A collection of 16 reprinted crime stories set in British country houses. Mostly focused on the Golden Age of Detection. This is one of the anthologies edited by Martin Edwards and published in the British Library Crime Classics series. (One minor complaint, Mr. Edwards: I would have liked to see the year of publication of each story).

I'm giving it 5 stars. I guess objectively 4 would be appropriate, after all many of the stories are not perfect, but when I enjoy every single story in a collection by different writers I have to reward that. Overall, quite solid, atmospheric and well-written, even if the mysteries were not always the greatest.

The stories are:

Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Copper Beeches”: A Sherlock Holmes story. Quite an intriguing situation and an entertaining tale, although not one of the best stories in the canon because it seems easy to guess what was going on and Holmes did not get to do that much detecting.

Dick Donovan’s “The Problem of Dead Wood Hall”: Contrasting with the impossibly bright detectives in other stories, a very down to earth and matter-of-fact first-person narration by the investigator. Again, quite enjoyable, although once more the guilty party seems evident (and the police look rather incompetent for not seeing it). I guess that in a short story it's difficult to plant red herrings. There's just not much room. Still, it turns out that the interest is not in who did it but on whether it will be proven to a jury's satisfaction. One of the problems of Golden Age detection, of course: as soon as the detective exposes the fault in the murderer's alibi and makes the accusation, the murderer confesses, even though a theory is one thing and proof is a different one. Not so here.

E. W. Hornung’s “Gentlemen and Players”: features a crook as protagonist: Raffles. As always in this anthology, good writing and a very enjoyable atmosphere. The plot is fine, if nothing extremely special.

W.W. Jacobs’ “The Well”: No detective here; just a very good psychological story about a crime, a bit in the vein of The Tell-Tale Heart. And the moral of this story is: don't hide the body inside your property.

G.K. Chesterton’s “The White Pillars Murder”: Not a Father Brown story, but one involving the detective Dr. Adrian Hyde, and particularly his two assistants. The resolution is on the nonsensical side, with one of the assistant solving the puzzle with just a flash of inspiration and insight, with no real investigation. However, I have to confess that I enjoyed the rather outrageous solution.

Ernest Bramah's “The Secret of Dunstan’s Tower”: The blind detective Max Carrados works on a problem about a seemingly haunted manor. Blood appears at night on the stairs, every night one step higher, and when it reaches the top floor there will be a death, according to tradition. A very intriguing premise, although as sometimes happens you have to wonder how no one else was able to find out what was going on. A thrilling but not really practical way to commit a crime.

J.S. Fletcher’s “The Manor House Mystery”: A good mystery with several turns of the screw as new information becomes available and changes the case. Once more, very enjoyable, and my only reservation is that the investigator did nothing. His role was just receiving news.

J.J. Bell’s “The Message on the Sun-Dial”: Another psychological tale from the point of view of the criminal. Quite good, although the resolution, involving a "dying message clue" was not the best part.

Sapper's “The Horror at Staveley Grange”: A haunted room where two healthy men died of heart failure, and a suspect who asks for the detective's help. It's a recurring theme in the anthology: well-written and atmospheric. Once again, the crime turns out to be more thrilling than practical. Those Golden Age criminals sure came up with convoluted ways of murdering!

Anthony Berkeley's “The Mystery of Horne’s Copse”: A really good story about someone who keeps finding a murdered corpse, only to have the body disappear as he tries to alert the police. The longest story in the book and enjoyable throughout. Once you know the solution, though, you have to wonder at how many things could go wrong with the criminals' plan.

James Hilton’s “The Perfect Plan”: Another excellent story about an almost perfect murder, also with psychological content. This time, the murderer's plan is better thought-out, although not lacking in complexity and spectacularity.

Margery Allingham’s “The Same to Us”: Quite short story with no detective, which paint an amusing portrait of a vain hostess.

E.V. Knox’s “The Murder at the Towers”: An outright but fond parody of the Golden Age manor crime story. There's a lot of room for parody there, and I found this short tale quite funny.

