Took me a while to get into the book but when I did I enjoyed it a lot better then I thought I would .So glad that I decided to keep reading it instead of putting it down like I almost did.

I am an avid mystery reader. The entire genre as it exists today (in my humble opinion) would not exist if it were not for the works of Dame Agatha Christie, and the wonderful Baroness Orczy.

In The Old Man in the Corner: The Teahouse Detective, there are twelve stories of mystery and intrigue written by Emmuska Orczy, Each story features the mysterious old man that sits in the corner of the ABC tea shop and engaged in a series of conversations with a delightful journalist. What follows are tales of intrigue and mystery. This book is perfect for fans of older British detective/mystery fiction.

These are a collection of short stories. The first volume has it being narrated to a woman called Polly Burton.Each short story is told by an old man in the corner who likes to pit his intelligence against crime in the country, by visiting the location, the inquest and so on. He carries around photographs as props to provide ambience to his tales. He fidgets with making knots in a rope to keep his thoughts straight. This is the common factor in all the stories as is the teashop in which the discussion occurs. 
Each tale has interesting characters, some slightly familiar while others were quite unique. My problem with the collection is entirely personal. Each story was an indication of how a crime took place and how the Old man found a solution to it, but this solution only rests with him and the listener! The criminals are never brought to justice and the wronged never find out. In some pettier cases, it seems to be beside the point but for someone like me who likes a complete tale, it seemed more than unfair when it involved murder. I have liked reading classic crime mysteries because usually there is a complete arc whereas here it was only showmanship
I recommend this to people who like reading about small twisted cases set in the time before forensics and should be at ease with the format.

The Old Man in the Corner: The Teahouse Detective (Volume 1)
Author: Baroness Orczy
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Publication Date: June 11, 2019
3 Stars

One day while sitting in the ABC Teashop, Polly Burton, a young reporter for the Evening Observer, is suddenly joined, uninvited, by an old man. She immediately disliked him, and became perturbed by him when he said, “Mysteries! There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation.” So began an interesting relationship between Polly and the Old Man. The Old Man turned out to be an amateur detective of sorts, and Polly became enraptured by his tales and looked forward to their next meetings. These meetings were always by chance, and each time, the Old Man related a mystery that had yet to be solved. He went through each case step by step and explained where the police had misstepped, and then he revealed the true solution.

This book is a collection of short mystery stories. Each tale told is a stand alone mystery with new characters involved in each one. I thought the stories were perfect bedtime reading. They provided light, short mysteries that each had an interesting twist, but weren’t the type of plots to keep you up at night. I enjoyed the logic enfolded in each tale, even if some of them were fairly easy to solve. I did find one of the stories difficult to follow, but most were pretty good. There is a second Teahouse Detective novel, The Case of Miss Elliot, that I plan to give a try.

Thanks to Net Galley and Pushkin Press for an ARC of this book. #TheOldManInTheCornerTheTeahouseDetetive #NetGalley

I'm going to go with a three star rating for this one. It was indeed 'good', but I wouldn't go so far as very good or great. The Baroness wrote these stories after the success of Sherlock Holmes and you can tell as it fills a similar void, without being just simply reading the same stories all over again. And maybe that's the problem, because I was also listening to the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes in the same chunk of time. It might just have been too similar at the same time?
But while it does, as I said, fill the same void, how they go about solving the mysteries is very different. Sherlock learns only slightly before the reader does, the old man in the corner already knows and testing you to see if you do. Sherlock is clearly out to stop the villain, but will show mercy on people who simply were caught up in a bad situation. The old man in the corner does nothing to effect events or people in any way, but is content to simply know the facts.
Honestly, I spent most of the book wondering about the moral character of a man who knows the truth of someone's crimes and instead of bringing it to light, simply lets things play out as they have.

It was interesting to see how, perhaps because the Baroness was a woman, women were portrayed in these stories. They tended to have larger roles, operated more independently, and simply appear more frequently. Not nearly as much as they would in stories written today, but more than I usually see in other stories written at that time.

Overall, glad I read it, but probably won't read the sequel.

No warnings apply.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free eCopy in exchange for an honest review.

