Continental Crimes

Starred review from June 5, 2017
Detection Club president Edwards (Crimson Snow) puts his expertise to good use in this superb reprint anthology of 14 short stories by British writers set in continental Europe. As with the best of such compilations, readers of classic mysteries will relish discovering unfamiliar authors, along with old favorites such as Arthur Conan Doyle (“The New Catacomb”) and G.K. Chesterton (“The Secret Garden”). Many will finish F. Tennyson Jesse’s “The Lover of St. Lys” wanting to see more of her unique sleuth, Solange Fontaine, who investigates crimes “with the end always in view of throwing light on causes rather than on actual deeds.” Agatha Christie’s “Have You Got Everything You Want?” foreshadows a plot Christie used two decades later in a novel. Christie fans will also be interested in Marie Belloc Lowndes’s “Popeau Intervenes,” featuring a French sleuth, Hercules Popeau, who predates Hercule Poirot. J. Jefferson Farjeon, one of the lesser-known names, is represented by the nicely spooky “The Room in the Tower.” Those unfamiliar with the bygone age of crime fiction celebrated in this volume will find this the perfect introduction.

June 1, 2017
Despite Colin Watson's witty averral that golden-age mystery writers restricted their crimes to the mythical village of Mayhem Parva, quite a few of them crossed the Channel, as this collection of 14 past voyages, originally published between 1898 and 1959, eloquently attests.The two best stories here are the most frequently anthologized: G.K. Chesterton's "The Secret Garden," his second Father Brown story, a locked-garden tale that boldly burns bridges he erected in his first, and H.C. Bailey's "The Long Dinner," in which the insufferable Reggie Fortune teases out the links between a vanished English painter and a monstrously clever murder scheme. Of the lesser-known reprints, top honors go to F. Tennyson Jesse's "The Lover of St. Lys," in which Solange Fontaine, that quiet specialist in evil, susses out the truth about a French domestic intrigue; Stacy Aumonier's bright, dry "The Perfect Murder," in which a pair of impecunious brothers plot their wealthy aunt's demise with predictably unpredictable results; and "The New Catacomb," Arthur Conan Doyle's eerie, updated take on "The Cask of Amontillado." Also along for the trip are Arnold Bennett (an eminently guessable puzzle that restores a bracelet accidentally dropped into a Bruges canal), E. Phillips Oppenheim (ceremonious upper-crust maneuvering around some missing military plans), Ian Hay (sprightly wartime thefts-cum-espionage), Marie Belloc Lowndes (charming Hercules Popeau shows why he was such a powerful inspiration for Agatha Christie), J. Jefferson Farjeon (an Englishman rents a Rhine castle with a haunted tower), H. de Vere Stacpoole (a routine murder in glittering Monte Carlo), Josephine Bell (a drastically compressed romantic triangle gone wrong), and Michael Gilbert (the suspicious drowning of a Byronic poet whose visit to an Italian villa ends abruptly). Readers who like this sort of thing will find every single story, even if it isn't outstanding, well worth their time. The field is so rich, in fact, that veteran editor Edwards (Miraculous Mysteries, 2017, etc.) can't have had much trouble in plucking these plums and near-plums--a feast for the equally nostalgic.

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July 1, 2017

Once again, Edwards (Miraculous Mysteries; The Golden Age of Murder) has compiled a collection of little-known mysteries from Golden Age-British authors. This time, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and G.K. Chesterton, among others, send their sleuths to the European continent. There are also intriguing stories by lesser-known authors in the genre. "Popeau Intervenes" by Marie Belloc Lowndes, daughter of a French barrister and an English feminist, introduces Hercules Popeau, a forerunner perhaps of Christie's own Hercule Poirot. There is a strong resemblance, and the tale itself reflects some of the moral tones of Christie's stories. Arnold Bennett's "A Bracelet at Bruges" is a clever depiction of deception and theft. Along with the story introductions and biographical sketches of the authors, Edwards includes the publication history of several of the stories. VERDICT Fans of classic British crime fiction will appreciate this anthology, and the vivid locations should lure readers who enjoy atmospheric reads.--LH

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