An uneven, but mostly enjoyable collection of short stories compiled by Martin Edwards.

"The Man with the Watches" by Arthur Conan Doyle - A mysterious death on a train is solved when a letter from abroad arrives.

"The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel" by L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace - The death of a signalman casts suspicion upon a railway worker. Before investigators arrive on the scene, they find another corpse in almost the same location. Science solves the mystery.

"How He Cut His Stick" by Matthias McDonnell Bodkin - A thief gets off a train traveling at full speed. Dora Myrl figures out how.

"The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway" by Baroness Orczy - A look back at an unsolved murder about a woman poisoned on a train.

"The Affair of the Corridor Express" by Victor L. Whitechurch - The son of a wealthy Londoner is kidnapped on a train while in the care of a school official, disappearing before the destination is reached.

"The Case of Oscar Brodski" by R. Austin Freeman - Forensic evidence helps solve the crime.

"The Eighth Lamp" by Roy Vickers - More suspense than mystery. A signalman sees a circle line train running after hours. Still enjoyable, even if the mystery element is not strong.

"The Knight's Cross Signal Problem" by Ernest Bramah - A signalman performed his duties but an oncoming train sees a "go ahead" resulting in a crash. A blind detective figures out what happened.

"The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face" by Dorothy L. Sayers - A corpse with a mutilated face appears on a beach with no clues to the victim's identity left. While riding a train, the detective overhears Lord Peter Wimsey's theory, leading to the victim's identification.

"The Railway Carriage" by F. Tennyson Jesse - Solange Fontaine boards a train headed for London in Merchester. The occupants of her third class car speak of the execution of a young man that morning. The train crashes. With the next car aflame, a young man appears urging them to get out, but then he disappears.

"Mystery of the Slip-Coach" by Sapper - A bookmaker's corpse lies in a railway coach with egg splattered upon the door. A bullet killed him. One passenger's luggage contains a firearm, but the bullet doesn't match.

"The Level Crossing" by Freeman Wills Crofts - After a stock deal, a man is found dead at a railway crossing.

"The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage" by Ronald Knox - A Sherlock Holmes mystery written by someone other than Doyle.

"Murder on the 7.16" by Michael Innes - <spoiler>"Not a real murder" on "not a real train."</spoiler> Different!

"The Coulman Handicap" by Michael Gilbert - A woman under surveillance gives her tail the slip in a case involving precious jewels.

This review is based on an advanced electronic copy received from the publisher through NetGalley with the expectation of an unbiased review.

anthology, short-stories, trains, mystery

A wonderful collection of vintage reads by beloved English mystery writers. With fifteen stories to choose from it would be very difficult to choose the best, but why bother when all are interesting yet don't require a lot of time. I found each to be just the right length and interest level for many different waits. I had a wonderful time with these select reads.
I requested and received a free copy via NetGalley, many thanks!

I have to say I love the sentence “In an era of cancellations and delays, alibis reliant upon a timely train service no longer ring true”. Clearly, nobody has been hit harder by the decline of the railways than poor mystery writers who have lost such a great plot-device…

While one might think that ‘railway related mysteries’ limits the type of stories one can include in this book there is some variety. In many cases, they are simply a sub-set of locked-room mysteries: somebody (or something) disappeared from a moving train (but the how is different every time). Sometimes the train provides the murder-method (or the means of masking the murder) and sometimes the train is mere coincidence (The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face opens in a train but the actual crime had been committed somewhere else and was in no way connected to a train or the railway).

Of course, the stories also vary in quality. No matter how popular railway mysteries were, not every writer did his best work in (short) railway fiction. (Sayer’s story is nowhere near as brilliant as her long fiction). My personal preferences also play a role (I’m not a big fan of mysteries told from the POV of the killer. Or of occult detectives).


Arthur Conan Doyle – The Man with the Watches ☹
Between two stops three passengers disappear without a trace and a dead body turns up. Many try to explain this but all of their attempts are quickly debunked. It takes years until an unexpected letter throws light on the mystery.

I know I’m now adding a few more spins to the anyway constant spinning ACD does in his grave but it’s hard to not compare his other stories to his most famous creation. Especially when a comparison offers itself up so obviously: in Holmes stories, it was occasionally brought up that legal/illegal and morally right/wrong are not always the same thing and Holmes does sometimes let somebody get away with a crime or shows his disapproval of someone who did nothing illegal. Well, and this story makes a judgment call along those lines but unlike in the Holmes stories, I disagree with it. Also, there is no genius detective…or any kind of detective who follows clues…just a guy who witnessed the crime and who writes a letter explaining what happened.

L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace – The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel 😐
A man is found dead in a railway tunnel and the case seems clear-cut: he’d gotten engaged the day before and his fiancee also had a second admirer who threatened revenge. But when another body turns up it becomes obvious that there is more to it. John Bell, a ‘wealthy skeptic and exposer of ghosts’ gets called in to consult on the case.

