Reading the Detectives discussion

This is our 'extra' book for the reading challenge this month - a collection of short stories, of which the first four are LPW stories: The Image in the Mirror, The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey, The Queen's Square and The Necklace of Pears. There are also 6 stories featuring travelling salesman, Montague Egg and two excellent stand alone stories - "The Man Who Knew How," and "The Fountain Plays." However, if you just want to read the LPW stories they are the first four in the book - just to make things easy! Please keep any spoilers to the spoiler thread, which I will also open now.

Please post any spoilers in this thread.

I'd read the book in the past - so far I don't remember most of the stories, but I did remember the solution to the first one, The Image in the Mirror.

It seems to me as if the twist in this one is pretty obvious, but maybe that's more the case to us now as there have been so many evil/secret twins over the years, and it might have been more unusual at the time?

Has anyone read the last two stories in the collection yet? I wondered if anyone agreed with me that they were easily the best things in the book - and I say that having loved Montague Egg!

I've finished the book now - I preferred the Montague Egg stories to those last two, although they are very clever. I missed having a memorable detective character in those!

Susan wrote: "Has anyone read the last two stories in the collection yet? I wondered if anyone agreed with me that they were easily the best things in the book - and I say that having loved Montague Egg!"

I think the last one about the fountain was probably the best though I liked the plot in the other one.

I wondered when I read, "The Man Who Knew How," whether DLS's could have incorporated perhaps Parker into the plot? I feel Parker could have easily carried a story on his own.

I found the second story in the collection, The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey, very vivid and with a horror story quality to it, like some of the tales in the first short story collection we read. It struck me, though, that the description of the effects of thyroid deficiency would make disturbing reading for anyone suffering this condition.

I've just found that author Amanda Craig referenced this story some years back in a report about her battle with thyroid cancer and her daughter's thyroid condition - it's an interesting piece and good to know that advances have been made in treating this.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-sty...

Just discovered The Man Who Knew How was adapted for radio in 1944 for radio with great actor Charles Laughton as Pender - here is a short article about it: http://www.escape-suspense.com/2009/1...

And here is a link to listen to the play:
http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/...

Interesting links, Judy. I will have a look, and a listen...

Thanks, Susan. Just found that radio play link seems to go wrong in the middle, but it is also on YouTube with much better sound quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxv0J...

I've now listened to the radio play and it is very melodramatic, with some added twists. I usually like old time radio plays but wasn't too keen on this one, though of course because I'd read the story there was less suspense than there might have been!

Maybe I'll leave it a little while before listening then :)

I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry!

Noted! :)

I finally finished this today. I read this years ago. I liked the Montagu Egg stories better than I did previously. But the story I really liked was "The Man Who Knew How".