Resorting to Murder: A Collection of Holiday Mysteries (British Library Crime Classics) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 146420375X ISBN 13: 9781464203756

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2015

Synopsis

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

"This volume in Poisoned Pen's British Library Crime Classics series is ideal summer vacation reading." ―Publishers Weekly

Holidays offer us the luxury of getting away from it all. So, in a different way, do detective stories. This collection of vintage mysteries combines both those pleasures. From a golf course at the English seaside to a pension in Paris, and from a Swiss mountain resort to the cliffs of Normandy, this new selection shows the enjoyable and unexpected ways in which crime writers have used summer holidays as a theme.

These fourteen stories range widely across the golden age of British crime fiction. Stellar names from the past are well represented―Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton, for instance―with classic stories that have won acclaim over the decades. The collection also uncovers a wide range of hidden gems: Anthony Berkeley―whose brilliance with plot had even Agatha Christie in raptures―is represented by a story so (undeservedly) obscure that even the British Library does not own a copy. The stories by Phyllis Bentley and Helen Simpson are almost equally rare, despite the success which both writers achieved, while those by H. C. Bailey, Leo Bruce and the little-known Gerald Findler have seldom been reprinted.

Each story is introduced by the editor, Martin Edwards, who sheds light on the authors' lives and the background to their writing.

About this title

About the Author:

MARTIN EDWARDS is an award-winning crime writer best known for two series of novels set in Liverpool and the Lake District. He is a series consultant for British Library Crime Classics, Chair of the Crime Writers' Association, and President of the Detection Club. The Golden Age of Murder, his study of the Detection Club, was published in 2015 to international acclaim, and won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards for the year's best book about the genre.

Review:

It is rare to find a Golden Age anthology in which the majority of the short stories have not been published, multiple times, in other sources. I was delighted to find that this collection was completely fresh, to me, and full of lovely surprises; the humor of Helen Simpson's "A Posteriori" was an especial treat. Highly recommended for all lovers of British mysteries, particularly if planning a holiday!

(NetGalley)

What a fun book! Fourteen stories focused on the Golden Age of British crime writing, the series includes works by both recognized authors such as Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton. Many of the stories are quite rare, seldom reprinted, including those by Phyllis Bentley and Helen Simpson. Holidays seem to call for new mystery books, whether it's a trip to the beach in the summer or a trip to grandparents for Christmas. Holiday mysteries were a great love of Christie and an excellent way to get away whether by train, boat, or a comfortable chair by the fire....The settings for these stories reveal the unexpected ways in which crime writers use holidays as a theme. Markedly different from each other, the stories range from a golf course in the English seaside, a pension (budget friendly accommodation) in Paris, and a Swiss mountain resort, to the cliffs of Normandy....This special book follows on the footsteps of two others in the Crime Classics series published by Poisoned Pen Press: Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston and The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude. Eleven additional titles are set for release in late 2015. And if that isn't exciting enough, beginning in 2016, one title is slated to be released each month!

(The Book Breeze)

Fourteen reprints from England's golden age of detection (here, 1910-1953) show that although favorite sleuths may go on vacation, murder never does. The very first story, Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot," sets the pattern: rarely reprinted lesser tales that have been neglected for good reason. After Sherlock Holmes untangles "the Cornish horror," Doyle's brother-in-law E.W. Hornung sends Dr. John Dollar to Switzerland to determine why a doctor prescribed his patient a lethal dose of strychnine in "A Schoolmaster Abroad"; Paul Beck, closer to home, confronts the killer of a man unlucky in love in M. McDonnell Bodkin's "The Murder on the Golf Links"; G.K. Chesterton sends poet Gabriel Gale to southern France to reveal the fate of a heterodox fossil scientist in "The Finger of Stone"; H.C. Bailey's Reggie Fortune is on hand to unravel a double attack in the Swiss Alps in "The Hazel Ice"; Dr. John Thorndyke minutely reconstructs the appearance of a seaside victim and his killer in R. Austin Freeman's "A Mystery of the Sand-Hills"; Anthony Berkeley shows Roger Sheringham performing remarkably similar offices on Penhampton Beach in "Razor Edge"; and Sgt. Beef divines how the new governor of a Normandy prison was killed in his car without ever getting clocked out of his office in Leo Bruce's "Holiday Task." Less formulaic but equally routine are Arnold Bennett's "Murder!," set on the Channel Coast, and a pair of stories - Basil Thomson's "The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser" and Michael Gilbert's businesslike "Cousin Once Removed" - that rehash well-worn patterns. The most original entries here are Gerald Findler's haunted-house tale "The House of Screams"; Phyllis Bentley's spooky, twisty "Where is Mr. Manetot?"; and, best of all, "A Posteriori," Helen Simpson's unexpectedly funny crossing of prim Miss Charters with a spy whose work leaves unforgettable traces. One truth emerges unchallenged: when English detectives go on holiday, they really do seem to relax a bit, or at least their creators do.

(Kirkus Reviews)

For anyone who is a fan of stories set in the era of top hats and long dresses would love it. Short stories that are ideal reading for a summer's day. It is of course not very difficult to figure out the endings but it is the language and the nuances of these gems that bring a smile to your face.

(NetGalley)

About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 146420375X
• ISBN 13: 9781464203756
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Edwards Martin