Customer Reviews

The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits (The Mammoth Book Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mike Ashley has compiled 23 stories from around the world and from a large time-frame. This collection is an ideal literary "buffet" that is certainly more than just "food for thought"!

Beginning with the Ancient World, Ashley takes an excerpt from Herodotus (the "Father of History" and his "History of the Persian War"); it follows a 20th century account of ancient Egypt by Elizabeth Peters! In the second section,he features a treasured collection of medieval stories (Ellis Peters, Paul Harding, to name two).

Part III is the "Regency and Gaslight" section--with a real thriller by John Dickson Carr, among the others. The final section is "Holmes and Beyond," featuring a little-known but exciting nonetheless story by Arthur Conan Doyle titled "The Case of the Deptford Horror."

What is the most exciting thing about this anthology is that it represents a terrific "gathering" of literary "wizards" and their "whodunits." All are short stories (and naturally short stories cannot really be compared to novels, as the objectives, the vehicles, the whole purpose is entirely different), but what a whallop they pack.

In addition, Ashley gives us an informative (and readable) introduction, with a foreward by Ellis Peters, also not to be missed.

This is a proud collection, a nice addition to one's personal mystery library!

(Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

I loved this book. My mom checked it out from the library (she is a total mystery fan, I prefer historys or romances) I got bored on a long car trip and couldn't put it down, even when we got to Six Flags!!! I highly recommend it to those who would not ordinarily read mysterys

Before this book I had only read all books so far published by Ellis Peters, so this one gave me a lot of new authors (to me) of historical detective stories to look for next. I haven't come a cross to many of them here in Norway, but I keep on looking. Among my new favorites is P C Doherthy, though I have read only one novel in addition to those featured in this book.

I started with the second volume, The Mammoth Book of More Historical Whodunnits, and enjoyed it so much that I went out and got a copy of this one as well. I really liked the time-span of story settings, and the best part was the mystery that was written down over 2000 years ago!

Great for people who like short story mysteries, and as a lead-in to authors you might like.

As a longtime reader of historical mysteries (mystery stories set in historical periods before when they were actually written), I was very pleased to see this book. As with any anthology, I liked some authors (such as John Maddox Roberts) and some stories better than others, but don't take my word for it...buy it and read it yourself. Historical mysteries are, in my view, one of the more difficult forms; both the mystery and the historical background have to ring true, or the story doesn't work.

OK, I know people will disagree with me, but this book became unbearable somewhere in the middle & I just gave up by the time I was 3/4's done. Historical mysteries are pretty tiresome if they are not extremely well-written & there are a few very good ones in here, but they drown in the mediocrity of the rest of the stories. How many various time periods can you honestly claim to have believable detectives working when oftentimes the culture & history of the period would make it completely impossible for anyone to be a Holmes-like figure? It's just too hard to suspend my disbelief long enough to get into the stories & most of them are so simplistic & easy to solve that you can turn to the end to confirm your guess & then move on to the next story. If you're into this genre, go for it, but otherwise, pace out the stories over a long period of time to avoid burnout & try not to let the crummy ones ruin the good ones for you.