A couple days ago I reviewed Otto Penzler’s Golden Age Bibliomysteries (you can read my review here) so I figured I’d read Martin Edwards’ Murder By the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles. As you might suspect, Edwards’s choices feature more British mystery writers–there’s no overlapping stories between these two books. As always, Martin Edwards’ introductions to the stories provide wonderful detail about the writers.
My favorite story in Murder By the Book is Victor Canning’s “A Question of Character.” Canning presents a marriage where a successful writer marries a young woman who then starts writing books that out-sell her husband’s books. The bitter husband decides to murder her and devises a cunning method. But, things don’t always work out the way they’re planned. I also enjoyed Julian Symons’ brief but entertaining “The Clue in the Book.” And, you can’t go wrong with a John Creasey story like “The Book of Honour.”
With Golden Age Bibliomysteries and Murder By the Book you have plenty of tricky stories about books to enjoy! GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Martin Edwards — vii
A lesson in crime / G. D. H. and M. Cole — 1
Trent and the ministering angel / E. C. Bentley — 19
A slice of bad luck / Nicholas Blake — 40
The strange case of the Megatherium thefts / S. C. Roberts — 53
Malice domestic / Philip MacDonald — 69
A savage game / A. A. Milne — 95
A clue in the book / Julian Symons — 106
The manuscript / Gladys Mitchell — 114
A man and his mother-in-law / Roy Vickers — 119
Grey’s ghost / Michael Innes — 156
Dear Mr. Editor … / Christianna Brand — 174
Murder in advance / Marjorie Bremner — 186
A question of character / Victor Canning — 209
The book of honour / John Creasey — 221
We know you’re busy writing… / Edmund Crispin — 238
Chapter and verse / Ngaio Marsh — 260
I know just a few of these authors (like A A Milne) so your articles always remind me that there are just too many good (!!!) books to read.
Wolf, there are also too many BAD books to read. Luckily, we have someone like George the Tempter to steer us to the good ones.
Jerry, I was busy tempting Tracy and others with these bibliomyisteries this week!
Wolf, I’m admire Martin Edwards and his many anthologies. Edwards provides insightful introductions to the stories and highlights the authors with details new to me. I highly recommend all his books with the British Library Crime Classics.
I read this one last October. I agree with you on Edwards’s anthologies, especially his introductions.
Jeff, Martin Edwards takes his Editor role seriously and provides plenty of information about the writers he features in his anthologies.
Just got a notice that Otto’s anthology is in transit to the library, so I should have it next week.
Jeff, quick Library service!
I also liked the Victor Canning story a lot. And I was very impressed by John Creasey and want to find some of his books to read. I read some when I was much younger but they are not easy to find nowadays.
Tracy, let me know if you’d like me to mail you some John Creasey mysteries. I’m organizing my book collection and discovered a number of Creasey duplicates that you are welcome to.