Nicks` Cabinet of Curios

  David Stuart Davies - Classic Tales of the Macabre - CRW/Collector`s Library - 2011   This is one I`ve read fairly recently, but it`s not 100% fresh in my mind, so my comments will be fairly general. Despite the title, not all of the stories in this collection are actually macabre and at least one is actually rather sweet. Nevertheless, there is quite a bit here to satisfy the most ardent aficionado of the grim, gruesome and grotesque. There are a few here that are already familiar to me, which is probably inevitable given my long-standing enthusiasm for such things, but still there are quite a few that I`ve not encountered before. I would also mention that Perceval Landon`s Thurnley Abbey, which I had previously encountered in a clumsily abridged form in another collection, is reproduced here in what I assume is it`s full length and is much more effective for that.  An interesting choice is Kipling`s The Mark of the Beast. Many would dismiss this as a rather objectiona...

  Israel Zangwill - The Perfect Crime - Collins Detective Club - 2015 (also known as the Big Bow Mystery) Also contains Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue NOTE Poe`s The Murders in the Rue Morgue is said to be the first locked room mystery . Zangwill`s The Perfect Crime aka The Big Bow Mystery is said to be the first full-length novel LRM (though in fact it is in the area of being a novella/a long short story/a short novel, whichever term you prefer). The publication of the two in a single volume has generally been received with enthusiasm by lovers of old-style detective fiction.  To my complete surprise, I didn`t enjoy this as much as others have ! It certainly has all the usual ingredients - a man is found dead in a locked room. Investigations show that he has not committed suicide, but as he was alone in a room with the door and windows apparently locked from the inside, how did the murderer first gain access and then escape ?  Just to complicate matters,...

   Lynn Brock (aka Alister McAllister aka Anthony Wharton) - The Deductions of Colonel Gore - Collins Detective Club - 2018 This book has it`s detractors, but for me it was a very enjoyable introduction to the world of Colonel Gore and left me wanting to sample some of his subsequent adventures.  This was the first Colonel Gore book (published 1924) and at the time the author was probably not considering a series.  In this story, Col G has not yet become a private investigator and has no experience of solving mysteries. In fact he walks into this case quite by chance and in places  is motivated less by a desire to crack the case than to protect his childhood friend Barbara Melhuish, known by the nickname Pickles. It may be as well to address some of the criticisms/misunderstandings that have been written about this book.  For a start, I cannot see that it is intended as a satire on Golden Age detective stories. At the time of publication, the Golden Age was...