What do you think?
Rate this book
Deep Waters: Murder on the Waves
Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder
From picturesque canals to the swirling currents of the ocean, a world of secrets lies buried beneath the surface of the water. Dubious vessels crawl along riverbeds, while the murky depths conceal more than one gruesome murder.
The stories in this collection will dredge up delight in crime fiction fans, as watery graves claim unintended dwellers and disembodied whispers penetrate the sleeping quarters of a ship's captain. How might a thief plot their escape from a floating crime scene? And what is to follow when murder victims, lost to the ocean floor, inevitably resurface?
This British Library anthology uncovers the best mysteries set below the surface, including stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, William Hope Hodgson, and R. Austin Freeman.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 10, 2019
About the author
Martin Edwards
380 books885 followersMartin Edwards has been described by Richard Osman as ‘a true master of British crime writing.’ He has published twenty-three novels, which include the eight Lake District Mysteries, one of which was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize for best crime novel of the year and four books featuring Rachel Savernake, including the Dagger-nominated Gallows Court and Blackstone Fell, while Gallows Court and Sepulchre Street were shortlisted for the eDunnit award for best crime novel of the year. He is also the author of two multi-award-winning histories of crime fiction, The Life of Crime and The Golden Age of Murder. He has received three Daggers from the Crime Writers’ Association and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America and has also been nominated three times for Gold Daggers. In addition to the CWA Diamond Dagger (the highest honour in UK crime writing) he has received four other lifetime achievement awards: for his fiction, short fiction, non-fiction, and scholarship. He is consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics, a former Chair of the CWA, and since 2015 has been President of the Detection Club.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
October 17, 2019
A pool of death, poisoned cognac, haunted bride, piranhas, ghosts…
Deep Waters is a collection of mystery/crime short stories which are somehow connected with water. In these 16 stories the crime either has been committed on board a ship or in a pool or near a pond.
Anyway, there is water involved.
I enjoyed reading all of the stories, some more than the others.
My favorites are Four Friends and Death, A Question of Timing, The Turning of the Tide and Seasprite.
It is always a pleasure to read a book edited by Martin Edwards.
Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and the NetGalley for my copy.
Deep Waters is a collection of mystery/crime short stories which are somehow connected with water. In these 16 stories the crime either has been committed on board a ship or in a pool or near a pond.
Anyway, there is water involved.
I enjoyed reading all of the stories, some more than the others.
My favorites are Four Friends and Death, A Question of Timing, The Turning of the Tide and Seasprite.
It is always a pleasure to read a book edited by Martin Edwards.
Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and the NetGalley for my copy.
June 26, 2019
Editor Martin Edwards has collected short stories dealing with water of all sorts: oceans, rivers, canals, even swimming pools.
Deep Waters has some real gems. I enjoyed “The Swimming Pool” by H.C. Bailey so much that I bought his Call Mr. Fortune (1920) so I could enjoy more about Reggie Fortune, a curmudgeonly medical examiner long before Quincy. Edwards includes “Man Overboard” by Edmund Crispin, author of the fabulous Gervaise Fen novels, which I love. The riveting “Four Friends and Death” comes from Christopher St. John Sprigg, who died in World War I after too brief a career. (I heartily recommend his Death of an Airman.) Michael Innes pens a short story “Death by Water” featuring his popular detective, Inspector John Appleby. C.S. Forester (yes, the Horatio Hornblower guy) contributes the ironic “The Turning of the Tide,” while some relatively unknown writers reveal their depths with some pretty good reads (“A Question of Timing” by Phyllis Bentley, “The Echo of a Mutiny” by R. Austin Freeman, and “The Man Who Was Drowned” by James Pattinson — not to be confused with James Patterson).
As with all anthologies, there are some mediocrities. The anthology also contains Sherlock Holmes’ very first case, “The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott,’” a so-so effort from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. But not a single short story was a dud, quite an accomplishment in itself.
In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, British Library and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.
Deep Waters has some real gems. I enjoyed “The Swimming Pool” by H.C. Bailey so much that I bought his Call Mr. Fortune (1920) so I could enjoy more about Reggie Fortune, a curmudgeonly medical examiner long before Quincy. Edwards includes “Man Overboard” by Edmund Crispin, author of the fabulous Gervaise Fen novels, which I love. The riveting “Four Friends and Death” comes from Christopher St. John Sprigg, who died in World War I after too brief a career. (I heartily recommend his Death of an Airman.) Michael Innes pens a short story “Death by Water” featuring his popular detective, Inspector John Appleby. C.S. Forester (yes, the Horatio Hornblower guy) contributes the ironic “The Turning of the Tide,” while some relatively unknown writers reveal their depths with some pretty good reads (“A Question of Timing” by Phyllis Bentley, “The Echo of a Mutiny” by R. Austin Freeman, and “The Man Who Was Drowned” by James Pattinson — not to be confused with James Patterson).
As with all anthologies, there are some mediocrities. The anthology also contains Sherlock Holmes’ very first case, “The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott,’” a so-so effort from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. But not a single short story was a dud, quite an accomplishment in itself.
In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, British Library and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.
July 1, 2019
For a mystery-loving landlubber such as myself, these stories provide a fun glimpse into a new setting.
It starts off with a tried and true pleaser, The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Then it moves on to a fine assortment of stories all tied in some manner to water; whether it’s oceans, streams, or pools of it. Beyond that and the element of mystery, these stories vary widely. They feature police detectives, private eyes, amateur sleuths, or writers all caught up in theft, blackmail, fraud, or murder. Some of the stories have a supernatural element, such as L.T Meade’s The Eight-Mile Lock & Bullion! by William Hope Hodgson. One or two even have an element of sci-fi. Some of the stories are lighthearted and humorous; while others are dark and gruesome. I really enjoyed that variety. It was fun not knowing what the crime would be, who the detective would be, or even where it would be set.
It also introduced me to several new authors most of whose writing I really enjoyed. There was one story that I really didn’t like, and that was The Swimming Pool by H. C. Bailey. His writing style was so unusual that I had a hard time understanding it. Especially in the dialogue, it was choppy in the extreme; with fragments seeming to be the preferred style. The plot was good, but I couldn’t get past the writing style. That one also had the majority of the curse words in the book.
As side from the aforementioned story, this book is quite clean. There were only a couple of more curse words in the other stories.
I received this book as a free ARC through NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press. No favorable review was required, and it was my pleasure to provide my honest opinions.
It starts off with a tried and true pleaser, The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Then it moves on to a fine assortment of stories all tied in some manner to water; whether it’s oceans, streams, or pools of it. Beyond that and the element of mystery, these stories vary widely. They feature police detectives, private eyes, amateur sleuths, or writers all caught up in theft, blackmail, fraud, or murder. Some of the stories have a supernatural element, such as L.T Meade’s The Eight-Mile Lock & Bullion! by William Hope Hodgson. One or two even have an element of sci-fi. Some of the stories are lighthearted and humorous; while others are dark and gruesome. I really enjoyed that variety. It was fun not knowing what the crime would be, who the detective would be, or even where it would be set.
It also introduced me to several new authors most of whose writing I really enjoyed. There was one story that I really didn’t like, and that was The Swimming Pool by H. C. Bailey. His writing style was so unusual that I had a hard time understanding it. Especially in the dialogue, it was choppy in the extreme; with fragments seeming to be the preferred style. The plot was good, but I couldn’t get past the writing style. That one also had the majority of the curse words in the book.
As side from the aforementioned story, this book is quite clean. There were only a couple of more curse words in the other stories.
I received this book as a free ARC through NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press. No favorable review was required, and it was my pleasure to provide my honest opinions.
August 15, 2019
The British Library Crime Classics series (published and marketed in the US by Poisoned Pen Press) is growing into a veritable library spanning the “Golden Age” of crime fiction. Since 2012, the series has presented to the public forgotten gems of the genre.
Martin Edwards, who is himself an award-winning crime writer and Chairperson of the Crime Writers’ Association, deserves much of the credit for the success of this venture. Besides acting as series consultant, he has also edited several of its “themed anthologies”. I must admit that although I enjoy some crime fiction now and then, it is not the genre I typically read. I guess that for persons like me, these multi-author anthologies are an ideal entry point to the Crime Classics series. Edwards is an erudite and intelligent editor, who knows how to keep a reader interested through the variety of the chosen stories.
“Deep Waters”, the thirteenth anthology to appear in the series, is an excellent example. It features a total of sixteen stories which all bear some relation to water. Edwards casts his net wide, and the watery settings to the chosen tales range from cruise liners sailing the oceans, to river boats, canals and even ponds and swimming pools. The stories are spread over a century or so, starting in 1893 with the very first piece in the Sherlock Holmes canon (Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Gloria Scott”) and ending with “Death by Water” by Michael Innes (the pen-name of Edinburgh-born academic John Innes Mackintosh Stewart), first published in the 1975 collection “The Appleby File”.
Along the way, we meet examples of works by leading representatives of the “Golden Age” crime fiction, such as E.W. Hornung and Edmund Crispin, alongside lesser-known authors such as Kem Bennett. Crime fiction is often dismissed as being too formulaic – this selection shows that nothing can be further from the truth and that the best authors find ingenious ways of presenting, reinterpreting and in some cases subverting the expectations of the genre. The protagonists range from professional to amateur or even ‘accidental’ investigators and there’s an appearance by E.W. Hornung’s amiable rogue ‘Raffles’. There are also some excellent examples of crime sub-genres such as the ‘locked-room mystery’ (as in “Bullion”, by William Hope Hodgson, possibly better-known as the author of creepy ghost stories) and the “inverted mystery”, where the solution to the mystery is presented to the reader at the outset and the pleasure lies in discovering how the puzzle will be unravelled.
Although the style of some of featured pieces feels rather dated, there is much enjoyment to be had from these watery tales. As a bonus, Martin Edwards provides a foreword to the anthology, as well as an introduction to each story, with biographical and bibliographical details.
Martin Edwards, who is himself an award-winning crime writer and Chairperson of the Crime Writers’ Association, deserves much of the credit for the success of this venture. Besides acting as series consultant, he has also edited several of its “themed anthologies”. I must admit that although I enjoy some crime fiction now and then, it is not the genre I typically read. I guess that for persons like me, these multi-author anthologies are an ideal entry point to the Crime Classics series. Edwards is an erudite and intelligent editor, who knows how to keep a reader interested through the variety of the chosen stories.
