Customer Reviews

Great British Detectives (Academy Mystery Novellas)

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Here's a good idea: Collect obscure novellas (too long to be in short story collections but not long enough to be published alone) by great mystery authors and publish them together in an omnibus. Reader's Digest did it, and so we have here four complete and original novellas by Leslie Charteris, G.K. Chesterton, Michael Gilbert and the always awesome Dorothy L. Sayers. They vary in quality, so if you're just browsing here's a quick breakdown:

1.) The Beauty Specialist- Leslie Charteris This is one of over 150 stories Charteris wrote about The Saint, and I was very excited to read it. Unfortunately, while the characters are interesting and the plot decent Charteris' writing style is really, really bad. If you're not a stickler for grammar or a fan of Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" you might not notice, but everyone else is likely to be driven crazy by Charteris' muddled sentences and excessive use of adverbs. The guy needed an editor but bad. GRADE: C/B-

2.) The Oracle of the Dog- G.K. Chesterton
Chesterton's a far better writer, and it shows here in one of his classic Father Brown stories. Unlike a lot of mystery fans I don't think the plot of "Oracle" is anything spectacular, but it's tight and holds your interest. GRADE: B/B-

3.) The Cleaners- Michael Gilbert
An Inspector Petrella mystery. I liked this one all the way up until the ending, which I felt negated everything that came before. Read it and see what I mean. What was the point? GRADE: B-/C+

4.) The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Whimsey- Dorothy L. Sayers
Yay! Always a pleasure to read a Lord Peter mystery, isn't it? They're just so classy and fun. This has exotic locations, a great villain, a damsel in distress (beautiful, of course), and Lord Peter playing with peoples minds. What more could you want?
GRADE: B+/A-

So there you have it, and hopefully you have enough info to decide if you want to buy the collection. Enjoy!

I had read one of the stories already-The Oracle of the Dog- which was fine, but you can find that in an anthology of Chesterton's Father Brown. Of the other three stories only the Dorothy Sayers was a pleasure. Try to find The Elopement of Lord Peter somewhere else and skip this book.