The Mammoth Book Of Historical Detectives
(MIKE ASHLEY)
I have always enjoyed historical fiction and have recently
taken up reading detective fiction, so The Mammoth Book of Historical
Detectives was hard to resist. The thirty stories included are arranged in
chronological order, from a locked room mystery set in Australia in 35 000 BC
and several stories set in classical Rome to a Sherlock Holmes imitation set in
the 1920s, and feature a wide variety of detectives ? among them figures such as
William Shakespeare and Captain Cook. The stories vary in quality, with some
working better as detective stories and others as historical fiction, but the
worst of them are entertaining and the better ones are real gems. What I found
most valuable about the volume was the new authors it introduced me to; while I
was already familiar with some, most of those included were completely new to
me. Particularly helpful in this regard are the brief biographical and
bibliographical notes with which Ashley introduces each story; these provide a
guide to the other works in the genre by the same author. Ashley also edited an
earlier volume titled The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunits, which
is now on my shopping list.
Resumos Relacionados
- Great Tales Of Detection
- Silver Pigs
- The Silver Pigs
- Sf - A Concise Guide
- The King David Report
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