“Deep Waters”, the thirteenth anthology to appear in the series, is an excellent example. It features a total of sixteen stories which all bear some relation to water. Edwards casts his net wide, and the watery settings to the chosen tales range from cruise liners sailing the oceans, to river boats, canals and even ponds and swimming pools. The stories are spread over a century or so, starting in 1893 with the very first piece in the Sherlock Holmes canon (Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Gloria Scott”) and ending with “Death by Water” by Michael Innes (the pen-name of Edinburgh-born academic John Innes Mackintosh Stewart), first published in the 1975 collection “The Appleby File”.
Along the way, we meet examples of works by leading representatives of the “Golden Age” crime fiction, such as E.W. Hornung and Edmund Crispin, alongside lesser-known authors such as Kem Bennett. Crime fiction is often dismissed as being too formulaic – this selection shows that nothing can be further from the truth and that the best authors find ingenious ways of presenting, reinterpreting and in some cases subverting the expectations of the genre. The protagonists range from professional to amateur or even ‘accidental’ investigators and there’s an appearance by E.W. Hornung’s amiable rogue ‘Raffles’. There are also some excellent examples of crime sub-genres such as the ‘locked-room mystery’ (as in “Bullion”, by William Hope Hodgson, possibly better-known as the author of creepy ghost stories) and the “inverted mystery”, where the solution to the mystery is presented to the reader at the outset and the pleasure lies in discovering how the puzzle will be unravelled.
Although the style of some of featured pieces feels rather dated, there is much enjoyment to be had from these watery tales. As a bonus, Martin Edwards provides a foreword to the anthology, as well as an introduction to each story, with biographical and bibliographical details.
July 15, 2019
Martin Edwards is the editor of this collection of sixteen short stories which have water as their central theme. Be it an ocean or a backyard swimming pool it's for sure each of these stories will end up with somebody getting wet. Each story leads off with Edwards providing background information for the author and their career. This is where I pick up some very interesting information that helps me feel I know the author just a little bit better. All of these stories are short and I was already familiar with the first three but it was still nice to read them again. Recommended reading for anybody who enjoys getting their feet wet with classic detective stories.
A list of authors and story titles as they appear in the book:
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'
L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace - The Eight-Mile Lock
E.W. Hornung - The Gift of the Emperor
William Hope Hodgson - Bullion!
R. Austin Freeman - The Echo of a Mutiny
Gwyn Evans - The Pool of Secrets
Christopher St John Sprigg - Four Friends and Death
C.S. Forester - The Turning of the Tide
H.C. Bailey - The Swimming Pool
Phyllis Bentley - A Question of Timing
Josephine Bell - The Thimble River Mystery
Edmund Crispin - Man Overboard
Kem Bennett - The Queer Fish
James Pattinson - The Man Who Was Drowned
Andrew Garve - Seasprite
Michael Innes - Death by Water
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press, British Library Crime Classics for an e-Galley of this book.
A list of authors and story titles as they appear in the book:
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'
L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace - The Eight-Mile Lock
E.W. Hornung - The Gift of the Emperor
William Hope Hodgson - Bullion!
R. Austin Freeman - The Echo of a Mutiny
Gwyn Evans - The Pool of Secrets
Christopher St John Sprigg - Four Friends and Death
C.S. Forester - The Turning of the Tide
H.C. Bailey - The Swimming Pool
Phyllis Bentley - A Question of Timing
Josephine Bell - The Thimble River Mystery
Edmund Crispin - Man Overboard
Kem Bennett - The Queer Fish
James Pattinson - The Man Who Was Drowned
Andrew Garve - Seasprite
Michael Innes - Death by Water
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press, British Library Crime Classics for an e-Galley of this book.
February 25, 2020
Deep Waters: Murder on the Waves (2019) edited by Martin Edwards contains a lovely set of water-related mysteries for the reader with a fondness for crime. Stories ranging from those from the pen of well-known authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edmund Crispin to the more obscure offerings of Gwyn Evans and Kem Bennett. Overall, a very strong showing with a wide range of liquid murderous methods. My favorites are "The Pool of Secrets," "Four Friends and Death," "The Turn of the Tide," and "The Queer Fish." ★★★★
"The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes tells Dr. Watson about his first case. A nice literary tidbit, but it serves more to give background on Holmes and show the earliest use of his powers of observation than to serve up an actual mystery for Holmes to solve. There are few deductions on display--the answer to the puzzle is served up in a document from the father of Holmes's friend.
"The Eight-Mile Lock" by L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace: John Bell, who specializes in debunking the supposed supernatural, is taking a short holiday with his friends Lord and Lady Ridsdale aboard their house-boat on the Thames. While there, Lady Ridsdale's beautiful diamond bracelet disappears. But it isn't until Bell helps the local lock-keeper to get to the bottom of the ghostly cries for the locks to be open that the thief and the whereabouts of the bracelet are revealed.
"The Gift of the Emperor" by E. W. Hornung: The last of the Raffles stories. Our gentleman burglar decides to steal a pearl of great price and boards a German ship to do so. Will he succeed? Will he escape justice? And what of poor Bunny?
"Bullion!" by William Hope Hodgson: Strange deaths by "just sickening and going off" and mysterious late-night whisperings haunt a ship hauling cases of gold bullion. The second mate realizes just in time what it all means.
"The Echo of a Mutiny" by R. Austin Freeman: Two men who had previously been involved in a mutiny meet up for duty in a lighthouse. One of the men is killed and the other tries to cover his tracks--but when Dr. Thorndyke enters the case, his hopes for escape rapidly dwindle.
"The Pool of Secrets" by Gwyn Evans: features a murder that is supposed to be the work of the Silver Bride, the ghost of a woman who drowned herself in her wedding gown. Quentin Drex uses some unorthodox methods to get to the bottom of the mystery.
"Four Friends & Death" by Christopher St. John Sprigg: a short vignette about whether friendship can last when one of the four friends (alone together on a boat) falls down dead--from poison!
"The Turn of the Tide" by C. S. Forester: A murderous lawyer finds the answer to the problem of what to do with the corpse....with unexpected results!
"The Swimming Pool" by H. C. Bailey: Dr. Reggie Fortune is called in when an anonymous note says that Old Mr. Colburn's death wasn't as natural as it seemed. Fortune is disturbed by the disused swimming pool on the estate and soon has a headless corpse and a missing nurse on his hands.
"A Question of Timing" by Phyllis Bentley: Bentley begins her story with an interesting hook: "A month or so ago, one Thursday afternoon, I stopped a murder." And this short little story goes on to tell how Robert Beringer, a writer, did just that while out on a walk along the Thames. He saved a life and got the girl...all in an afternoon's walk.
"The Thimble River Mystery" by Josephine Bell: Bell's story could also have been titled "A Question of Timing"--because timing becomes very crucial to the solution of the murder. There is a limited window of time when the killer could have reached the boat to do the deed.
"Man Overboard" by Edmund Crispin: A blackmailer's stash helps Inspector Humbleby catch a killer--an American whose brother supposedly "accidentally" drowned.
"The Queer Fish" by Kem Bennett: Albert Pascoe, salmon poacher, is forced at gunpoint to give transport to two strangers who want to make landfall in France. He takes them for a ride all right...and gets a bit of a surprise for his trouble.
"The Man Who Was Drowned" by James Pattinson: A woman claims to have seen a man go overboard, but Barton Rice, friend of the ship's captain and something to do with Scotland Yard, immediately spots a few inconsistencies in her story. He decides to do a little investigating on his own.
"Seasprite" by Andrew Garve: A smuggler gets more than he bargained for when he takes on a new partner.
"Death by Water" by Michael Innes: Did Sir John Appleby's vague philosopher friend commit suicide or did someone help him to his death by water? A very fishy state of affairs with a very fishy little clue.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
"The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes tells Dr. Watson about his first case. A nice literary tidbit, but it serves more to give background on Holmes and show the earliest use of his powers of observation than to serve up an actual mystery for Holmes to solve. There are few deductions on display--the answer to the puzzle is served up in a document from the father of Holmes's friend.
"The Eight-Mile Lock" by L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace: John Bell, who specializes in debunking the supposed supernatural, is taking a short holiday with his friends Lord and Lady Ridsdale aboard their house-boat on the Thames. While there, Lady Ridsdale's beautiful diamond bracelet disappears. But it isn't until Bell helps the local lock-keeper to get to the bottom of the ghostly cries for the locks to be open that the thief and the whereabouts of the bracelet are revealed.
"The Gift of the Emperor" by E. W. Hornung: The last of the Raffles stories. Our gentleman burglar decides to steal a pearl of great price and boards a German ship to do so. Will he succeed? Will he escape justice? And what of poor Bunny?
"Bullion!" by William Hope Hodgson: Strange deaths by "just sickening and going off" and mysterious late-night whisperings haunt a ship hauling cases of gold bullion. The second mate realizes just in time what it all means.
"The Echo of a Mutiny" by R. Austin Freeman: Two men who had previously been involved in a mutiny meet up for duty in a lighthouse. One of the men is killed and the other tries to cover his tracks--but when Dr. Thorndyke enters the case, his hopes for escape rapidly dwindle.
"The Pool of Secrets" by Gwyn Evans: features a murder that is supposed to be the work of the Silver Bride, the ghost of a woman who drowned herself in her wedding gown. Quentin Drex uses some unorthodox methods to get to the bottom of the mystery.
"Four Friends & Death" by Christopher St. John Sprigg: a short vignette about whether friendship can last when one of the four friends (alone together on a boat) falls down dead--from poison!
"The Turn of the Tide" by C. S. Forester: A murderous lawyer finds the answer to the problem of what to do with the corpse....with unexpected results!
"The Swimming Pool" by H. C. Bailey: Dr. Reggie Fortune is called in when an anonymous note says that Old Mr. Colburn's death wasn't as natural as it seemed. Fortune is disturbed by the disused swimming pool on the estate and soon has a headless corpse and a missing nurse on his hands.
