A bumper selection, this, and great value at the price, maybe leaning a little towards yesterday's men, with very few of the modern-day practitioners present, but none the worse for that. Beginning with Poe, regarded as the first to write a detective/mystery story, the parade rolls on through such little-known names as Jacques Futrelle, Anna Katherine Greene and Clinton H. Stagg to the more familiar Richard Sale, Erle Stanley Gardner, Cornell Woolrich and John Dickson Carr. Chandler is represented by "I'll Be Waiting", wherein worldly-wise hotel dick Tony Reseck sacrifices one life to save another - a dark tale, this, resonant of failed aspirations and lonely longings. And William Faulkner provides a gem called "An Error in Chemistry", a story that begins with a puzzle, focuses on it throughout, and uses a clue that any reader can see to provide the solution. I'm glad to see Sue Grafton represented by her story "The Parker Shotgun", and Marcia Muller and Linda Barnes are also present - but no Sara Paretsky. A good buy, then, and great reading over the rainy summer months.
Vincent Banville