I decided to reread Great Detectives: A Century of the Best Mysteries From England and America. Editor David Willis McCullough assembled a great anthology of stories including TWO complete novels: Ross Macdonald’s The Chill and Ruth Rendell’s Death Notes. I can’t think of many mystery anthologies that include a complete novel in addition to the short stories.
Several classic mystery writers are represented: Sayers, Chesterton, Christie, Crispin, Queen, and Stout. Private eyes of the Hammett and Chandler variety are here. I was surprised by mysteries by William Faulkner and Ray Bradbury and Israel Zangwill. Robert van Gulik’s “The Murder on the Lotus Pond” is one of my favorites as is “Never Shake a Family Tree” by Donald E. Westlake. If you’re a fan of police procedurals, you’ll enjoy Ed McBain’s “Sadie When She Died.”
In timely fashion, P.D. James’ “The Murder of Santa Claus” shows up. Great Detectives is a great anthology. If you have a mystery enthusiast on your Gift List, this book would be received with excitement and joy! Do you have a favorite mystery anthology? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword / David Willis McCullough — ix
The big bow mystery / Israel Zangwill — 1
The queen’s square / Dorothy L. Sayers — 85
The invisible man / G.K. Chesterton — 101
The girl in the train / Agatha Christie — 115
The murder on the lotus pond / Robert van Gulik — 131
Hand upon the waters / William Faulkner — 147
The Sam Spade stories: A man called Spade ; They can only hang you once ; Too many have lived / Dashiell Hammett — 161
The hunchback cat / Edmund Crispin — 215
Trouble is my business / Raymond Chandler — 221
The adventure of Abraham Lincoln’s clue / Ellery Queen — 265
See no evil / Rex Stout — 281
Yesterday I lived! / Ray Bradbury — 339
The chill / Ross Macdonald — 343
The murder of Santa Claus / P.D. James — 533
Never shake a family tree / Donald E. Westlake — 555
Death notes / Ruth Rendell — 568
Sadie when she died / Ed McBain — 697
I was 14 or 15 when my Aunt gave me Haycraft’s TREASURY OF GREAT MYSTERIES.
Dan, I read Haycraft’s TREASURY OF GREAT MYSTERIES around the same time! A gateway-drug to Mysteries!
I don’t really remember anthologies by title but I have read a few of the stories here. THE CHILL is, for my money, Ross Macdonald’s best novel, which would certainly make it among the best ever.
Michael, I totally agree with you on THE CHILL.
Several of Robert Arthur’s HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: anthologies include novels or long novellas (not Purely mystery collections, those) and a number of older bug-crusher anthologies (perhaps at least one of Penzler’s recent Big Books), but not too many qualify thus.
Hard for me to say what my single favorite crime-fiction anthology is…but for today, let’s cite Ed Gorman’s THE SECOND BLACK LIZARD ANTHOLOGY OF CRIME FICTION, since it, too, includes a short novel.
Todd, I’ll have to dig out Ed Gorman’s THE SECOND BLACK LIZARD ANTHOLOGY OF CRIME FICTION and check it out. I can’t remember if I read it or not. But, Ed Gorman was an underrated editor (and writer).
Yes, that Black Lizard anthology is a good one!
Rick, I’ve never been disappointed with a BLACK LIZARD book.
I can’t think offhand of one or two anthologies that stand out in my mind, as I have read so many. I did read this one and it was a good one.
I’ve also read the other ones mentioned above. I also loved THE CHILL. Otto’s BIG BOOK OF LOCKED ROOM MYSTERIES is a good one too.
Jeff, I’m a big fan of Otto Penzler anthologies. I have over a dozen and they are all worth reading!
George, I’ve only read one Penzler so far, “The Big Book of Ghost Stories,” and that was a great collection. I keep meaning to get to his “Big Book of Christmas Mysteries.” So many books, so little time…
Byron, THE BIG BOOK OF GHOST STORIES is good, but Penzler’s THE BIG BOOK OF CHRISTMAS MYSTERIES is even better!
This is a very good one, as are the Penzler and Black Lizard ones.
It looks heavy so I might get in on kindle.
Patti, you’re right about the weight of GREAT DETECTIVES. It weights 2 points and is 728 pages.
That sounds like a wonderful book. How is the print size?
Tracy, GREAT DETECTIVES is a wonderful book! The print size is average. As far as I can tell, there was no LARGE PRINT edition.