Continental Crimes Martin Edwards, editor
5/5 stars
This is a varied collection of crimes both committed and detected, not necessarily mysterious, but always nefarious. As is the case with all the British Library Crime Classics, the authors are a mix of Golden Age writers, with a few earlier and later. I was impressed by the quality of the writing of most of the stories, even when the plot wasn't stellar.
The stories are as follows:
"The New Catacomb" by Arthur Conan Doyle 4/5 stars
"A Bracelet at Bruges" by Arnold Bennett 4/5 stars
"The Secret Garden" by G.K. Chesterton 5/5 stars
"The Secret of the Magnifique" by E. Phillips Oppenheim 4/5 stars
"Petit-Jean" by Ian Hay 5/5 stars
"The Lover of St. Lys" by F. Tennyson Jesse 4/5 stars
"Popeau Intervenes" by Marie Belloc Lowndes 3/5 stars
"The Perfect Murder" by Stacy Aumonier 4/5 stars
"The Room in the Tower" by J. Jefferson Farjeon 4/5 stars
"The Ten-Franc Counter" by H. deVere Stacpoole 3/5 stars
"Have You Got Everything You Want?" by Agatha Christie 4/5 stars
"The Long Dinner" by H. C. Bailey 5/5 stars
"The Packet-Boat Murder" by Josephine Bell 4/5 stars
"Villa Almirante" by Michael Gilbert 3/5 stars
The book deserves five stars for the motley collection of authors and crimes. The stories themselves average to four, making the book four and one half stars, which I rounded up to five.
