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A review by joecam79
Continental Crimes by Martin Edwards
4.0
As editor Martin Edward explains in his introduction to this anthology, there is a prevalent but mistaken impression that British crime fiction of the "Golden Age" is invariably set in the familiar landscapes of home. It is a view which is reinforced by TV and movie adaptations of "cozy mysteries". If what they portray were anything near to reality, the mind-boggling levels of violent criminality in sleepy, pastoral English hamlets would be enough to make any sociologist or criminologist go wild.
This enjoyable collection sets the record straight by presenting the reader with a generous selection of stories set on the Continent. The reasons for the protagonists finding themselves away from the British Isles are varied - holidaying, work, war, or the necessities of the investigation itself. The nature of the crimes are equally diverse, ranging from murder most foul (through poisoning and beheading, just to mention a couple of morbid examples) to theft and espionage. It makes for a deliciously assorted bag.
What I particularly liked, however was the well-judged balance between familiar crime writers and characters (Agatha Christie's Parker Pyne, Chesterton's Father Brown, to give an example) and lesser-known (at least to me) authors and characters such as Marie Belloc Lowndes and her Hercules Popeau (the unwitting prototype of Christie's Poirot). Arthur Conan Doyle, who obviously needs no introduction is, interestingly, represented by a story which is generally classified amongst his "dark" or "weird" tales - The New Catacomb. It features no investigator and its setting is deliciously Gothic. As a fan of the latter genre, I also enjoyed the spooky melodrama of J. Jefferson Farjeon's "The Room in the Tower" as well as H.C. Bailey's "The Long Dinner". Bailey's investigator - Reggie Fortune - is rather irritating, but the windswept Breton landscape and the echoes of "folk horror" still made this a worthwhile read.
This anthology's publication date was, quite cannily, set for August. It is indeed the perfect holiday read for mystery lovers: a book to carry on a trip abroad or to use as accompaniment to some armchair travelling - to the Continent, of course.
This enjoyable collection sets the record straight by presenting the reader with a generous selection of stories set on the Continent. The reasons for the protagonists finding themselves away from the British Isles are varied - holidaying, work, war, or the necessities of the investigation itself. The nature of the crimes are equally diverse, ranging from murder most foul (through poisoning and beheading, just to mention a couple of morbid examples) to theft and espionage. It makes for a deliciously assorted bag.
What I particularly liked, however was the well-judged balance between familiar crime writers and characters (Agatha Christie's Parker Pyne, Chesterton's Father Brown, to give an example) and lesser-known (at least to me) authors and characters such as Marie Belloc Lowndes and her Hercules Popeau (the unwitting prototype of Christie's Poirot). Arthur Conan Doyle, who obviously needs no introduction is, interestingly, represented by a story which is generally classified amongst his "dark" or "weird" tales - The New Catacomb. It features no investigator and its setting is deliciously Gothic. As a fan of the latter genre, I also enjoyed the spooky melodrama of J. Jefferson Farjeon's "The Room in the Tower" as well as H.C. Bailey's "The Long Dinner". Bailey's investigator - Reggie Fortune - is rather irritating, but the windswept Breton landscape and the echoes of "folk horror" still made this a worthwhile read.
This anthology's publication date was, quite cannily, set for August. It is indeed the perfect holiday read for mystery lovers: a book to carry on a trip abroad or to use as accompaniment to some armchair travelling - to the Continent, of course.