There isn’t much to say about this story because Bell remains rather colourless throughout. He follows the clues, he solves the case but nothing he does or says makes him stick out. The mystery itself is the similar: nice and somewhat intriguing but not overwhelming. If I come across another John Bell story I’ll read it but I won’t go out looking for one.

Matthias McDonnel Bodkin – How He Cut His Stick ❤
A bank clerk is tasked to transport a huge sum of money across the country. Even though he is locked into a train compartment he gets attacked and the money stolen. The police suspect that he himself is involved. Dora Myrl has another idea.

The plot itself is nothing special: a variation on a locked room mystery with a slightly outlandish solution. The distinguishing feature of this story is the female detective. And even more so the fact that it’s not made a big deal. When the clerk’s boss comes to her because he’s worried that the police have reached their conclusion to quickly he doesn’t question he qualification (and neither do the police). Dora then does all the sleuthing on her own, sets up the trap for the bad guy and then threatens him with her gun to make sure that he doesn’t run away. Her (temporary) male assistant with a Rugby player physique is needed because she can’t tie up the villain and keep him in check with the gun at the same time.

I don’t think I’ve read any story from that era (by male or female writers) that treat female sleuths in such a way. And after I already enjoyed Bodkin’s Inspector Beck-stories I’m now even more convinced to read more by him.

Baroness Orczy – The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway ☹
All Polly wants is have lunch in peace, when a random stranger – the old man in the corner – suddenly demands that she should describe a man who has been sitting next to her and has now left. When she fails the random stranger laments the unreliability of eyewitnesses and how they are the reason a murderer went free. Then he tells her about the case in question and how only he knows the truth (but has no proof, hence the murderer remains free).

You might notice that I am not a big fan of Baroness Orczy. Even though The Scarlett Pimpernell is a fun story, I always have a hard time with how stupid the female characters in it are. Her The Old Man in the Corner stories aren’t much better. And while this isn’t the worst of the lot, I just can’t deal with the Old Man’s condescension.

Victor L. Whitechurch – The Affair of the Corridor Express 😐
A boy disappears during a train journey. His teacher immediately alerts the conductor and they search every corner of the still moving train. There is no way he could have left a train driving at that speed but he is nowhere to be found. The teacher goes to ask Thorpe Hazel for help ‘a train enthusiast, who was regularly consulted by railway companies about the bewildering task of altering their timetables’ (and doesn’t he sound like a fun person to be around?)

Similarly to The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel, this story has an average detective solving a not very outstanding mystery. The difference is that I couldn’t help thinking about how in real life this child would have been severely traumatized by the events but in the story just went ‘Jolly-ho thanks for finding me, bye’. And this is perhaps unfair – many mysteries are more about the puzzle than the people and few authors included things like trauma in their stories. But the severity of it, combined with the fact that it’s about a child made it hard for me to forget it.

R. Austin Freeman – The Case of Oscar Brodski 😃
Silas is a thief but not a murderer. That is until chance brings a diamond merchant with a valuable quarry right to his doorstep. The murder doesn’t quite go as planned but Silas knows how to improvise. So he has gotten away with it – or has he? Thorndyke finds a few things Silas has missed.

Freeman claims this is the first ‘inverted’ crime story i.e. where the reader knows everything and the detective nothing. I’m not sure if that is really true but I was impressed by the psychology. At first, the focus isn’t so much on Silas plan but on his inner fight – should he let the man go or should he kill him, steal the diamonds and have enough money to retire? I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s making the killer sympathetic but he doesn’t paint him as a pure villain, either.

The second part of the story is a normal Thorndyke-story with lots of focus on real science, which is something you either enjoy or you don’t. (I do enjoy it).

Roy Vickers – The Eight Lamp ☹
A railway worker keeps seeing a train that shouldn’t be there. He doesn’t dare to talk to his superiors about it for fear of being thought crazy. But the train keeps appearing.

This is more a ghost-story than a mystery. But the atmosphere was rather dull and ‘ordinary’ so that I kept expecting a mundane explanation for the events and felt rather dumbfounded at the final reveal.

Ernest Bramah – The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem ☹
A train-crash leaves more than 30 people dead. The cause seems to be a human error: the train-driver swears the signal light was green, the signalman swears it was red. While trying to figure out who is lying Carrados soon discovers that much more sinister forces are at play.

I already knew this story from a different anthology and didn’t like it back then. This hasn’t changed. It’s a story about scary brown people…

Dorothy L. Sayers – The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face 😃
On a train-journey, three strangers who share a carriage find themselves discussing the recent murder of a man whose face has been cut up so badly that identification has been impossible so far. One of the strangers has some ideas how the victim might be identified and also offers an explanation for the other curious facts of the case, like the fact that there were only the victim’s footprints on the scene.

