Beware of the Trains

This is a set of short stories buy Edmund Crispin and they do not fail to satisfy, in fact I love reading them, they just go so much further then a full length mystery, and believe me when you read an Edmund Crispin mystery you just don't want it to end. This book just keeps on giving, the characters, the puzzles and the era just a joy to read.

Edmund Crispin wrote unusual short stories. They were unusual for me because of their brevity. The mysteries in this collection, first published in 1953, are of the anecdote variety, meaning they are told from the viewpoint of someone who knew the circumstances surrounding the crime to someone else with little or no knowledge of it. Crispin didn't go into a lot of detail in these sixteen short stories so if you want atmosphere from descriptions of locations or the site of the murder you will be disappointed. Instead you will find the circumstances given for a crime which most often has not yet been solved or proved by the authorities. Gervase Fen, a Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, is most often discussing the case with Detective Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard, but this is not always the case in this collection. Fen has always been one of my favorite fictional crime solvers because he is written in such a sparse, clean way without many personal attachments to take focus away from the case.

This is a short collection of stories from the standpoint of page count, but the temptation was there for me to treat this book with the bon-bon effect: if one is good, then surely another one can't hurt me. I probably would have read the whole book at one sitting if I had been allowed to.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for the digital galley of this collection.