Ethel Lina White’s “The Unlocked Window”: Yet another very good psychological tale, this time from the point of view of an increasingly terrified nurse who is the next victim chosen by a maniac serial murderer.

Nicholas Blake's “The Long Shot”; A classic country manor murder story. Not the best in the book but quite adequate.

Michael Gilbert’s “Weekend at Wapentake”: Another tale with more focus on the horror of the crime than on the detection, with a couple of servants who murder the old lady they are taking care of. ( )

The White Pillars Murders by G. K. Chesterton is a masterpiece and miles above the pat religious hectoring of his Father Brown stories. ( )

In general, I prefer full-length novels to short stories; short stories often wind up feeling incomplete to me. Most of these stories are concluded with enough explanation to satisfy novel-readers, but a few end in frustratingly ambiguous ways. Overall, a good collection of classic English country house mysteries that offers an enjoyable introduction to this sub-genre, as well as to the "need to know" classic mystery writers. I especially appreciated the introductory description of each author, as it helped me to understand each author and story's place in history.

Note: I received a digital ARC through NetGalley. ( )

One of the British Library Crime Classic anthologies recently published, this is a collection of - as the title says - short mysteries that take place at country houses of the nominally wealthy. I haven't read the whole of the collection, but what I have read was almost uniformly excellent.

Below the list of stories I read, along with a few quick thoughts about each:

The Copper Beeches - Arthur Conan Doyle: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It's Sherlock Holmes, of course it's excellent. It's one of the more far out story premises, but it's fantastic. If you haven't read Sherlock Holmes yet... um, why?

The Problem of Dead Wood Hall - Dick Donovan: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
One of two I liked the least. It's an inverted mystery, so really, not a mystery as far as I'm concerned. There was no puzzle to be solved here, only what feels like an opportunity for the detective to boast.

Gentlemen and Players - E.W. Hornung - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ok, I'm going to kind of contradict myself now, because there's no mystery here either, but it's Raffles! I've been wanting to read a Raffles story for ages, and I've finally got my chance. It was fun, the writing was amusing, the pace quick and lively and the ending... I saw that ending coming but it was still everything I hoped it would be. I need more Raffles in my life.

The White Pillars Murder - G.K. Chesterton - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The other one I liked the least. Chesterton and I are not destined for the author/fan dynamic. I did not like The Haunted Bookshop because it took me forever to figure out that it wasn't a ghost story, and that what little plot it did have was drowning in the author's exposition. I didn't like this one either; the prose was less superfluous, but the plot was... I don't know what the plot was. I don't know what his point was in writing this, honestly; a cautionary tale to all P.I. hopefuls? A slag off at Holmes? Who knows, but it's strike two against this particular Golden Age writer for me.

The Same to Us - Margery Allingham - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
More 4.5 stars. Very short story, and again, less mystery than a satire, but it was incredibly well written and humorous. There was never any doubt in my mind from the start what the ending was going to be, but that last 1/2 star was purely for the last line of the story.

The Murder at the Towers - E.V. Knox - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Martin Edwards mentions this story in his The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books in the chapter "Making Fun of Murder" and it's one of the stories I particularly wanted to read. It did not disappoint. It was hilarious; Knox doesn't try to be subtle, his humour is... well, to quote the first line of the story:

"Mr. Ponderby-Wilkins was a man so rich, so ugly, so cross, and so old, that even the stupidest reader could not expect him to survive any longer than chapter I. Vulpine in his secretiveness, he was porcine in his habits, saturnine in his appearance, and ovine in his unconsciousness of doom. He was the kind of man who might easily perish as early as paragraph 2."

I was in love from the start - and laughing. The rest is also pure farce, but Knox manages to get a humdinger in at the very last line, and it left me laughing and shaking my head.

There's a few other stories in this collection that I want to make a point of reading in the near future; some authors that I'm only learning about whose work I want to check out. I'll definitely be coming back to this one soon, and I'm looking forward to reading the other anthologies Edward has put together. ( )

When the stories in this book are good, they are excellent. When they are bad, they are still not horrid. Even at their worst they are just boring. Overall, this mixed bag of British country house murder mysteries is enjoyable. ( )