"A Question of Timing" by Phyllis Bentley: Bentley begins her story with an interesting hook: "A month or so ago, one Thursday afternoon, I stopped a murder." And this short little story goes on to tell how Robert Beringer, a writer, did just that while out on a walk along the Thames. He saved a life and got the girl...all in an afternoon's walk.
"The Thimble River Mystery" by Josephine Bell: Bell's story could also have been titled "A Question of Timing"--because timing becomes very crucial to the solution of the murder. There is a limited window of time when the killer could have reached the boat to do the deed.
"Man Overboard" by Edmund Crispin: A blackmailer's stash helps Inspector Humbleby catch a killer--an American whose brother supposedly "accidentally" drowned.
"The Queer Fish" by Kem Bennett: Albert Pascoe, salmon poacher, is forced at gunpoint to give transport to two strangers who want to make landfall in France. He takes them for a ride all right...and gets a bit of a surprise for his trouble.
"The Man Who Was Drowned" by James Pattinson: A woman claims to have seen a man go overboard, but Barton Rice, friend of the ship's captain and something to do with Scotland Yard, immediately spots a few inconsistencies in her story. He decides to do a little investigating on his own.
"Seasprite" by Andrew Garve: A smuggler gets more than he bargained for when he takes on a new partner.
"Death by Water" by Michael Innes: Did Sir John Appleby's vague philosopher friend commit suicide or did someone help him to his death by water? A very fishy state of affairs with a very fishy little clue.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
Read
September 26, 2022Review of the audiobook narrated by Gordon Griffin.
This is an enjoyable collection of short stories, many by authors who are new to me. As usual, the publisher's blurb does not include a list of these stories, and I don't have time right now to include them.
Recommended for all GAD fans.
This is an enjoyable collection of short stories, many by authors who are new to me. As usual, the publisher's blurb does not include a list of these stories, and I don't have time right now to include them.
Recommended for all GAD fans.
August 5, 2020
This is one of the best book of short stories that I have read. My taste, but not a single story that I did not enjoy. Very,very rare 4 1/2 to be fair to the book.
March 17, 2023
These were pretty good short little British mystery stories, although some of them were a little too short, abrupt, even. They all had something to do with bodies of water, ranging from decorative ponds on scenic country estates, to swimming pools, to lakes, to the bounding deeps of the ocean blue. A good book for those who like a bit of murder before bed.
November 3, 2019
Not waving, but drowning...
This new collection of vintage crime shorts from the British Library contains sixteen stories, all connected in some way to water – rivers, lakes, swimming pools, oceans. Martin Edwards suggests in his usual informative introduction that perhaps Britain’s view of itself as a maritime nation makes us particularly drawn to watery fiction of all kinds, so it’s not surprising that mystery writers got in on the act.
These collections are always variable, both in quality and in the reader’s reaction to the theme being used. This reader found this one particularly variable, partly because I felt some of the stories only made the cut because of their connection to water, but partly because I’m not a sailor and some of the stories use a fair amount of sailing terminology which always makes me lose interest. Sailors will, I’m sure, feel differently about these. Only a couple of the solutions rely on sailing specifics, though – the majority give us the usual mix of motive, clues and styles of detection. And, as always, the contributors range from the very well known writers, like Conan Doyle or Michael Innes, through newer favourites recently getting a revival via the BL and other publishers, like Edmund Crispin or Christopher St. John Sprigg, to writers new to me although they may be well known to vintage crime aficionados, such as James Pattinson and Andrew Garve.
In total, I gave eight of the stories either four or five stars, while the other eight ranged between 2½ and 3½. So no complete duds, but quite a few that were relatively weak, I felt. However, when they were good, they were very, very good, meaning that I found plenty to enjoy. The collection has a lot of stories that don’t stick rigidly to the traditional detective story format, which gives them a feeling of originality and allows for some great storytelling, including occasional touches of spookiness or horror.
So a mixed collection, but with plenty of good stuff in it that’s a little out of the ordinary run of mystery stories. Overall, I enjoyed the ones I enjoyed so much that they more than compensated for the ones I didn’t.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This new collection of vintage crime shorts from the British Library contains sixteen stories, all connected in some way to water – rivers, lakes, swimming pools, oceans. Martin Edwards suggests in his usual informative introduction that perhaps Britain’s view of itself as a maritime nation makes us particularly drawn to watery fiction of all kinds, so it’s not surprising that mystery writers got in on the act.
These collections are always variable, both in quality and in the reader’s reaction to the theme being used. This reader found this one particularly variable, partly because I felt some of the stories only made the cut because of their connection to water, but partly because I’m not a sailor and some of the stories use a fair amount of sailing terminology which always makes me lose interest. Sailors will, I’m sure, feel differently about these. Only a couple of the solutions rely on sailing specifics, though – the majority give us the usual mix of motive, clues and styles of detection. And, as always, the contributors range from the very well known writers, like Conan Doyle or Michael Innes, through newer favourites recently getting a revival via the BL and other publishers, like Edmund Crispin or Christopher St. John Sprigg, to writers new to me although they may be well known to vintage crime aficionados, such as James Pattinson and Andrew Garve.
In total, I gave eight of the stories either four or five stars, while the other eight ranged between 2½ and 3½. So no complete duds, but quite a few that were relatively weak, I felt. However, when they were good, they were very, very good, meaning that I found plenty to enjoy. The collection has a lot of stories that don’t stick rigidly to the traditional detective story format, which gives them a feeling of originality and allows for some great storytelling, including occasional touches of spookiness or horror.
So a mixed collection, but with plenty of good stuff in it that’s a little out of the ordinary run of mystery stories. Overall, I enjoyed the ones I enjoyed so much that they more than compensated for the ones I didn’t.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 27, 2019
Deep Waters is an anthology of mysteries from the Golden Age collected by Martin Edwards who has brought together several similar thematic anthologies, This one, if the title is not clear enough, takes place in deep water with one exception that takes place on a tidal river. Edwards introduces each mystery with a short literary bio of the author, putting the story in the context of the author’s career.
There are sixteen stories and most of them are quite good. I did not care for “The Swimming Pool” by H. C. Bailey. I think Edwards acknowledges this by describing his “idiosyncratic prose..” I fell asleep three times while reading it but then stayed up late reading the rest and finishing the book. I didn’t follow my own advice which is to skip a story if it’s not reaching you. Of course, other readers may enjoy the arch tone of the story. Variety is what makes books and life interesting.
My favorite story is “Four Friends and Death” which has a complex murder with a limited number of suspects since there were only four friends on the boat and one of them is dead of poisoning. There is such acute understanding of human nature combined with an interesting exploration of friendship and how far it can bend before breaking.
Deep Waters is a great boatload of stories. I keep my eye out for Martin Edwards anthologies because I like his sensibility. I enjoy his short introductions and deep understanding of the genre. The only thing is when an anthology is focused on a theme as this is, you will read Edwards describing a better story that is not in the book and want to read that one. There are enough recommendations of better stories and novels to keep Poisoned Pen Press busy for a year from just this book.
Deep Waters will be released September 3rd. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.
Deep Waters at Poisoned Pen Press
Martin Edwards author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
There are sixteen stories and most of them are quite good. I did not care for “The Swimming Pool” by H. C. Bailey. I think Edwards acknowledges this by describing his “idiosyncratic prose..” I fell asleep three times while reading it but then stayed up late reading the rest and finishing the book. I didn’t follow my own advice which is to skip a story if it’s not reaching you. Of course, other readers may enjoy the arch tone of the story. Variety is what makes books and life interesting.
My favorite story is “Four Friends and Death” which has a complex murder with a limited number of suspects since there were only four friends on the boat and one of them is dead of poisoning. There is such acute understanding of human nature combined with an interesting exploration of friendship and how far it can bend before breaking.
Deep Waters is a great boatload of stories. I keep my eye out for Martin Edwards anthologies because I like his sensibility. I enjoy his short introductions and deep understanding of the genre. The only thing is when an anthology is focused on a theme as this is, you will read Edwards describing a better story that is not in the book and want to read that one. There are enough recommendations of better stories and novels to keep Poisoned Pen Press busy for a year from just this book.
Deep Waters will be released September 3rd. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.
Deep Waters at Poisoned Pen Press
Martin Edwards author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
December 24, 2020
I do love these Golden Age Crime Classics as you all know. And this collection of water based naughty tales is just another superb grouping by writers of real class. If you get book tokens this Christmas - treat yourself, you really can't go wrong.
Toast
Re-read June 2021
Well after reading 'Hamnet' I needed something light, simple and bitesize - these little beauties answered the brief. Quality on every page, I was safe in the hands of masters knowing the bad guys would get caught by the good guys and all would be explained nicely at the end. Bravo.
Toast.
Toast
Re-read June 2021
Well after reading 'Hamnet' I needed something light, simple and bitesize - these little beauties answered the brief. Quality on every page, I was safe in the hands of masters knowing the bad guys would get caught by the good guys and all would be explained nicely at the end. Bravo.
Toast.
October 17, 2019
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
Deep Waters is an anthology of 16 stories with a water theme. Released 3rd Sept 2019 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 352 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats. Editor Martin Edwards provides erudite, interesting commentary and an introduction for each of the stories.
The stories themselves are classic and varied. There's a canonical Holmes and Watson short, a Raffles story, as well as stories by luminaries of the genre including Edmund Crispin, Josephine Bell, C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), and others. Honestly, the author list reads like a who's who of classic and golden age mystery fiction. The commentary and introduction are also top rate. I always learn something from Mr. Edwards' vast storehouse of mystery history; this time it was that E. W. Hornung (Raffles) was also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brother in law!
These are wonderful old stories. They mostly still play very well to a modern readership and all of these are worthy of preservation and publishing for new generations of mystery lovers.
Well done! Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Deep Waters is an anthology of 16 stories with a water theme. Released 3rd Sept 2019 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 352 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats. Editor Martin Edwards provides erudite, interesting commentary and an introduction for each of the stories.
The stories themselves are classic and varied. There's a canonical Holmes and Watson short, a Raffles story, as well as stories by luminaries of the genre including Edmund Crispin, Josephine Bell, C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), and others. Honestly, the author list reads like a who's who of classic and golden age mystery fiction. The commentary and introduction are also top rate. I always learn something from Mr. Edwards' vast storehouse of mystery history; this time it was that E. W. Hornung (Raffles) was also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brother in law!
