I always turn to mysteries when I want a quick, light read. In this vein, I picked up Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles, edited by Martin Edwards. Mr. Edwards has put together a rather dull group of stories.
The collection starts out with an odd, brief story about a writer killed on a train by a stranger. The murder takes place immediately, with little background, and then we are quickly thrown into the investigation. In lightening time, an obvious killer is revealed and that’s that. This story sets the scene for so many other stories in the book: unusually short, little suspense, quick solution. These stories are strictly who- or why-dunnits, with a few exceptions. Little characterization is to be found. If you’ve ever read “Five Minute Mysteries,” they are kind of like that in terms of depth.
There are lots of scenarios to go through, all related to writing or books. An unpleasant writer is stabbed to death with a fish knife when the lights go out. A harridan wife finds out the will that left her everything was superseded by another will hidden in a clever place. A very skimpy, lifeless Sherlock Holmes affair. An extremely bald clue leads to a very obvious suspect in record time (I’m terrible at clues and even I figured it out in five seconds).
The stories do get a little better as the book goes on. A man is mysteriously poisoned, with his wife the primary suspect. A rather convoluted murder at least had some twists and interesting machinations (and was, strangely, written by Winnie the Pooh author, A. A. Milne). Another mystery involving a murder and missing books was confusing, but at least tried to be clever. A story involving a ghost was kind of fun. There followed some weaker stories, though.
My favorite story was one I had already read in another collection, a Ngaio Marsh short story about mysterious deaths in (naturally) a small rural village. It was intriguing and had some entertaining character sketches. It also featured Detetective Roderick Alleyn, who I always find delightful.