These are utterly delightful small 'puzzle mysteries.' Like the Poirot short stories or some of the Sherlock tales, these little mysteries become perfectly clear when the old man explains them.

While lunching at the A.B.C. Shop, an old man sitting in the corner strikes up a conversation with reporter Polly Burton. Over time he narrates twelve mysteries which have confounded the police and offers his solutions.
An enjoyable, varied selection of short stories, each one easily read in fifteen minutes which were first published in 1908.

The Teahouse Detective: The Old Man in the Corner is the first of two anthologies of short stories featuring the Teahouse Detective by Baroness Orczy, the author of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Originally published in 1908, this reformatting and re-release from Pushkin is due out 11th June 2019, and is 288 pages. There are 36 short vignettes included in this collection. They're presented as intellectual exercises, pas de deux between the eccentric old man and reporter Polly Burton, the denouements are not presented to the police.

These are cleverly constructed mysteries. Some of them are somewhat transparent, but I really think that's because so many of the literary devices she employed have been copied and reused since then that modern readers are familiar with the twists.

This would make a superlative commute read. The vignettes are all under 15 pages in length and could be read during free moments here and there. They're all well written and a lot of fun to read.

Four stars. I'm very happy that Pushkin is preserving and presenting these gems to new generations of readers.

I was excited for this one because I adore "The Scarlet Pimpernell." While this book had some good crime stories, the format of the plot meant that I didn't get to dive in and live through it all. Instead, I was just a idle viewer for a few chapters before it switched to a different crime story. I wanted to be immersed a little more.

However, I was hoping that something big or tricky would happen to tie it all together, and it did. I was so excited by the ending. YESSSSSS!

This set of short stories by Baroness Orczy (1865 – 1947) were published in magazines in the early 1900s and were first gathered into a book in 1908. They are still very readable today, over 110 years later.

The book contains 12 short stories, each split into 3-4 chapters. In each one, the old man in the corner of the tearoom outlines a murder that has baffled the public and the police-force – but not him, obviously! The stories are intriguing but the clues are given and the reader usually has enough material to reach the same conclusion if they pay enough attention and think hard enough.

The stories are from the same late Victorian / early Edwardian London that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson walked and the atmosphere (often foggy!) is identical: omnibuses; the newish Underground railway; cabs; and the social strata. If you enjoyed Conan Doyle’s short stories, you will enjoy these.

#TheOldManInTheCornerTheTeahouseDetective #NetGalley

Interesting collection of short mysteries by Baroness Orczy, who also wrote the Scarlet Pimpernel. This is a reprint of stories written in the early 1900’s and the prose reflects the British culture of that period. The mysteries are rather well done, and the length make them easily accessible on short notice for a quick diversion.
The relationship between the Old Man in the Corner (aka the Teahouse Detective) and Miss Polly Burton is an especially entertaining part of each read. A small treasure in the history of mystery fiction.

Just think Victorian Murder She Wrote but it's even more than that. Yes it's a type of spin on sleuthing in part, from a woman's perspective or point of view but, it's also another way of looking at how women were usually regulated to small parts in anything and were able to counteract prevailing thought about the so call weaker sex. I'm looking forward to reading the other volumes.

I remember reading these as a kid, and wow have twenty-five years cast them in a different light. Mostly because the current year of 2019 makes the journalism and reporting of the contents almost farcical. I don't know why they've been republished or who the current audience might be, but these did not ring as fun or whimsical as they did when I was a child.

A collection of easy-to-read short mysteries, some more mysterious than others. I have found the format slightly monotonous, and some of the "opinions" somewhat politically incorrect these days, but the book is a creature of its times and that in itself is interesting.

The eponymous old man certainly has a good analytical mind, but I was left a bit spooked by him at the end of the book! Who and what is he?

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy, in exchange for this honest review.

These were enjoyable mystery stories, with the familiar feel of the classic era they were written in, but not likely to become favorites. I would probably recommend this to Sherlock Holmes fans who aren't ready to re-read yet and need a filler book in the mean time.

The characters in the framing stories were not that interesting, and really seemed to just be there so the mystery story could get told from one to the other. (And I actually disliked what little personality the Old Man in the Corner did display.) The stories themselves were amusing, but often not terribly difficult to figure out if you're familiar with the genre.

