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Cecily Gayford studied English at the University of Oxford, where she wrote her thesis on the 'golden age' detective stories of the 1930s and 1940s.
My favourites in this were the Sherlock Holmes (which I've read many times), The Chopham Affair, and Haunted House, but my absolute favourite was The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel, which is very like The Signalman by Charles Dickens, a story that I love. I'll just repeat what I said from that review: in which a fall from a roof in November turns out to be more sinister than originally thought. The Mystery of Fellwyn Tunnel' by L T Meade and Robert Eustace - a railway signalman dies in mysterious and ghostly circumstances, but scientific investigator John Bell is not convinced .
It begins with the description of the cushy and immoral life of an international gigolo and ends with justice being dealt out on a cold, snowy Christmas Eve in freezing London. Sayers' Sleuths on the Scent has a classic scenario of weary travellers trapped by bad weather, this time in the bar of the Pig and Pewter. I felt they passed the time nicely, but apart from the Conan Doyle and the Chesterton, I found them tidy but rather workaday. I would have like a little biographical section about each author and some mention as to why each story was chosen. I liked the vast majority of this collection and there are some authors in here that I will definitely read from again.
A quick and easy read - while some were interesting most we pretty mediocre, no real twists or turns, they seemed to get more lame as the book went on - the best stories being at the front of the book. The seasonal murder book market is flooded and there’s a whiff of barrel scraping here but, despite that, some major authors are included. All of these classic stories have their merit, but I think the seasonal theme is sometimes stretched a little too far, with one of the stories set in late October – cold though the featured lonely signal box no doubt is! The Chesterton was a bit boring and since most of the action was set in South America, seemed a weird inclusion.
The Adventure of Abbey Grange' by Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes chooses to play judge and jury, after his detective work is done . I had read the four longest entries before but was quite happy to read them all again ; the remaining six very short stories were fine. I also liked the Sayers story starring her lesser-known detective, commercial traveller Montague Egg, and the Sherlock Holmes story, though I'd read both of these before. This is one of the shortest of these short stories (some are actually far too long-winded) and it's one where a thick blanket of snow is crucial to the solution of a murder mystery.
Sadly, a couple are more meandering, as told by one colourful character from the past to another equally colourful character from the past, without ever creating much sense of mystery or suspense. An enjoyable quick read, it's just 182 pages, the stories all work, some better than others, of course. Loved the plots and characters, such of which would not look out of place on a television adaptation now. The Michael Innes story is also great - less wordy than his full-length Appleby novels, and very clever. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.Perfect to dip in and out of between other festivities and I am building my collection of this joyous series! Off the Tile by Ianthe Jerrold - a good story that I came across in another anthology: Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Whilst there are now much fewer instances of stories set at Christmas, all the stories are set in the cold or snowy winter months. In The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by LT Meade and Robert Eustace, our narrator investigates the mysterious deaths of two signalmen on a remote section of the mountainous Welsh railway.
These are mainly set in the last century but I love the old fashioned settings, the way people spoke, the simplicity of life and the hardship of it before the health service, before the welfare state. Several of these stories have been published in various other anthologies and I had certainly read some of them before.So bundle up, grab a glass of mulled wine, and get ready to be puzzled, astonished and entertained by these festive stories of murder and mayhem.
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