Customer Reviews

The Eye of Osiris (World Cultural Heritage Library)

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Nuvision Publications attempt to bring back "formally out of print books" that are still in demand, which is a great mission and one they should persist in. They go to the trouble of scanning the book and running optical character recognition software so that the text looks clean, rather than just photocopying it. Unfortunately, in some ways photocopying can be better; this book contains a number of comments in Greek, which were rendered as %&*#, or once as (Greek). There were also a number of places where the OCR had introduced lines or other errors. One read-through by a copy editor would have made so much difference to my pleasure in the book.

It's a good book -- a cosy mystery, well if somewhat fantastically plotted. I'll look for a clean second-hand copy instead.

I found R. Austin Freeman and have been downloading every story or collection of his for my Kindle. Very well written. This one is no exception. He pioneered the mystery novel in which you see the crime committed and the rest of the story is how the investigators go about uncovering how the crime was committed and solving it. Anyway, I enjoyed this very much. I love the Sherlock Holmes stories as well, and find a lot of similarity (use of deduction and scientific testing to solve the crime and convict the criminal). Note, there is some science in these stories, if that scares you, you may want to avoid this. But, it is written so non-technical people can enjoy it too.

Almost immediate at the begining, the author lets Thorndyke declare 'if this gentleman should never reappear, dead or alive, the question as to what was the latest moment at which he was certainly alive will turn upon the further question: "Was he or was he not wearing a particular article of jewellery when he called at the relative's house?"' The reader declares, 'the latest moment at which he was certainly alive will turn upon the further question: "Does the housemaid recognize a picture of the alleged missing gentleman?"' Until the end of the story, the housemaid curiously has never seen such a picture, on newspaper or presented by the investigators. The novelists would say, a good disguise is sufficient. The readers say, not in reality.