These are wonderful old stories. They mostly still play very well to a modern readership and all of these are worthy of preservation and publishing for new generations of mystery lovers.
Well done! Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
August 24, 2020
Short stories are not really a format that I enjoy but this is a very good collection put together by Martin Edwards in the British Library Crime Classics series. All the stories have, to a greater or lesser extent, a connection to the sea or sailing on rivers and canals. The authors are some of the best from the golden years of detective crime writing including; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, E. W.Hornung, R. Austin Freeman, C.S.Forrester and others.
Well worth read. Just about 4 stars.
Well worth read. Just about 4 stars.
May 30, 2023
As usual, Edwards has put together an interesting collection by well- and little-known authors, this time with the theme of water--ocean, river, whatever. The two stories by two of my favorite authors are weaker pieces, however, and there's a longish story by an author I don't care for much. Thosse factors earned the book a three-star rating. But someone else might have entirely different favorites and rate it higher..
May 12, 2024
Leider waren die enthaltenen Kurzgeschichten m.E.n. zu unterschiedlich in der Qualität. Es gab absolute Highlights, schöne Diamanten der Klasse der Kurzgeschichte, aber auch einzelne eher verstörende Produkte, die mich mit einem Kopfschütteln zurück ließen. Das Generalthema "Auf dem Wasser/Auf den Wellen" wurde trotzdem in vielen Aspekten gut abgearbeitet.
August 25, 2019
A delightful and eclectic collection of golden age, short story mysteries. The authors range from the well-known to the obscure, and the watery theme of all of the murders is expressed in any number of ways. The introductions to the authors from editor Martin Edwards are always informative, and have resulted in considerable additions to my to-read pile. The oddest story of the lot has to be 1935's "The Pool of Secrets," by Gwyn Evans, which adds a nearly science fiction element in the form of the detective's robot assistant. All in all, a great deal of fun for classic mystery genre fans!
August 9, 2023
Good collection well worth reading
September 23, 2019
Sixteen short stories all relating to water,be it rivers,seasides,estuaries, pools and so on. And ranging in style from classic murder mysteries to tales of the unexpected. Some are good,very good indeed,and some do not quite enchant me so much.
But one of the great advantages and delights of these anthologies is the fact that you are introduced to different writers(some famous like Arthur Conan Doyle,C.S.Forester,Michael Innes and some now long forgotten) and their different approach to the "murder mystery". And notwithstanding the fact that some were written more than a century ago,they are still highly readable and are still a wonderfull source of bookish pleasure.
But one of the great advantages and delights of these anthologies is the fact that you are introduced to different writers(some famous like Arthur Conan Doyle,C.S.Forester,Michael Innes and some now long forgotten) and their different approach to the "murder mystery". And notwithstanding the fact that some were written more than a century ago,they are still highly readable and are still a wonderfull source of bookish pleasure.
June 13, 2019
This thirteenth themed Classic Crime anthology from the British Library contains sixteen very solid examples of watery British crime from 1893-1975.
Although I have reservations about the inclusion of a weakish Sherlock Holmes story, overall this was a most enjoyable selection with a goodish number of well-chosen examples from some lesser-known lights of the mystery fiction world.
Martin Edwards’ Introduction provides a survey of the sub-genre, and his notes on the authors of each story are ever interesting.
Apart from the Doyle, my least favourite was the HC Bailey, as I found the style annoying. Among the “crests of the waves” are, “Bullion”, “The Pool of Secrets” and “Question of Timing”. None of the stories could be said to “plumb the depths”.
The Adventure of the “Gloria Scott”-A Conan Doyle (1893): Although this is Holmes’ first ‘case’, it is, while interesting, hardly a detective story. The explanation of the mystery comes in a letter and not from any great feat of deduction.
The Eight Mile Lock-LT Meade and R Eustace (1897):Intriguing story about the scientific investigator, John Bell, looking into the theft of a diamond bracelet.
The Gift of the Emperor- EW Hornung (1899 ):Raffles, Bunny, and the theft of a magnificent pearl. We learn a lot about the relationship of the felonious duo.
Bullion- WH Hodgson (1911): A sealed room mystery, involving the theft of gold, by the influential author of “The House on the Borderland”, and the stories about the occult detective, Carnacki.
The Echo of A Mutiny- RA Freeman (1912): Inverted tale of a murder with its roots in past misdeeds.
Rather dull.
The Pool of Secrets- Gwyn Evans (1935): Fun story, with a robot and an innovative murder method, by a prolific and bohemian writer, featuring the mysterious detective, Quentin Ellery Drex.
Four Friends and Death- C StJ Sprigg (1935): Amusing and clever take on classic detection by three amateurs faced with a poisoning.
The Turning of the Tide- CS Forester (1936): Atmospheric inverted story of a well-planned murder…
The Swimming Pool- HC Bailey (1936): Reggie Fortune investigates a disappearance and murders in a tale with twist which was unduly long-winded and written in an irritating style.
A Question of Timing- Phyllis Bentley (1946): Most enjoyable “slice of life”, in which a writer prevents a murder. Neatly-written and full of the right sort of detail.
The Thimble River Mystery- Josephine Bell (1950): This mystery, featuring the author’s series detective, Dr David Wintringham, has a solution which depends on nautical knowledge.
Man Overboard- Edmund Crispin (1954):DI Humbleby tells Gervase Fen just why the police like blackmailers in this neat little tale.
Queer Fish- Kem Bennett (1955): Enjoyable, if a little predictable, story by a forgotten writer.
The Man who was Drowned- James Pattinson (1958): Investigation of a “man overboard’ on the high seas leads to complications and murder.
Seasprite- Andrew Garve (1963): Nice tale of a criminal, “hoist with his own petard”.
Death by Water-Michael Innes (1975): A fish out of water gives a lead in a suspect suicide by drowning.
Highly recommended, some very diverting reading. Do splash out on a copy!
August 13, 2025
I love the water---I've rarely been to the ocean, but from my early boyhood to the present day, I have spent many happy hours on the river. This anthology was therefore calling out to me. Having said that, while multi-author anthologies spanning decades and limited to a theme instead of being able to select an author's best work are going to inevitably be bumpy, these rapids are bumpier than most.
All British Library Crime Classics anthologies are structured the same---introduction by general editor Martin Edwards, then the stories presented in chronological order, with each story receiving its own introduction (quite a good one---Edwards is a pro) outlining the career of the author.
“The Adventure of the Gloria Scott” (1893) by Arthur Conan Doyle. This feels like an inevitable inclusion, but is merely OK; it's interesting to see a younger and slightly more human Holmes, but he doesn't do much, and I have little tolerance in general for mysteries that end with lengthy letters/confessions.
“The Eight-Mile Lock” (1897) by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace. I feel like some modern anthologists are trying to sell Meade to us as an unjustly forgotten master, but this really highlights how mediocre she often was---an “investigation” that has nothing to do with the crime and uncovers the truth only through dumb luck, a “mystery” with one suspect, and a meaningless crime---what do I care that some rich woman has her diamonds stolen? I have enjoyed Meade, but more as a quaint relic than someone I'd actively seek out.
“The Gift of the Emperor” (1898) by E. W. Hornug. This may be technically stand-alone, but is written as the conclusion of The Amateur Cracksman, and I would hesitate to recommend reading it divorced from that context.
“Bullion!” (1911) by William Hope Hodgson. I enjoy Hodgson (better known for his supernatural fiction), but this story isn't likely to satisfy a serious mystery fan looking for, as Edwards phrases it in his introduction, “a lively example of the ‘impossible crime’ or ‘sealed room’ story”---it uses a form of solution now universally reviled by practitioners of that art as cheap and uninteresting.
“The Echo of a Mutiny” (1912) by R Austin Freeman. Not one of his more successful efforts; it's an inverted mystery (we see the crime committed and know who did it before the detective), but the crime is so ad hoc, and so little serious care is made in covering it up, that rather than marvel at Dr. Thorndyke's ability to reconstruct it, we wonder at everyone else's inability. It does have some excellent prose to make it readable, even if the mystery isn't up to much.
“The Pool of Secrets” (1935) by Gwyn Evans. It's rare to see outright pulp in these collections; this story's protagonist has a crimson skull branded onto his forehead, “a relic of one of his exploits as a Secret Service man in China ... burnt into the skin by a vindictive mandarin.“ I don't mind pulp, but this obviously isn't a mystery in any real sense, the “solution” is nonsense, and the author obviously had plot threads (such as a mentioned but largely absent brother) that he totally lost track of.
“Four Friends and Death” (1935) by Christopher St. John. This is a type of story I love, where every page the primary suspect changes until the truth is revealed. Quality work.
“The Turning of the Tide” (1936) by C. S. Forester. A nasty little crime story by an author better known for other things (although he did write three crime novels in addition to his historical fiction, which I would not hesitate to read based on this).
“The Swimming Pool” (1936) by H. C. Bailey. This is the longest story in the collection, without a lot happening to really justify that length. I like Reggie Fortune, for his mix of facile humor and witticisms and genuine pathos. I do not think that someone drowning in a swimming pool should land a story in this collection.
“A Question of Timing” (1946) by Phyllis Bentley. Tediously sentimental slop (a man has for years silently loved a woman who was married to his best friend, and now the friend has died … but does he have the right to ask her to marry her, when he has a bad leg?). It's true that the narrator prevents a murder at the end, after stumbling across a drowning man be chance, but this perfectly demonstrates the problem we see in crime story and mystery anthologies---usually Martin Edwards does not suffer from this---of having no clear editorial mandate other than “must have a crime in it.”
“The Thimble River Mystery” (1950) by Josephine Bell. An amateur detective without a personality interviews two people, then reveals the murderer on unconvincing evidences. This is what people who don't read genre fiction but look down on it on principle imagine that mystery stories are usually like.
“Man Overboard” (1954) by Edmund Crispin. Brief, obvious, gives eccentric detective Fen no space to exhibit his personality, and, although there is a drowning, it feels very disconnected from the theme of the anthology, with two people sitting in a dry room and chatting over an old letter.
“The Queer Fish” (1956) by Kem Bennett. A highlight, with a charmingly light touch and some wonderfully descriptive language.
“The Man Who Was Drowned” (1958) by James Pattinson. This is certainly a story, nobody can say that it isn't. I guess the detective is OK?