Content issues were relatively low. There were naturally the usual assortment of murders, blackmailings, illegal gamblers and such, but lacking any graphic details at all. There was nearly zero sexual content, limited to a comment about a wife having a male friend "of which her husband did not approve" that she was spending time with and a plot revolving around bigamy. (There was also an archaic use of the word 'promiscuous' with a more general meaning.) Age recommendations here totally depend on the individual's tolerance for murder and death, but I would at least say it's safe for younger teens who have an interest in murder mysteries.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free review copy of this book. This review reflects my honest and unbiased opinions.

I received this book via Netgalley and the publisher, in return for an honest review. This is a rerelease of a set of classic mystery short stories from 1908 by Baroness Orczy. There are 12 stories, told by a strange old man to a young woman he encounters in a teashop. Her function is to serve as the audience for each of the well-known but unsolved mysteries that he tells. The stories range from interesting to ‘easy to spot the murderer’. The narrative style reflects the era and some comments or descriptions are not acceptable in the modern day but don’t, overall, detract from reading the stories. Easy reading style; if you like stories from the Sherlock Holmes era, these will be a decent supplement to your collection.

This is series of different mysteries that are centered around an old man that sits in the corner of a café who tells his stories to a lady journalist. I am a lover of a good mystery an even though these were somewhat predictable at times, I still enjoyed them. Baroness Orczy's teahouse detective was thought to be a match for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, but it was sorely lacking in the cleverness and intrigue that the Holmes mysteries involved.

Rating 3.5 stars
The charm of this collection of 36 stories by Baroness Orczy is difficult to explain. They are instantly recognizable as the kind of stories that my grandmother used to cut out of newspapers and keep in a file for future perusal. They are short, intensely interesting, terribly gothic and a joy for people who enjoy a dose of ‘Father Brown’ at regular intervals to immerse themselves in the shenanigans of sleuths of bygone eras.

These stories were first published in 1908 and have been republished with an interesting new cover by Pushkin Press. It was a little difficult to recognize the forms in this picture – which at first glance appears to be simply fog around a table lamp. It is only when you concentrate that you can see the form of a bespectacled old man seated on a table and that of a woman opposite to him. The purple colour works very well for me.

Polly Burton is a young lady who has just stepped into the journalistic world with a job at the Evening Observer. She has taken to having her lunch in a particular tea-shop everyday and one day is irked to find a non-descript looking old man on what she considers her seat. He is, in fact, the kind of man whom nobody notices. So, when he initiates a conversation with her, she decides to humour him out of a sense of superiority and an actual sense of humour on her part. Only, the man manages to grab her interest with his pronouncement that he can solve crimes that the police have been unable to solve or have managed to charge the wrong person. His methods when looked at objectively, seem like pure guesswork, but at the time seem like perfect deductions. 

The man never introduces himself formally to Polly and neither does he ask her for her name. They form this uncanny acquaintance as Polly begins to visit the tea-house simply to listen to his deductions everyday at lunch and he seems to be waiting to share them with her. One even begins to suspect whether they might be weirdly attracted to each other but it is never spelled out.

A point that irked me no end was Polly’s seeming inaction to the revelations made by this man to her. She is, after all, a journalist and must have some ounce of journalistic fervor to find out whether his assumptions may have some basis on fact. But she never does. Nor does she question the moral ethics of this man who proclaims to be an admirer of the true criminal mastermind irrespective of the fact that he/she may have cost someone their life.

The stories will seem so simple and for more than a few you will guess the outcome within the first few paragraphs, but they were fun to read for just that reason - an inherent simplicity and the atmosphere of the era that is so prevalent in every story. And it all comes to a head in the last story, which had a twist I did not see coming at all.

The Old Man in the Corner: The Teahouse Detective by Baroness Orczy. Very reminiscent of Agatha Christie's the Man in the Brown Suit. Someone who is not a detective but has keen insight into the problems that are brought before him and those that he follows. Almost as good as The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Short stories of intriguing little puzzles told in a gentle style. Apparently there are more to be published - a delight to look forward to.