The Short Mystery Story Collection by Various is a real treat for intrigue enthusiasts! This volume features such greats as Ambrose Bierce, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Anton Chekov. Some unexpected names like P G Wodehouse and Kate Chopin also crop up, bending their prodigious talents to the genre.
The ten stories contained in this volume range from events as diverse as the mysterious death of a sea-captain in a seedy boarding house, a group of women who deal with a crime committed by a friend, a dashing king who seeks to cover up evidence of his philandering ways, a fatal obsession that consumes a man after his wife's death and many more to delight the midnight reader!
Among the stories included in this anthology are The Game Played in the Dark by Ernest Bramah. It is an early story that features Bramah's iconic blind detective Max Carrados and was part of an eight story collection written by Bramah in 1914.
For readers who have invariably associated P G Wodehouse with characters like Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, The Death at the Excelsior will certainly be a surprise package. The only detective story to be written by the famous humorist, this one does have his characteristic light-hearted touch, but it remains a mystery tale nevertheless. It features a bragging sleuth, Paul Snyder, who is called upon to investigate a death by snake bite inside a locked room.
The Moabite Cipher is another classic tale by a mystery writer who once ruled the best-seller lists, but has faded from public memory today. R Austin Freeman wrote an extensive series of books and stories featuring his fictional 'tec Dr Thorndyke. This tale depicts the good doctor's attempts to crack a complicated code.
A series of inexplicable deaths sets off a chain of events in The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel. Authored by Robert Eustace who used this penname instead of his real one, Eustace Robert Barton, the story involves the use of “scientific detection.”
Anton Chekov weighs in with a truly bizarre tale. The Safety Match is about a bumbling, Inspector Clouseau like sleuth who is hot on the trail of a vanished corpse and his only clue is a safety match!
A long short story by a master of creepiness, Ambrose Bierce, tells of a soldier condemned to death as a prisoner of war in the American Civil War.
These and other tales would greatly appeal to young and old readers, especially if they enjoy goose bumps!