“Seasprite” (1963) by Andrew Garve. Three pages, but packs a punch with the space it has; in fact, a longer wordcount could only have diminished it.
“Death by Water” (1975) by Michael Innes. At his best, Innes is the O'Henry of mystery fiction, writing very short stories with a punchline more than a revelation. This one is too long, and any competently run inquest in 1975 would presumably reveal the truth without any intervention from Appleby. Innes is a charming enough writer that it's at least not unpleasant to read.
I normally end these with a top five, but I frankly don't have five stories I think are worth elevating. Let's keep it to a top four---”Four Friends and Death” for successfully embodying a type of story I enjoy, “The Turning of the Tide” for its dark comedy leading into a genuinely grim climax, “The Man Who Was Drowned” for its humor, and “Seasprite” for its effective use of its brief page-count. It's not that the others are terrible, by-and-large, but this evocative theme deserved a stronger selection.
All British Library Crime Classics anthologies are structured the same---introduction by general editor Martin Edwards, then the stories presented in chronological order, with each story receiving its own introduction (quite a good one---Edwards is a pro) outlining the career of the author.
“The Adventure of the Gloria Scott” (1893) by Arthur Conan Doyle. This feels like an inevitable inclusion, but is merely OK; it's interesting to see a younger and slightly more human Holmes, but he doesn't do much, and I have little tolerance in general for mysteries that end with lengthy letters/confessions.
“The Eight-Mile Lock” (1897) by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace. I feel like some modern anthologists are trying to sell Meade to us as an unjustly forgotten master, but this really highlights how mediocre she often was---an “investigation” that has nothing to do with the crime and uncovers the truth only through dumb luck, a “mystery” with one suspect, and a meaningless crime---what do I care that some rich woman has her diamonds stolen? I have enjoyed Meade, but more as a quaint relic than someone I'd actively seek out.
“The Gift of the Emperor” (1898) by E. W. Hornug. This may be technically stand-alone, but is written as the conclusion of The Amateur Cracksman, and I would hesitate to recommend reading it divorced from that context.
“Bullion!” (1911) by William Hope Hodgson. I enjoy Hodgson (better known for his supernatural fiction), but this story isn't likely to satisfy a serious mystery fan looking for, as Edwards phrases it in his introduction, “a lively example of the ‘impossible crime’ or ‘sealed room’ story”---it uses a form of solution now universally reviled by practitioners of that art as cheap and uninteresting.
“The Echo of a Mutiny” (1912) by R Austin Freeman. Not one of his more successful efforts; it's an inverted mystery (we see the crime committed and know who did it before the detective), but the crime is so ad hoc, and so little serious care is made in covering it up, that rather than marvel at Dr. Thorndyke's ability to reconstruct it, we wonder at everyone else's inability. It does have some excellent prose to make it readable, even if the mystery isn't up to much.
“The Pool of Secrets” (1935) by Gwyn Evans. It's rare to see outright pulp in these collections; this story's protagonist has a crimson skull branded onto his forehead, “a relic of one of his exploits as a Secret Service man in China ... burnt into the skin by a vindictive mandarin.“ I don't mind pulp, but this obviously isn't a mystery in any real sense, the “solution” is nonsense, and the author obviously had plot threads (such as a mentioned but largely absent brother) that he totally lost track of.
“Four Friends and Death” (1935) by Christopher St. John. This is a type of story I love, where every page the primary suspect changes until the truth is revealed. Quality work.
“The Turning of the Tide” (1936) by C. S. Forester. A nasty little crime story by an author better known for other things (although he did write three crime novels in addition to his historical fiction, which I would not hesitate to read based on this).
“The Swimming Pool” (1936) by H. C. Bailey. This is the longest story in the collection, without a lot happening to really justify that length. I like Reggie Fortune, for his mix of facile humor and witticisms and genuine pathos. I do not think that someone drowning in a swimming pool should land a story in this collection.
“A Question of Timing” (1946) by Phyllis Bentley. Tediously sentimental slop (a man has for years silently loved a woman who was married to his best friend, and now the friend has died … but does he have the right to ask her to marry her, when he has a bad leg?). It's true that the narrator prevents a murder at the end, after stumbling across a drowning man be chance, but this perfectly demonstrates the problem we see in crime story and mystery anthologies---usually Martin Edwards does not suffer from this---of having no clear editorial mandate other than “must have a crime in it.”
“The Thimble River Mystery” (1950) by Josephine Bell. An amateur detective without a personality interviews two people, then reveals the murderer on unconvincing evidences. This is what people who don't read genre fiction but look down on it on principle imagine that mystery stories are usually like.
“Man Overboard” (1954) by Edmund Crispin. Brief, obvious, gives eccentric detective Fen no space to exhibit his personality, and, although there is a drowning, it feels very disconnected from the theme of the anthology, with two people sitting in a dry room and chatting over an old letter.
“The Queer Fish” (1956) by Kem Bennett. A highlight, with a charmingly light touch and some wonderfully descriptive language.
“The Man Who Was Drowned” (1958) by James Pattinson. This is certainly a story, nobody can say that it isn't. I guess the detective is OK?
“Seasprite” (1963) by Andrew Garve. Three pages, but packs a punch with the space it has; in fact, a longer wordcount could only have diminished it.
“Death by Water” (1975) by Michael Innes. At his best, Innes is the O'Henry of mystery fiction, writing very short stories with a punchline more than a revelation. This one is too long, and any competently run inquest in 1975 would presumably reveal the truth without any intervention from Appleby. Innes is a charming enough writer that it's at least not unpleasant to read.
I normally end these with a top five, but I frankly don't have five stories I think are worth elevating. Let's keep it to a top four---”Four Friends and Death” for successfully embodying a type of story I enjoy, “The Turning of the Tide” for its dark comedy leading into a genuinely grim climax, “The Man Who Was Drowned” for its humor, and “Seasprite” for its effective use of its brief page-count. It's not that the others are terrible, by-and-large, but this evocative theme deserved a stronger selection.
August 6, 2019
A collection of sixteen stories all with a connection to water, published from the 1890s onwards. Displaying a vast range of different writing styles I did enjoy most of the stories, but the two I probably liked the most were Bullion and Seasprite.
A NetGalley Book
A NetGalley Book
October 14, 2019
I usually enjoy water mysteries. Let’s see if Edwards can change that. His track record is promising.
The Adventure of the Gloria Scott by Arthur Conan Doyle is a Sherlock Holmes story when I’d just gotten used to seeing Conan Doyle’s other works in these books. This one is Holmes’ first case as a schoolboy, when a classmate calls on him to investigate his father’s suspicious death. For all that Holmes is proud of this case as the beginning of his career, he doesn’t do much. There’s a hidden message in a note the dead man receives before his demise, but even that was unnecessary as a letter left for the classmate explains everything. He didn’t need Holmes at all; the classmate already had the letter he just hadn’t read it yet.
L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace’s The Eight-Mile Lock is ridiculous and the crime relies on a huge coincidence and a ghastly lapse of foresight. A priceless piece of jewelry goes missing from a houseboat and I can’t take it seriously because I’m rolling my eyes so hard they risk rolling right out of my skull (in all fairness it was probably a ripping good solution for its time, but now parts of it were obvious from the first visit to the Lock).
Raffles is back to sway his partner from the side of angels and back into his old thieving ways when they try to steal The Gift of the Emperor, a priceless pearl. I didn’t much care for this story, not because E.W. Hornung had any failures in the writing of it, but the ending has Raffles being a asshole to his partner/friend Bunny and now I’m feeling rather cold on him.
A ship loaded with chests of gold bullion is having some trouble with whispering spirits and tricks of the light. William Hope Hodgson has hit a good cord with Bullion!, creating a puzzling story with a plausible and clever conclusion.
The Echo of a Mutiny by R. Austin Freeman is a two-parter. In the first section, a lighthouse operator is sent to join his fellow attendants on a borrowed boat at night, and in the next his disappearance is investigated. A fairly good story, but I had the impression that both parts were being drawn out for length. The first section has a while of talking without anything being said and the story not really moving along, and the second had the defining clue picked up on right away but the detective feeling the need to lead his companion around investigating without mentioning it, despite it being fairly condemning on its own.
I may have been expecting some things but steampunk wasn’t one of them. The detective in Gwyn Evans’ story has an automaton manservant and I seriously wish more had been done with the genre, but aside from that anachronistic addition there’s nothing else unusual about it. The story of The Pool of Secrets is about a swimming pool haunted by a family ghost who occasionally rends the flesh from bather’s skin and leaves nothing in the pool but their skeletons within moments of them entering the water. It’s a creepy ghost story and was very enjoyable, thought I thought the solution was absurd. However, after hitting up Wikipedia it looks as though it’s plausible, just not at the speed described. I had expected this to turn into another case of the Congo Card being played but it turns out Evans did their homework, even if they did exaggerate a touch. I was pretty impressed with this story. I’d say it’s maybe the second best of the book after the next one.
Four Friends and Death are locked up together on a boat when one friend drops dead at another’s hand. In close quarters with a murderer, the former friends sniff out the clues to their identity and decide each other’s fates. Finally, Christopher St. John Sprigg has finally given this book the damned good mystery I was hoping for: suspicion, tension, conflict, and a satisfying conclusion.
A lawyer contemplates murder. The Turn of the Tide by C.S. Forester starts off well, with the killer making chit chat with a doctor in the hopes of gleaning information on how to get away with murder, but the twist isn’t all that. I was expecting it since the British Library Crime Classics collections seem to have one in every anthology.
A wealthy man has passed away and left his fortune to his heir, and the nurse who attended him in life isn’t quite ready to move on yet. When she is found loitering by The Swimming Pool it kicks off a hunt for a murderer. That pool must have been Olympic-sized because this story went on forever. It seems that every time I put the book down this was the story I was struggling to get through. Might not be H.C. Bailey’s fault, but there were so many detectives that I couldn’t keep any of them straight, and I found a spot that badly needed a paragraph break so there may have been other similar spots that needed it and I was too muddle-headed to notice. That certainly would have made it tiresome to read (in this case, the break was needed to signify a change of location and passage of time).
