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A review by izzatiidrus
Murder in the Bookshop by Carolyn Wells
3.0
There are two stories in this book, with Murder in the Bookshop being the main story and The Shakespeare Title-page Mystery being the short story by the same author. I enjoyed the short story better than the main story. And I'll tell you why.
For one, the main story could've been written without so much talking and dilly-dallying. Much of the talk were of the same things, over and over again, just in different wordings. Then entered Fleming Stone, who was shoved upon us to be the Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot of the story. But he wasn't as great as he'd like us to believe, especially not if he kept on insisting that this was such a great case he'd ever encountered.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the whole idea of a murder in the bookshop, and that rare editions could be so valuable that people could literally kill for it. But the mystery fell short in so many ways. The insistence of Stone that the most obvious suspect was innocent in the first place - because why? There didn't seem to be any fair reason to give the suspect a special treatment.
And then there was the superiority that the civilian detective could have over the policemen. How could that even fly? Why would he get to give orders and somehow have authority to get access to places that normal people wouldn't get to?
I usually don't like to nitpick because the experience would be much sweeter if I didn't but these were all harder to ignore, they stood out like a sore thumb. That being said though, I did enjoy it because it was relatively an easy read. Yet I couldn't help but wonder if it was really written by a known writer of the old days or if it was really ghostwritten by today's unknown writers with Carolyn Wells' name slapped on the cover, with a brief retelling of her history inside...
For one, the main story could've been written without so much talking and dilly-dallying. Much of the talk were of the same things, over and over again, just in different wordings. Then entered Fleming Stone, who was shoved upon us to be the Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot of the story. But he wasn't as great as he'd like us to believe, especially not if he kept on insisting that this was such a great case he'd ever encountered.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the whole idea of a murder in the bookshop, and that rare editions could be so valuable that people could literally kill for it. But the mystery fell short in so many ways. The insistence of Stone that the most obvious suspect was innocent in the first place - because why? There didn't seem to be any fair reason to give the suspect a special treatment.
And then there was the superiority that the civilian detective could have over the policemen. How could that even fly? Why would he get to give orders and somehow have authority to get access to places that normal people wouldn't get to?
I usually don't like to nitpick because the experience would be much sweeter if I didn't but these were all harder to ignore, they stood out like a sore thumb. That being said though, I did enjoy it because it was relatively an easy read. Yet I couldn't help but wonder if it was really written by a known writer of the old days or if it was really ghostwritten by today's unknown writers with Carolyn Wells' name slapped on the cover, with a brief retelling of her history inside...