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ablotial's review
4.0
I picked this up somewhere a long time ago, maybe a yard sale or a thrift store, and it sat on my shelf for ages. I finally decided to pick it up and see what it held inside.
This was a good, entertaining book of short mystery novels. Some of them, I think, were actually excerpts from longer novels, or books that were part of a series so there was some information I felt I was missing, but none of it was important to the story at hand. Most of the stories I found really entertaining and was kept in suspense, though a few were too easy to guess what was going on. If you want to know my (brief) thoughts on each individual story, read my individual status updates that I wrote as I went along.
A lot of the stories are somewhat out-of-date, many of them set in the 40s or 50s I'd say, maybe a few a little later than that. No cell phones or other modern technology, which in some cases could have made a big difference in the stories. And some of the terminology they use made me giggle, too.
This is the kind of book I can keep on hand because I won't remember the individual stories for too long, so I could read them all over again in a few years and re-live the mystery! I recommend this as a good set. And of course, since there are multiple stories there are great places to stop reading when needed. For particular stories, I really recommend "Nightmare" and "Death Rides a Boxcar". I also really enjoyed "Murder Set to Music", and the ending to that one left me satisfied. The Daphne du Maurier short ... typically not my style (I'm not into paranormal generally) but it had my heart racing because with all the foreshadowing I just -knew- something bad would happen. And "Booktaker" (by the editor), while not too deep, kept me guessing and led me down false paths. Not a bad percentage of good stories!
This was a good, entertaining book of short mystery novels. Some of them, I think, were actually excerpts from longer novels, or books that were part of a series so there was some information I felt I was missing, but none of it was important to the story at hand. Most of the stories I found really entertaining and was kept in suspense, though a few were too easy to guess what was going on. If you want to know my (brief) thoughts on each individual story, read my individual status updates that I wrote as I went along.
A lot of the stories are somewhat out-of-date, many of them set in the 40s or 50s I'd say, maybe a few a little later than that. No cell phones or other modern technology, which in some cases could have made a big difference in the stories. And some of the terminology they use made me giggle, too.
This is the kind of book I can keep on hand because I won't remember the individual stories for too long, so I could read them all over again in a few years and re-live the mystery! I recommend this as a good set. And of course, since there are multiple stories there are great places to stop reading when needed. For particular stories, I really recommend "Nightmare" and "Death Rides a Boxcar". I also really enjoyed "Murder Set to Music", and the ending to that one left me satisfied. The Daphne du Maurier short ... typically not my style (I'm not into paranormal generally) but it had my heart racing because with all the foreshadowing I just -knew- something bad would happen. And "Booktaker" (by the editor), while not too deep, kept me guessing and led me down false paths. Not a bad percentage of good stories!
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