When the opportunity comes to prevent a murder, it’s all down to A Question of Timing. I’ll definitely be looking into other Phyllis Bentley stories. This one was clever and interesting, and you get a feel for the lead character and will be genuinely pleased for the changes coming into their lives.
The Thimble River Mystery is ‘who killed the widower on his boat, and when’. Both questions seem fairly obvious to answer, but a nosy friend gets involved in an effort to save the man all the evidence is pointing at. Josephine Bell’s story is one of those especially fun ones where there’s so much situational detail packed in that you can’t make heads or tails of any of it unless you’ve been in that same situation yourself (i.e. if you’ve spent a good deal of time on boats), but the important bits can be figured out through context and the plot is so much fun that your bewilderment just adds to the enjoyment. It should be noted that, while this story too could benefit from paragraph breaks as I complained of in The Swimming Pool, it also immediately identifies the location/time so it’s not as necessary as the latter.
There’s a Man Overboard in Edmund Crispin’s story of why his detective has a fondness for blackmailers. I adored this story; I missed the big clue completely and the story is funny and clever.
A poacher is put in a tricky situation when a pair of strangers demands passage to France at gunpoint. The Queer Fish by Kem Bennett was another delight, and I’m starting to think all the strongest stories are toward the end of the book again. This one was funny, interesting, and had a great payoff.
A man tips off the edge of his cruise ship and the witness raises suspicions. I’d put down James Pattinson’s The Man Who Was Drowned with only three pages left after my break ended and I spent the rest of the afternoon dying to get back to it. It has intrigue, steel-nerved women, a luxurious ocean liner, a deliciously devious plot, a gruesome death, and a satisfying conclusion. It works perfectly well as a short story but I’d have loved it to be longer. Instead I’ll be investigating Pattinson’s bibliography.
A smuggler needs some fast cash while his partners are doing time, so he teams up with a sailor to widen his criminal horizons. Seasprite by Andrew Garve amused me not so much for its plot, which is simple and short but not terribly striking, but for having the distinction of being the only short story I’ve ever read where the compiler had to change the author’s title. Apparently the real title was such a spoiler that Edwards felt the change prudent. There’s just something that tickles me about that, and I suspect it’ll be the only thing I remember about the story.
Death by Water. The title is straightforward and the plot is wonderful. Michael Innes’s story of a man in melancholy spirits and sorry finances found washed up on the beach after a brief disappearance is clever and crafty.
EDITING:
That missing paragraph break in The Swimming Pool annoys me, but I noticed nothing else.
ENJOYABILITY:
There were a few dull or frustrating ones, but also a few disproportionately good ones. I’ll give it a score that’s a touch over half.
THEME:
Yup, all water stories. It checks out.
OTHER ASPECTS:
The Eight-Mile Lock is driving me nuts, I’m sorry. The crook just happened to have the ideal piece of homemade machinery handy to commit the spur of the moment crime, when he could have just sold the machine and made both a mint and a demand for more.
THE VERDICT?
A few good stories but that doesn’t make a good book. I’m not even sure how the score ended up as high as it did, but I suppose I’ll have to blame the THEME section. I’ll definitely be rethinking that one and I already have something in mind to try for the next British Library Crime Classic. How many do I have left? Three??
The Adventure of the Gloria Scott by Arthur Conan Doyle is a Sherlock Holmes story when I’d just gotten used to seeing Conan Doyle’s other works in these books. This one is Holmes’ first case as a schoolboy, when a classmate calls on him to investigate his father’s suspicious death. For all that Holmes is proud of this case as the beginning of his career, he doesn’t do much. There’s a hidden message in a note the dead man receives before his demise, but even that was unnecessary as a letter left for the classmate explains everything. He didn’t need Holmes at all; the classmate already had the letter he just hadn’t read it yet.
L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace’s The Eight-Mile Lock is ridiculous and the crime relies on a huge coincidence and a ghastly lapse of foresight. A priceless piece of jewelry goes missing from a houseboat and I can’t take it seriously because I’m rolling my eyes so hard they risk rolling right out of my skull (in all fairness it was probably a ripping good solution for its time, but now parts of it were obvious from the first visit to the Lock).
Raffles is back to sway his partner from the side of angels and back into his old thieving ways when they try to steal The Gift of the Emperor, a priceless pearl. I didn’t much care for this story, not because E.W. Hornung had any failures in the writing of it, but the ending has Raffles being a asshole to his partner/friend Bunny and now I’m feeling rather cold on him.
A ship loaded with chests of gold bullion is having some trouble with whispering spirits and tricks of the light. William Hope Hodgson has hit a good cord with Bullion!, creating a puzzling story with a plausible and clever conclusion.
The Echo of a Mutiny by R. Austin Freeman is a two-parter. In the first section, a lighthouse operator is sent to join his fellow attendants on a borrowed boat at night, and in the next his disappearance is investigated. A fairly good story, but I had the impression that both parts were being drawn out for length. The first section has a while of talking without anything being said and the story not really moving along, and the second had the defining clue picked up on right away but the detective feeling the need to lead his companion around investigating without mentioning it, despite it being fairly condemning on its own.
I may have been expecting some things but steampunk wasn’t one of them. The detective in Gwyn Evans’ story has an automaton manservant and I seriously wish more had been done with the genre, but aside from that anachronistic addition there’s nothing else unusual about it. The story of The Pool of Secrets is about a swimming pool haunted by a family ghost who occasionally rends the flesh from bather’s skin and leaves nothing in the pool but their skeletons within moments of them entering the water. It’s a creepy ghost story and was very enjoyable, thought I thought the solution was absurd. However, after hitting up Wikipedia it looks as though it’s plausible, just not at the speed described. I had expected this to turn into another case of the Congo Card being played but it turns out Evans did their homework, even if they did exaggerate a touch. I was pretty impressed with this story. I’d say it’s maybe the second best of the book after the next one.
Four Friends and Death are locked up together on a boat when one friend drops dead at another’s hand. In close quarters with a murderer, the former friends sniff out the clues to their identity and decide each other’s fates. Finally, Christopher St. John Sprigg has finally given this book the damned good mystery I was hoping for: suspicion, tension, conflict, and a satisfying conclusion.
A lawyer contemplates murder. The Turn of the Tide by C.S. Forester starts off well, with the killer making chit chat with a doctor in the hopes of gleaning information on how to get away with murder, but the twist isn’t all that. I was expecting it since the British Library Crime Classics collections seem to have one in every anthology.
A wealthy man has passed away and left his fortune to his heir, and the nurse who attended him in life isn’t quite ready to move on yet. When she is found loitering by The Swimming Pool it kicks off a hunt for a murderer. That pool must have been Olympic-sized because this story went on forever. It seems that every time I put the book down this was the story I was struggling to get through. Might not be H.C. Bailey’s fault, but there were so many detectives that I couldn’t keep any of them straight, and I found a spot that badly needed a paragraph break so there may have been other similar spots that needed it and I was too muddle-headed to notice. That certainly would have made it tiresome to read (in this case, the break was needed to signify a change of location and passage of time).
When the opportunity comes to prevent a murder, it’s all down to A Question of Timing. I’ll definitely be looking into other Phyllis Bentley stories. This one was clever and interesting, and you get a feel for the lead character and will be genuinely pleased for the changes coming into their lives.
The Thimble River Mystery is ‘who killed the widower on his boat, and when’. Both questions seem fairly obvious to answer, but a nosy friend gets involved in an effort to save the man all the evidence is pointing at. Josephine Bell’s story is one of those especially fun ones where there’s so much situational detail packed in that you can’t make heads or tails of any of it unless you’ve been in that same situation yourself (i.e. if you’ve spent a good deal of time on boats), but the important bits can be figured out through context and the plot is so much fun that your bewilderment just adds to the enjoyment. It should be noted that, while this story too could benefit from paragraph breaks as I complained of in The Swimming Pool, it also immediately identifies the location/time so it’s not as necessary as the latter.
There’s a Man Overboard in Edmund Crispin’s story of why his detective has a fondness for blackmailers. I adored this story; I missed the big clue completely and the story is funny and clever.
A poacher is put in a tricky situation when a pair of strangers demands passage to France at gunpoint. The Queer Fish by Kem Bennett was another delight, and I’m starting to think all the strongest stories are toward the end of the book again. This one was funny, interesting, and had a great payoff.
A man tips off the edge of his cruise ship and the witness raises suspicions. I’d put down James Pattinson’s The Man Who Was Drowned with only three pages left after my break ended and I spent the rest of the afternoon dying to get back to it. It has intrigue, steel-nerved women, a luxurious ocean liner, a deliciously devious plot, a gruesome death, and a satisfying conclusion. It works perfectly well as a short story but I’d have loved it to be longer. Instead I’ll be investigating Pattinson’s bibliography.
A smuggler needs some fast cash while his partners are doing time, so he teams up with a sailor to widen his criminal horizons. Seasprite by Andrew Garve amused me not so much for its plot, which is simple and short but not terribly striking, but for having the distinction of being the only short story I’ve ever read where the compiler had to change the author’s title. Apparently the real title was such a spoiler that Edwards felt the change prudent. There’s just something that tickles me about that, and I suspect it’ll be the only thing I remember about the story.
Death by Water. The title is straightforward and the plot is wonderful. Michael Innes’s story of a man in melancholy spirits and sorry finances found washed up on the beach after a brief disappearance is clever and crafty.
EDITING:
That missing paragraph break in The Swimming Pool annoys me, but I noticed nothing else.
ENJOYABILITY:
There were a few dull or frustrating ones, but also a few disproportionately good ones. I’ll give it a score that’s a touch over half.
THEME:
Yup, all water stories. It checks out.
OTHER ASPECTS:
The Eight-Mile Lock is driving me nuts, I’m sorry. The crook just happened to have the ideal piece of homemade machinery handy to commit the spur of the moment crime, when he could have just sold the machine and made both a mint and a demand for more.
THE VERDICT?
A few good stories but that doesn’t make a good book. I’m not even sure how the score ended up as high as it did, but I suppose I’ll have to blame the THEME section. I’ll definitely be rethinking that one and I already have something in mind to try for the next British Library Crime Classic. How many do I have left? Three??
