The Christmas season is ripe for mysteries and ghost stories, like Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and the holiday adventures of Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. A connoisseur of British crime fiction, Martin Edwards has collected 16 short stories from the genre's Golden Age in his third mystery anthology, Silent Nights.
Edwards (The Golden Age of Murder) includes a few classic pieces by well-known authors, notably Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Blue Carbuncle" and stories by G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. But the collection also includes less familiar names such as Ralph Plummer, H.C. Bailey and Ethel Lina White. Eager to provide fresh material for even the most diehard mystery fans, Edwards has done a bit of sleuthing himself, tracking down one or two stories that have never been anthologized.
Each piece is prefaced by a brief introduction to the author and his or her work, which is especially helpful for the book's more obscure contributors. Many of the pieces (as Edwards admits) are festive in setting only: jewel theft and murder at country-house parties and a sinister collection of waxworks are hardly traditional Christmas fare. But the stories provide a varied and entertaining glimpse into Golden Age crime fiction, and may prompt readers to seek out more work by authors who are new to them.
A bit uneven in quality, but still moody and atmospheric, Silent Nights will amuse and satisfy mystery lovers who like a little murder with their eggnog. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams