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The Butler Did It
Nov. 18th, 2018 04:13 pmBook Review: Murder at the Manor - Country House Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards
On the one hand, the British Library Crime Classics series sounds like a great thing; but on the other, it can prove to be of variable quality, as some "rediscovered" stories might wisely have been left undisturbed.
On the whole I found this better than Capital Crimes; maybe because, as Edwards notes in the introduction, the country house mystery is such a staple of the genre, especially in the "golden age". Nonetheless, the selection includes quite a variety of ingenious plots and inventive approaches, beginning with a Conan Doyle short story, The Copper Beeches. This and The Manor House Mystery (J S Fletcher), The Horror at Staveley Grange (Sapper), and The Mystery of Horne's Copse (Anthony Berkeley), were my favourites from the book; only The Same to us (Margery Allingham) was disappointing, with its dated and simplistic racism. One of the later stories in the collection, The Murder at the Towers (E V Knox), is a splendid satire and send-up of the genre.
On the one hand, the British Library Crime Classics series sounds like a great thing; but on the other, it can prove to be of variable quality, as some "rediscovered" stories might wisely have been left undisturbed.
On the whole I found this better than Capital Crimes; maybe because, as Edwards notes in the introduction, the country house mystery is such a staple of the genre, especially in the "golden age". Nonetheless, the selection includes quite a variety of ingenious plots and inventive approaches, beginning with a Conan Doyle short story, The Copper Beeches. This and The Manor House Mystery (J S Fletcher), The Horror at Staveley Grange (Sapper), and The Mystery of Horne's Copse (Anthony Berkeley), were my favourites from the book; only The Same to us (Margery Allingham) was disappointing, with its dated and simplistic racism. One of the later stories in the collection, The Murder at the Towers (E V Knox), is a splendid satire and send-up of the genre.