September 5, 2019
This review also appears on my blog
This is the first BCLC-Anthology I read that featured a story by Doyle that’s an actual Holmes story: The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’; a story I didn’t remember at all, even though I have read/listened to all Holmes stories at least once. The reason for my memory-loss is…well that it’s not a very good story. It’s a lot like the non-Holmes story that featured in some of the previous anthologies that had no sleuthing and just a considerate person turning up and explaining everything. Here Holmes makes a couple of deductions early in the story, but the actual mystery is again solved by a convenient letter.
One of Holmes’ rivals (and an old acquaintance for Crime Library readers) also turns up: Dr Thorndyke solves another ‘inverted mystery’ in The Echo of a Mutiny and while it is a nice story, every reader with some prior experience with mystery will easily spot the mistake that will be the killer’s downfall.
Two more familiar names for me were E. W. Hornung who sends Raffles and Bunny after The Gift of the Emperor and William Hope Hodgson has a sailor telling a story of strange events on a ship in Bullion! I only read a couple of stories by both authors and in the case of the Raffles story that’s clearly a disadvantage. There are several references to past events that meant nothing to me and then the story also leaves you hanging at the end. Meanwhile, the Hodgson-story was more of a positive surprise. I hadn’t much liked what I read by him so far but Bullion! is very nice and creepy.
Talking about creepy: to my great delight Gwyn Evans’ The Pool of Secrets is again a very pulpy story featuring a deadly swimming pool, lots of dead bodies and an utterly absurd solution. I loved it.
My totally reasonable and valid reason to include this gif is that the collection also features a short story by C. S. Forester who is better known for his Horatio Hornblower books. I was aware that he’d written a crime novel but didn’t know about any short stories. The Turning of the Tide also has some pulp elements. A dark and stormy night and an unusual and gruesome punishment for the bad guy but the story took itself a bit too seriously for me to enjoy it.
A first is that I ended up skipping a story completely: The Swimming Pool by H. C. Bailey. As Martin Edwards informs us in the introduction, Bailey’s “idiosyncratic prose” fell out of fashion. Idiosyncratic apparently means “Why use one short word when five long ones will do?” I tried to read it but kept forgetting how one sentence had started by the time I had come to the end of it.
From the rest of the stories two more were memorable to me because they also didn’t take themselves too serious. In Man Overboard Edmund Crispin lets Gervase Fan meditate on the usefulness of (dead) blackmailers. And in Kem Bennett’s The Queer Fish a lot of things go wrong for several people and in the end the right ones triumph. The remaining handful of stories were mainly…OK. Nothing I hated but also nothing that made me want to check out more by the author.
ARC received from NetGalley
This is the first BCLC-Anthology I read that featured a story by Doyle that’s an actual Holmes story: The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’; a story I didn’t remember at all, even though I have read/listened to all Holmes stories at least once. The reason for my memory-loss is…well that it’s not a very good story. It’s a lot like the non-Holmes story that featured in some of the previous anthologies that had no sleuthing and just a considerate person turning up and explaining everything. Here Holmes makes a couple of deductions early in the story, but the actual mystery is again solved by a convenient letter.
One of Holmes’ rivals (and an old acquaintance for Crime Library readers) also turns up: Dr Thorndyke solves another ‘inverted mystery’ in The Echo of a Mutiny and while it is a nice story, every reader with some prior experience with mystery will easily spot the mistake that will be the killer’s downfall.
Two more familiar names for me were E. W. Hornung who sends Raffles and Bunny after The Gift of the Emperor and William Hope Hodgson has a sailor telling a story of strange events on a ship in Bullion! I only read a couple of stories by both authors and in the case of the Raffles story that’s clearly a disadvantage. There are several references to past events that meant nothing to me and then the story also leaves you hanging at the end. Meanwhile, the Hodgson-story was more of a positive surprise. I hadn’t much liked what I read by him so far but Bullion! is very nice and creepy.
Talking about creepy: to my great delight Gwyn Evans’ The Pool of Secrets is again a very pulpy story featuring a deadly swimming pool, lots of dead bodies and an utterly absurd solution. I loved it.
My totally reasonable and valid reason to include this gif is that the collection also features a short story by C. S. Forester who is better known for his Horatio Hornblower books. I was aware that he’d written a crime novel but didn’t know about any short stories. The Turning of the Tide also has some pulp elements. A dark and stormy night and an unusual and gruesome punishment for the bad guy but the story took itself a bit too seriously for me to enjoy it.
A first is that I ended up skipping a story completely: The Swimming Pool by H. C. Bailey. As Martin Edwards informs us in the introduction, Bailey’s “idiosyncratic prose” fell out of fashion. Idiosyncratic apparently means “Why use one short word when five long ones will do?” I tried to read it but kept forgetting how one sentence had started by the time I had come to the end of it.
From the rest of the stories two more were memorable to me because they also didn’t take themselves too serious. In Man Overboard Edmund Crispin lets Gervase Fan meditate on the usefulness of (dead) blackmailers. And in Kem Bennett’s The Queer Fish a lot of things go wrong for several people and in the end the right ones triumph. The remaining handful of stories were mainly…OK. Nothing I hated but also nothing that made me want to check out more by the author.
ARC received from NetGalley
April 4, 2020
This collection of short stories represents a selection of mysteries, mainly involving murder, which were all written in the Golden Age of Detective fiction. They are brought together by the theme of water in many forms: pools, ponds and of course, the sea. They range through the complex and clever, featuring disguise and bluff, to the basic where a simple deceit leads to arrests. There are humourous elements, as when the reminiscence of past cases gives pleasure to the investigator, whereas others reveal criminal acts that are shocking. As with other books in the British Library Crime Classics series, this book benefits from an Introduction from Martin Edwards in which he examines the common theme of mysteries connected with water, including some well known novels. Each story is prefaced with a short biography of the author, which is useful, especially given that several of the writers adopted different names when publishing their work. Altogether this is an excellent collection of short stories which covers a wide range of stories and styles, and I was very glad to have the opportunity to read and review this book.
This book opens with a story from Arthur Conan Doyle about his earliest case, and the introduction to his story points out that the theme of water was common in his stories. Unsurprisingly sea travel forms quite an important theme, with the risk of drowning or least the possibility of disposing of the body, giving possible explanations of death. There are clever tales of deduction by professional detectives as well as gifted amateurs whose main job is not in the law, whose different perspective proves invaluable in the detection of the guilty party. Some murders take place on board a sea vessel, surely the perfect closed community where there is a limit to the number of potential suspects. Given those restrictions, there are some extremely clever twists which emerge in these stories. Some of the stories only have a brief connection with water or the sea as they happen on the edge of rivers and the sea. The string of coincidences which lead to the detection of crime is well described in one or two stories. There are tiny mistakes which lead to the guilty party when spotted by the investigator, needing a careful inclusion in the story.
It is not easy to write a satisfying murder mystery in a short story format, as so much has to be established in a minimum words. The setting must be evoked, conveying a place such as on a ship and giving enough information to the non specialist reader. Characters must be established, giving a few possibilities of murderer. The crime or crimes must be observed or reported, the detection and revelation must be revealed and as necessary explained. Thus the sidekick or associate can be invaluable to explain the story. The fact that all these stories succeed in covering all these points to a certain extent is part of their great achievement. This collection happens to have a common theme, and the quality is consistently high throughout. Read straight through or picked up frequently, these are the ideal short tastes of skilled writers at their best, and this selection will not disappoint.
This book opens with a story from Arthur Conan Doyle about his earliest case, and the introduction to his story points out that the theme of water was common in his stories. Unsurprisingly sea travel forms quite an important theme, with the risk of drowning or least the possibility of disposing of the body, giving possible explanations of death. There are clever tales of deduction by professional detectives as well as gifted amateurs whose main job is not in the law, whose different perspective proves invaluable in the detection of the guilty party. Some murders take place on board a sea vessel, surely the perfect closed community where there is a limit to the number of potential suspects. Given those restrictions, there are some extremely clever twists which emerge in these stories. Some of the stories only have a brief connection with water or the sea as they happen on the edge of rivers and the sea. The string of coincidences which lead to the detection of crime is well described in one or two stories. There are tiny mistakes which lead to the guilty party when spotted by the investigator, needing a careful inclusion in the story.
It is not easy to write a satisfying murder mystery in a short story format, as so much has to be established in a minimum words. The setting must be evoked, conveying a place such as on a ship and giving enough information to the non specialist reader. Characters must be established, giving a few possibilities of murderer. The crime or crimes must be observed or reported, the detection and revelation must be revealed and as necessary explained. Thus the sidekick or associate can be invaluable to explain the story. The fact that all these stories succeed in covering all these points to a certain extent is part of their great achievement. This collection happens to have a common theme, and the quality is consistently high throughout. Read straight through or picked up frequently, these are the ideal short tastes of skilled writers at their best, and this selection will not disappoint.
August 11, 2022
Great stories!
I love short stories and I love Golden Age mysteries, so I'm indebted to Martin Edwards for collecting these lost gems and making them available again. It's easier to find novels by lesser known writers than short stories (usually published in magazines and forgotten.) Not that all of the these authors are lesser lights. Sherlock Holmes is reputed to be the most recognizable name in the English-speaking world and one of his adventures is included. C.P.Snow was a famous writer, but not of mysteries. I'm disappointed that the mystery mentioned in the introduction isn't available, but his short story "The Turn of the Tide" is fine.
Aside from "Gloria Scott", the only story I've read before is Edmund Crispin's "Man Overboard." I love Crispin's book-length mysteries, but his two collections of short stories ("Fen Country" and "Beware of Trains") are special. Oxford Professor Gervais Fen and Scotland Yard Inspector Humbleby are a delightful pair and full of wit and surprises.
L.T. Meade's mysteries are some of my favorites and this story of a stolen diamond necklace and an ingenious theft was new to me. The "incredible inventions" in 1900-era stories seem laughable to us now, but our scientific marvels will be just as ho-hum in fifty or one hundred years.
I also love R. Austin Freeman's stories, especially his wonderful "Romney Pringle" tales, but I enjoyed this thoughtful story about a quiet lighthouse keeper whose past comes back to haunt him. Old sins cast long shadows, indeed.
I've read (and enjoyed) one book-length mystery by Christopher St John Sprigg and have another in my TBR pile. I thought his contribution "Four Friends and a Death" was very good. It's a character study of four men brought together by their love of boating. And the surprise ending is exceptionally well done.
