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Reviews tagging 'Body horror'
Six Against the Yard by Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie, The Detection Club, Ronald Knox, Margery Allingham, George W. Cornish, Russell Thorndike, Freeman Wills Crofts
1 review
awebofstories's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
If you are a genre reader, do you ever want to pull back the curtain and see how your favorite writers hone their craft? Here, the legendary Detection Club has allowed readers to do just that.
This collection features short stories by six Golden Age Detection members: Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ronald Knox, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Croft, and Russell Thorndike. In these stories, the authors try to create an unsolvable crime. I should clarify that the intent to is to create a crime where the police could never find the culprit, not that the crimes are unsolvable by the readers, which is what I initially thought would be the case. A critique follows up each story by Superintendent G. W. Cornish, formerly of Scotland yard. In his reactions, he breaks apart each story, describes how Scotland Yard would handle it, and decides whether or not it is truly unsolvable.
I had never read any of these authors before (except for an unrelated essay at the end by Agatha Christie, another member of The Detection Club). I had only ever heard of Sayers and Allingham. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and found it a great way to meet new-to-me authors. I found each story well-crafted and only felt a little let-down with the final story by Freeman Will Crofts. However, that may have been because its setup was too similar to another story earlier in the collection.
There are two other books from The Detection Club of this era, and I immediately added those to my TBR. I am planning to expand my reading into this era of literature and this gave me a chance to discover authors who are lesser known in the current day.
This collection features short stories by six Golden Age Detection members: Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ronald Knox, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Croft, and Russell Thorndike. In these stories, the authors try to create an unsolvable crime. I should clarify that the intent to is to create a crime where the police could never find the culprit, not that the crimes are unsolvable by the readers, which is what I initially thought would be the case. A critique follows up each story by Superintendent G. W. Cornish, formerly of Scotland yard. In his reactions, he breaks apart each story, describes how Scotland Yard would handle it, and decides whether or not it is truly unsolvable.
I had never read any of these authors before (except for an unrelated essay at the end by Agatha Christie, another member of The Detection Club). I had only ever heard of Sayers and Allingham. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and found it a great way to meet new-to-me authors. I found each story well-crafted and only felt a little let-down with the final story by Freeman Will Crofts. However, that may have been because its setup was too similar to another story earlier in the collection.
There are two other books from The Detection Club of this era, and I immediately added those to my TBR. I am planning to expand my reading into this era of literature and this gave me a chance to discover authors who are lesser known in the current day.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
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