As Northern Hemisphere summers get increasingly sweltering — I wrote this post during the heatwave that the U.K. underwent in late June 2026 — let’s enjoy 18 tales of people murdering, cheating, lying to, and generally mistreating each other, selected for our enjoyment once more by the fabulously knowledgeable Martin Edwards.
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The idea of a collection of Golden Age short stories based around a theme of animals seemed like an unusual one, until I remembered that one of the genre’s foundational short stories and one of its most famous novels both have animals in fairly central roles. So that’s all right, then.
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Featuring fifteen felonious fables from phrontistery factions, Lessons in Crime [ss] (2024) is another collection in the British Library Crime Classics range edited by the acme of appreciation of this era, Martin Edwards.
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Having recently looked at the debut from one legend in the annals of mystery fiction, let’s turn our attention to another: Death in High Heels (1941), the first novel from Christianna Brand, recently republished in the excellent British Library Crime Classics Range, so that, incredibly, fully seven of her novels are now readily available. And, once again, we find a genre great on apprentice form, with this story of murder in a fashionable dressmakers running too long and rather lacking in incident. Brand would have to learn her trade somewhere, however, and there are encouraging signs here of the force she would become.
Recovering from a bout of jaundice, History master Carolus Deene is sent by his headmaster to sleepy Buddington, “famous for its population of rich and aged invalids” and the fact that “[t]here, alone in all England, the bath-chair survives as more than a relic”. There it is hoped that Deene will refrain from “jeopardizing the fair name of the Queen’s School by embroiling [him]self in detective work of a nature likely to result in unfortunate publicity”. Alas, immediately prior to his arrival, two elderly women are found strangled to death on the same night, the arrangement of their bodies suggesting some link. And Deene’s reputation precedes him to the point that he finds himself investigating almost against his will.
Another collection from the British Library Crime Classics range, edited by Detection Club President Martin Edwards, this time focussing on mysteries based around books — what’s not to love?!
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Fifteen tales of murder and mystery centring around various athletic pastimes would, you imagine, be a fairly difficult undertaking to assemble, and so Martin Edwards is to be commended for finding enough to fill the pages of Settling Scores [ss] (2017) for the British Library Crime Classics series.
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A second anthology of impossible crimes from the British Library Crime Classics range, As If by Magic [ss] (2025) is another genre-spanning collection from editor and Detection Club President Martin Edwards that does much to highlight the depth and breadth of classic crime and detective fiction.
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Christmas is done for another year, and so my mind turns to the summer holidays and the possibilities of Europe. Yeah, it’s early to be planning this sort of thing, but I like to be prepared. And so naturally it is the British Library’s collection Continental Crimes [ss] (2017) that I crack open for research
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Seventeen scenarios of skulduggery, stealing, and slaughter in the British Library Crime Classics range, all centred on London, the finest city on god’s green Earth, and selected by the ne plus ultra of classic crime appreciation, Martin Edwards.
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The Invisible Event 