the bodies piled on from there.

If Serpents Envious - Clayton Emery
INTENSE and atmospheric. I like this one a lot.

An ex-divinity student, abducted and raised by Indians then returned to English settlement, travels to laid-back New Hampshire, just as one slave had been tarred and hanged and another awaits to be burned at the stake, for the accused crime of killing their master with a poisoned snake.

The Uninvited Guest - Edward D. Hoch
George Washington's secretary, Alexander Swift, attends a wedding in his stead, and at the wedding, a stranger falls dead of poison.

Benjamin's Trap - Richard Moquist
Benjamin Franklin investigates the mysterious deaths of 3 merchants" who were killed one by one, paralyzed with one hand cut off. They turned out to be ex-British soldiers who robbed an inn years ago, then hid their loot in Carpenter's Hall, and returned in secret to retrieve it. They were hunted down one by one by the innkeeper's daughter.

The Serpent's Back - Ian Rankin
Cullender is a caddy -- equivalent to one-man concierge service today -- in the growing city of Edinburgh. He receives a commission from a mysterious lady, and at the same time, begin to dodge assassination attempts.

Botanist at Bay - Edward Marston
Convicts sent to Australia -- some made good, some remained convicts, and some only seem to discard their past. These twist-ending stories where the narrator ends up being the killer always seem so obvious, because they always write so smugly well about themselves and their past. This one I called the ending 2 pages in.

The Living and the Dead - Judith Cutler
An intense, almost dark fairy tale or Scarlet Letter-esque story of love and inherited insanity and illegitimate children. 4 STARS

Footprints - Jeffery Farnol
An old-school story -- like, reminiscent of Wilkie Collin's THE MOONSTONE -- of a Bow Street running, called by a fainting lady to investigate the murder of her uncle, after the murder of her father one year previously.

Barely readable due to the author's attempt to render, verbatim, all the people's various accents. Ugh.

The Tenth Commandment - Melville Davisson Post
Uncle Abner discovers a booby-trap intended to murder a man, and goes a-visiting a "coward" of his acquaintance and dispenses justices.

Murder in Old Manhattan - Frank Bonham
Thomas Church, a police detective in 1857 NYC, investigates the death of a young milliner's assistant who had more money than she should have. He unravels a story of shipping and supply-demand and blackmail.

The Abolitionist - Lynda S. Robinson
On the eve of the American Civil War, a man goes visiting his Southern home, where his young cousin was wildly and ill-advisedly preaching abolitionism to an angry crowd. The young man gets beaten and escapes back home, but dies in his bed, poisoned..

Poisoned with Politeness - Gillian Linscott
A newspaper man goes to Buckinghamshire to investigate the death of a drunken, shrewish but wealthy woman, seemingly poisoned while she was on her coach going a-visiting. The clear suspect was the governess who had hid the woman's flask just before the trip, in an attempt to keep her sober. Yet no one in the entire county wants to indict her.

Threads of Scarlet - Claire Griffen
Toop the police detective delves into the affairs of a man who seems surrounded by frail, dying and dead people, the last one being his wife. A man who uses his good looks and wealth to convince two women to kill for him, whose comeuppance is this shall be known to the society he is trying to climb into.

The Gentleman on the Titanic - John Lutz
Double-agent shenanigans and love-in-times-of-war on the TITANIC just before it sinks.

This one was more like a thriller than a mystery. I personally found it dull.

[Alison C · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, Volume 3,” was published in 2005 and contains some 26 stories of which 15 are original to this anthology. As with all such volumes, each reader will prefer some stories over others, but generally speaking, all of these tales are well-written and entertaining in their own way. My favourites included Peter Tremayne’s “The Spiteful Shadow,” in which Sister Fidelma saves the tinnitus-suffering Sister Scathach from a murder charge (admittedly half my enjoyment was the name Scathach, which means “the shadowy one” and who was the Warrior Queen/Goddess who taught Cuchulainn how to fight; also the name of one of my mighty warrior cats); “Catherine and the Sybil,” by Sharan Newman, in which her series character Catherine meets Hildegarde the visionary; Alan R. Gordon’s “The Jester and the Mathematician,” featuring his jester/diplomat Theophilos saving a mathematician accused of murder in 1198 Pisa; “The Stone-Worker’s Tale,” by Margaret Fraser, whose 15th Century Oxfordshire Dame Frevisse solves a double murder before it happens; Martin Edwards’ “The WItching Hour,” in which a clerk foils a plot to convict a young woman of witchcraft in order to steal her land with its hidden Roman treasures; “The Serpent’s Back,” by Ian Rankin, set amongst the shady denizens of late 18th-Century Edinburgh; “Botanist at Bay,” by Edward Marston, whereby a convict transported to Australia becomes respectable - but not innocent; and a reprint from 1945, “Murder in Old Manhattan,” by Frank Bonham, involving thievery and blackmail in 1857 in New York City. There are perhaps a few too many stories set during wartimes for my tastes, and as the stories venture from Ancient Egypt to the sinking of the Titanic, the majority of tales are set in either the US or the UK, but those are generally minor quibbles and the series as a whole is well worth searching out; recommended.

[Shabbeer Hassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

To summarise my whirlwind journey in the mists of past I can only say - Brilliant collection! Mike Ashley the legendary bibliographer and editor of the books, similar in caliber to Otto Penzler, within these Mammoth collections have done an awesome job with the 3rd volume of Historial Whodunits.

Once you jump into this book be prepared to be taken into the adventures of Daribul, chief advisor to Sheba in 950 BC to the Sir Roger de Belcourt solving a mystery in the house of Saladin during Crusades. Some stories a bit iffy at best but others like above simply let you into an immersive feel of the bygone eras.

So, if you like historical fiction or simply whodunits, then I would recommend you to give this book a try!

My Rating - 4.5/5

PS- Goodreads, please allow fractional ratings!

[Prp · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this book gets three stars at all, it is thanks tho the magnificent story "The Judgement of the Gods", by Robert Reginald, previously published in The Second Mystery Megapack.
There are really bad stories and huge historical mistakes.
Very disappointing, skip it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Temporarily ran out of books so raided the study bookshelf and read these a great little compendium good read if you like short stories.

[Jan Watson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, some stories not so bad but the majority were trite to say the most.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprising, and intriguing, at times, outdated and predictable, but overall an excellent collection of short stories that makes excellent use of historical fact and fiction.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series of short stories by historical detectives.
Excellent

[Katariina]

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