Customer Reviews

The Mammoth Collection of Historical Whodunnits and Historical Detectives (The Mammoth Book Series)

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

 

 

I am extremely pleased with Mike Ashley as an editor of historical mysteries and happily track down his books. These are older but quality collections that I reccomend. As an historian none of them irked me with glaring errors, and as a reader none of them bothered me with annoying footnotes and pomposity. I would reccomend that the reader not read the little author prefaces before reading the story, as at least one of them is so thoughtlessly phrased that it gives away a major part of the story though not the 'whodunnit' question.

I did truly hate one piece for personal religious reasons, as it wallowed in the some of the more horrific pagan Roman misunderstandings about what they thought the Christians believed and practiced. As a theologian who studied the Early Church I am aware that at least some of the basis for the piece can be documented to the First Century but I am very annoyed by the confusion of whether the author is genuinely translating a period Roman play, or making it up 'as if' it were; I suspect the latter. This uncertainty bothers me. The author did quote a reference book on how the Romans viewed Christians in her little preface.