Customer Reviews

The Mammoth Book of NEW Historical Whodunits

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This is Ashley's third "historical whodunit" offering. I love 'em all! I much prefer this smorgasbord approach to mysteries versus volumes with just Roman, Egyptian, et al mysteries, which are too much of the same thing for my tastes. Like the others in the series, this book can be read straight through or the reader can jump around instead, sampling different time-periods. The historical whodunits are great for leisurely lunchtime reading or curling up with at bedtime. In short, great authors, interesting stories. Highly recommended!

To me historical mysteries are so much more pleasant than contemporary ones. Perhaps it is because the historical ones are not in the least threatening. This book of short mysteries is not only very pleasant to read, but it gave me a list of new authors to look up in the library.

I just love these anthologies, and it's so easy to get confused as to which ones are already in the library. Here's a great book - but it's the SAME BOOK as "The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunits". Silly thing to let happen at the publishing house ~~~~ Great stuff, but either one will do!

I haven't yet read a Mike Ashley anthology that I didn't like. He brings in short stories from series, short stories in series, older stories that deserve to read again, and just plain old good stories.

In case you'd like to know who's in the collection, I've appended the contents list. Series are in brackets.

CONTENTS:--Foreword: Three Thousand years of Crime by Mike Ashley--
Acknowledgments--
His Master's Servant by Philip Boast
Death in the Desert by Jean Davidson
The Judgment of the Gods by Rob Reginald
The Oracle of Amun by Mary Reed & Eric Mayer [Herodotus series]
Cupid's Arrow by Marilyn Todd [Claudia series]
The Spiteful Shadow by Peter Tremayne [Sister Fidelma series]
Catherine and the Sybil, by Sharan Newman [Catherine LeVendeur series]]
The Jester and the Mathematician by Alan R. Gordon [Fool's Guild series]
The Duke's Tale by Cherith Baldry [Geoffrey Chaucer series]
Sea of Darkness by Sarah A. Hoyt
The Stone-Worker's Tale by Margaret Frazer [Dame Frevisse series]
The Witching Hour by Martin Edwards
The Dutchman and the Wrongful Heir by Maan Meyers [Dutchman series]
If Serpents Envious by Clayton Emery [Joseph Fisher series]
The Uninvited Guest by Edward D. Hoch [Alexander Swift series]
Benjamin's trap by Richard Moquist [Benjamin Franklin series]
The Serpent's Back by Ian Rankin
Botanist at Bay by Edward Marston
The Living and the Dead by Judith Cutler
Footprints by Jeffrey Farnol [Jasper Shrig series]
The Tenth Commandment by Melville Davisson Post [Uncle Abner series]
Murder in Old Manhattan by Frank Bonham
The Abolitionist by Lynda S. Robinson
Poisoned with Politeness by Gillian Linscott [Thomas Ludlow / Harry Leather series]
Threads of Scarlet by Clare Griffon
The Gentleman on the Titanic by John Lutz

This volume, published in 1993 as The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunits and in 1997 as Historical Whodunits, contains 23 historical (that is, set before the author was born) mysteries. The foreword is by Ellis Peters, who discusses how she created the Cadfael character.

Many of these stories were written specifically for this volume. Unfortunately, quite a few of these stories aren't very good. Often, the historical setting has nothing to do with the mystery, and is just used to set up the MacGuffin. Furthermore, the majority of these stories are not ones where the reader can follow along and guess at the culprit. Rather, it seems that many authors were more interested in thinking of ridiculous scenarios, which their protagonists would then explain.

There is a great proliferation here of authors using both other authors' characters and real historical figures. Poe's Dupin and Doyle's Holmes appear here in stories from other authors, and other detectives include Leonardo da Vinci, Poe himself, and William Shakespeare.

There are a couple of good stories here, and some good authors, but a great many of the stories in this volume aren't particularly interesting. I suppose they can't all be Cadfael.

The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunits

Used book but in excellent shape. Good reading. I intend to buy more.