My least favorite was "The Swimming Pool" by H.C. Bailey. Bailey's "Mr Fortune" books were best sellers in the first half of the 20th century and Agatha Christie was a huge fan. As the editor says, they've fallen out of favor and I've never been able to warm up to Reggie Fortune and his conversational style. As Miss Marple herself pointed out, dropping your g's sounds fake. I think it's the longest story in the book, one reason Christie admired Bailey. I can see her point, but I think it drags.
Kem Bennett is a new name to me, but I loved his story of the slightly shady boatman and his majestic wife. The way he outwits the bad guys (and the unlovable warden) is delightful and I'm not surprised that it was made into a film.
My only complaint is that there is no "white space" between the introduction to each story and the story itself, which can be confusing. Still, many hours of good reading for a small price.
I love short stories and I love Golden Age mysteries, so I'm indebted to Martin Edwards for collecting these lost gems and making them available again. It's easier to find novels by lesser known writers than short stories (usually published in magazines and forgotten.) Not that all of the these authors are lesser lights. Sherlock Holmes is reputed to be the most recognizable name in the English-speaking world and one of his adventures is included. C.P.Snow was a famous writer, but not of mysteries. I'm disappointed that the mystery mentioned in the introduction isn't available, but his short story "The Turn of the Tide" is fine.
Aside from "Gloria Scott", the only story I've read before is Edmund Crispin's "Man Overboard." I love Crispin's book-length mysteries, but his two collections of short stories ("Fen Country" and "Beware of Trains") are special. Oxford Professor Gervais Fen and Scotland Yard Inspector Humbleby are a delightful pair and full of wit and surprises.
L.T. Meade's mysteries are some of my favorites and this story of a stolen diamond necklace and an ingenious theft was new to me. The "incredible inventions" in 1900-era stories seem laughable to us now, but our scientific marvels will be just as ho-hum in fifty or one hundred years.
I also love R. Austin Freeman's stories, especially his wonderful "Romney Pringle" tales, but I enjoyed this thoughtful story about a quiet lighthouse keeper whose past comes back to haunt him. Old sins cast long shadows, indeed.
I've read (and enjoyed) one book-length mystery by Christopher St John Sprigg and have another in my TBR pile. I thought his contribution "Four Friends and a Death" was very good. It's a character study of four men brought together by their love of boating. And the surprise ending is exceptionally well done.
My least favorite was "The Swimming Pool" by H.C. Bailey. Bailey's "Mr Fortune" books were best sellers in the first half of the 20th century and Agatha Christie was a huge fan. As the editor says, they've fallen out of favor and I've never been able to warm up to Reggie Fortune and his conversational style. As Miss Marple herself pointed out, dropping your g's sounds fake. I think it's the longest story in the book, one reason Christie admired Bailey. I can see her point, but I think it drags.
Kem Bennett is a new name to me, but I loved his story of the slightly shady boatman and his majestic wife. The way he outwits the bad guys (and the unlovable warden) is delightful and I'm not surprised that it was made into a film.
My only complaint is that there is no "white space" between the introduction to each story and the story itself, which can be confusing. Still, many hours of good reading for a small price.
January 13, 2022
Continuo na aventura de ler todos ou quase todos os livros editados pela British Library na série Crime Classics. A maioria é realmente interessante, intrigante ou excelente. Já encontrei um que não me agradou tanto, porque era uma coletânea de histórias curtas em que nem todas tinham as características que me atraem, ou mesmo algumas que me desagradaram quase que completamente. Este livro também é uma coletânea, e o que une a histórias é a ambientação em rios ou mares. Pode ser um pouco cansativo (como na coletânea citada antes) esse "monotema". Também pode haver essa falta de uniformidade na qualidade das histórias. Não se trata de um autor ser mais conhecido do que outro. Mas da história mesmo, do desenrolar da trama ou mesmo dos personagens. Mas descobri uma coisa que me desagrada em algumas dessas coletâneas: quando há um jargão, a coisa fica mais complicada para a compreensão ou mais tediosa. Foquemos no "complicada". Não é somente o fato de que o inglês é minha segunda língua, mas todo texto que contém uma série de termos específicos com os quais não se está acostumada pode ser difícil de entender, se um detalhe pode ser relevante. Por exemplo, pode não ser importante se a vítima levou uma pancada na cabeça ou nas costas. Mas dependendo da arma, do local, pode sim. Mesmo caso do tanto de barcos e botes e marés e etc. Não consigo distinguir estibordo de bombordo, mastro de vela. A gente acaba meio que surfando em certas descrições porque é simplesmente impossível ir ao Google de minuto em minuto para entender todos os termos. Nos próximos livros ficarei mais atenta às premissas da ambientação, ainda mais se forem coletâneas.
August 18, 2019
‘Deep Waters’ is the latest short story collection from the British Library Crime Classics and I feel it’s one of the strongest. In fact I think it’s the strongest collection they’ve produced, topped only by ‘Blood on the Tracks’. I read this collection over the course of about three weeks, dipping in and out of its criminal waters whilst reading other things alongside it. Reading it this way really worked for me and I’m definitely going to do it again.
Of course, as with any story collection, there are the slightly weaker, less enjoyable ones. But the majority of these tales blew my mystery loving socks off. The stars of this watery show were - ‘The Pool of Secrets’ by Gwyn Evans which sees bathers come to a very grisly end in the local manor house swimming pool. The conclusion and the how-it-was-done of this story was absolutely fantastic and completely original. ‘Four Friends and Death’ by Christopher St John Sprigg, four friends enjoy a sailing trip but when one of the party dies, the remaining three argue over who was the culprit. A very enjoyable and clever tale. ‘The Turning of the Tide’ by C.S Forester a superbly entertaining yarn where a murderer receives the mother of all karmic visits! And ‘The Thimble River Mystery’ by Josephine Bell a story full of yachts, clues and red herrings.
‘Deep Waters’ is a wonderful collection that is enjoyable, fun, full of dastardly types and full of outstanding story telling. It would be perfect seaside, riverside, poolside book but if like me your life is full of land, then this is a great way to escape and relax without the danger of being plunged into the murky depths!
Of course, as with any story collection, there are the slightly weaker, less enjoyable ones. But the majority of these tales blew my mystery loving socks off. The stars of this watery show were - ‘The Pool of Secrets’ by Gwyn Evans which sees bathers come to a very grisly end in the local manor house swimming pool. The conclusion and the how-it-was-done of this story was absolutely fantastic and completely original. ‘Four Friends and Death’ by Christopher St John Sprigg, four friends enjoy a sailing trip but when one of the party dies, the remaining three argue over who was the culprit. A very enjoyable and clever tale. ‘The Turning of the Tide’ by C.S Forester a superbly entertaining yarn where a murderer receives the mother of all karmic visits! And ‘The Thimble River Mystery’ by Josephine Bell a story full of yachts, clues and red herrings.
‘Deep Waters’ is a wonderful collection that is enjoyable, fun, full of dastardly types and full of outstanding story telling. It would be perfect seaside, riverside, poolside book but if like me your life is full of land, then this is a great way to escape and relax without the danger of being plunged into the murky depths!
November 26, 2019
Martin Edwards has produced a solid anthology of Golden Age style crime fiction short stores, the theme of which is aptly expressed by the sub-title, "Murder on the Waves". The stories are set in, on or around a body of water. They come from from a variety of authors, including some well-known crime writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Edmund Crispin. Lesser known authors are also represented, e.g. Andrew Garve and Phyllis Bennett; some readers like me may not have heard of them before this book.
As in any anthology, some stories stand out more than others. I enjoyed Doyle's "The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'", the first Sherlock Holmes investigation. "The Thimble River Mystery" introduced me to the writing of Josephine Bell and I hope to soon enjoy some of her other crime fiction.
Overall, the stories are entertaining. They vary in length too which makes it easy to dip into the book when reading time is short; "The Seasprite" is over before you know it, with an ending some may feel is too abrupt. Reading tastes differ of course so what one person likes may not suit others. One of the appeals of a Martin Edwards crime fiction anthology is the variety of the selected stories. With sixteen stories there is plenty from which to choose. Edwards's Introduction to the collection serves as a useful guide to making your selections.
I received my advance reader's review copy of this eBook from Poisoned Pen Press, via Netgalley. The comments about it are my own.
July 8, 2019
"Deep Waters" is a short story collection of 16 mysteries written in the 1880s to 1950s. The mysteries were set on boats and ships, along the coast, or just involve a pool. Most of the stories had the detective as the point of view character, but some were from the villain's point of view. Most were told as they happened, but a few were the detective telling about the case after it was finished. While whodunit in most of the mysteries was either obvious or not guessable (due to lack of necessary clues until the reveal), a few of these had clues and were guessable. The enjoyment mainly came from watching a detective work through a tough mystery to solve it. There was no sex. There was some bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable mystery collection.
The included mysteries:
The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ Arthur Conan Doyle
The Eight-Mile Lock L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
The Gift of the Emperor E. W. Hornung
Bullion! William Hope Hodgson
The Echo of a Mutiny R. Austin Freeman
The Pool of Secrets Gwyn Evans
Four Friends and Death Christopher St John Sprigg
The Turning of the Tide C. S. Forester
The Swimming Pool H. C. Bailey
A Question of Timing by Phyllis Bentley
The Thimble River Mystery Josephine Bell
Man Overboard Edmund Crispin
The Queer Fish Kem Bennett
The Man Who Was Drowned James Pattinson
Seasprite Andrew Garve
Death by Water Michael Innes
I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
The included mysteries:
The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ Arthur Conan Doyle
The Eight-Mile Lock L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
The Gift of the Emperor E. W. Hornung
Bullion! William Hope Hodgson
The Echo of a Mutiny R. Austin Freeman
The Pool of Secrets Gwyn Evans
Four Friends and Death Christopher St John Sprigg
The Turning of the Tide C. S. Forester
The Swimming Pool H. C. Bailey
A Question of Timing by Phyllis Bentley
The Thimble River Mystery Josephine Bell
Man Overboard Edmund Crispin
The Queer Fish Kem Bennett
The Man Who Was Drowned James Pattinson
Seasprite Andrew Garve
Death by Water Michael Innes
I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews