I will not be reading or reviewing this title for the reasons cited above. I look forward to future Dover editions.

A strong opening quickly descends into a lot of "cooey! he's blind, is he!?". If this is your bag I suggest spreading this out over a few days; the writing is competent but the mysteries not strong enough to withstand sustained scrutiny.

This is a delightful collection of short detective stories of the blind sleuth, Max Carrados. This is my first exposure to him, and I have to say he's quickly become one of my favourites. He's clever, calculating, and everything else a classic detective should be. A must for detective fiction fans!

The claim to fame of Max Carrados is that he is blind. Blind detective, it's been done but Max was one of the first. His adventures are somewhat interesting but some of the solutions seem like great leaps of logic. I enjoyed the first few stories in the book but then it got sort of... convoluted. Good example of the time period but maybe not my faves.

Three stars
This book came out May 17

“All the same, Max, I don’t think that you have treated me quite fairly,” protested Carlyle, getting over his first surprise and passing to a sense of injury. “Here we are and I know nothing, absolutely nothing, of the whole affair.”
From “The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem”

That’s pretty much how readers will feel when reading the 10 short stories gathered in this re-release of a 1972 anthology of Ernest Bramah’s blind detective, Max Carrados. Braham spends nearly as much time is spent in each tale marveling at how the blind Carrados can “read” newspaper headlines by feeling the newsprint, know (due to his other senses) what people have in their pockets, and other impossible feats as he spends on the actual investigation. Author Bramah never plays fair with readers, providing them no more clues than he passes on to Carrados’ private detective pal Mr. Carlyle.

Bramah published his first Max Carrados book in 1914 and continued the stories into the 1930s. Inexplicably, these stories were pretty popular in their day, sometimes outselling Sherlock Holmes stories. However, modern audiences are likely to find Carrados disappointing since his revelations at the end of each short story seem to come out of nowhere. I give Bramah credit for being incredibly ahead of his time on both race and imperialism, but otherwise his descent into obscurity is entirely understandable.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Dover Publications in exchange for an honest review.

Vying for fame alongside Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes' especially in the periodical The Strand Gazette, author Ernest Bramah (much admired of his time) introduces us to the enigmatic detective Max Carrados in this collection of his detective stories. Born in 1868 the author was writing at a time of increased enthusiasm for the crime.mystery genre of writing and pitches his stories with intrigue and gentle banter in most cases.
Carrados is blind (following an accident caused by a branch striking his face and his subsequent loss of sight (amaurosis), although the loss of one sense has in Carrados heightened his other senses.
Carrados also has his own servant Parkinson (a bit like a male version of Mrs Hudson) who physically assists Carrados as he makes his way around mostly London.
In the first story 'The Coin of Dionysius' we are also introduced to his side kick Louis Carlyle, a struck off solicitor who now takes on mostly divorce cases but knew Carrados in the past. They come together to solve intrigue over a valuable coin (Author Bramah was himself a coin expert) and other stories also feature coins.
I didn't dislike the stories but they seemed a bit contrived in plot and very wordy in the deduction. Obviously without sight Carrados uses hearing, smell and touch to find his clues and he is like Holmes in being able to build a suspect from only the small smattering of clues that everyone else has of course missed. The dialogue is of the time with references to the class divisions and the fact Carrados seems in a financial position to be able to spend his days being an amateur sleuth around town.
I'm not sure in the wealth of crime fiction now available whether this will top the best seller market. Even with nostalgia for writers from the past I somehow think Ernest Bramah might still remain an unknown to many unless someone decides on a re-branding via a TV drama....

"The Best Max Carrados Detective Stories" is a collection of 10 short mystery stories set in the early 20th century. These are clever, clue-based mysteries. The solutions aren't usually clear until Max explains it, though all the clues were available.

What makes Max Carrados unique is that he's blind, though he turns this into a strength rather than a weakness. He looks beyond the obvious and can perceive things that sighted people don't. He's also very well informed and so might consider a possibility that others wouldn't even know to consider. I enjoyed all of the stories, and I'd highly recommend this collection.

The included stories:
The Coin of Dionysius
The Knight's Cross Signal Problem
The Mystery of the Vanished Petition Crown
The Holloway Flat Tragedy
The Disappearance of Marie Severe
The Mystery of the Poisoned Dish of Mushrooms
The Ghost at Massingham Mansions
The Tragedy at Brookbend Cottage
The Last Exploit of Harry the Actor
The Ingenious Mr. Spinola