Spoiler: the stranger’s name begins with a P and ends with eter Wimsey. The dear reader figures that out pretty quickly but still has to suffer through several pages in which he is only called ‘the first class passenger’. The other passengers are also only called by some epithet relating to their appearance that I began having flashbacks to all the fanfiction with ‘the tall man looked at the dark-haired man’. In fairness to Sayers, she sticks to one description but I still found that harder to remember than actual names so I had a hard time keeping up.

Apart from that this is one of those detective stories where the detective does (nearly) no detecting. Wimsey is just so brilliant that he figures everything out (almost) on the spot and these stories make me roll my eyes a lot. But it’s still a Lord Peter Wimsey story and it’s hard not to like him 😉

F. Tennyson Jesse – The Railway Carriage ☹
Two mysterious traveling companions wake Solange Fontaine’s ‘spiritual intuition’. Something has to be wrong with them, she is sure of that. Then tragedy strikes and the story turns into an unexpected direction.

Solange is an occult detective. Meaning that a) this story has supernatural elements and b) our detective has…well…spiritual intuition that tells her that something is wrong. No boring observing of her surroundings and putting things together. She knows because magic which doesn’t make for a particularly interesting approach to detecting – no matter if ghosts are involved or not.

Sapper – Mystery of the Slip-Coach 😃
A man is found shot in a locked railway carriage. The murderer has to be one of the people traveling in the same carriage. But why is there a cracked raw egg lying next to him? The inspector who investigates the case wants to dismiss it but Ronald Standish is convinced that it’s the key to the mystery.

A very Holmesian mystery with a sleuth who isn’t quite as eccentric but also with a solution that is even more absurd than some Holmes-stories. It’s still a fun story and the first of the previously unknown authors in this collection I want to check out.

Freeman Wills Crofts – The Level Crossing ☹
Dunstan Thwaite decides that five years of blackmail are enough. He is going to stop John Dunn who has been after him for so long and demanding more and more.

I am not a big fan of crime stories written from the POV of the murderer. I enjoyed the Austin Freeman story in this book that did it because it managed to make the killer still interesting. Besides, it was fun trying to figure out what kind of mistakes he was making while trying to cover up his crime. But the killer in The Level Crossing was a just deeply unpleasant person I didn’t care about. So even though the victim was also deeply unpleasant, I couldn’t bring myself to care, or secretly wish that he succeeds and gets away with it.

Ronald Knox – The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage ☹
A maid visits Sherlock Holmes and tells him about the tensions between the couple she works for and how she fears for the husband’s life. Holmes wants to contact the man but he disappears without a trace during a train journey.

I don’t doubt that this author loved Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, that alone doesn’t make a good pastiche-writer. First, we get two pages that consist mainly of Watson mentioning a number of cases that sound appropriately Holmesian (like The Tattooed Nurseryman) but then saying that he’s not going to talk about those now. In the actual story, Holmes’s deductive powers are only used to explain that the maid must be an interesting person because of the way she writes her j’s and w’s in the letter she sent Holmes.

Michael Innes – Murder on the 7.16 😃
There has been a murder on a train. Or rather a fake train that has been part of a film set. The body, however, is undoubtedly real.

This story was too short to say anything more than ‘that was fun’. It’s only a few pages and perhaps you get more out of this story if you know Inspector Appleby better but since I never met him before he remained distant.

Michael Gilbert – The Coulman Handicap 😐
The police are on the trail of a woman who sells stolen goods. But when they try to follow her to the person who’s behind it all she suddenly vanishes into thin air.

I enjoyed this story. Surveillance doesn’t always make for the most thrilling reading but the author pulled it off really well. And while I had a suspicion about part of the solution it didn’t take away much. If only it hadn’t been for the ending. You see the women is German and it’s mentioned that she’s been part of the resistance against the Nazis and had never been caught. When the police discuss the case at the end we are treated to this gem:

You’ll never beat a German at their own game. Look at the Gestapo. They tried for five years and even they couldn’t pull it off. The one thing they lacked was imagination. Perhaps it was a good thing. A little imagination, and they might have caused a lot more bother.

Because, famously, the Gestapo wasn’t much of a bother for anybody…

The latest British Library Crime Classics anthology is a collection of railway mysteries from the Golden Age of crime fiction. As always editor Martin Edwards has managed to find a mix of different styles and approaches from adventure-type stories to inverted crimes.

Most of the stories in the collection feel like good matches for the railway theme though the links in a couple of cases are somewhat tenuous. For instance The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man With No Face is one of the strongest stories in the collection based purely on entertainment value but probably does the least with the train theme.

Among the highlights of the collection for me were The Affair of the Corridor Express by Victor L. Whitechurch and The Case of Oscar Brodski by R. Austin Freeman. The other stories are generally of a high standard and most are paced pretty well with just a few falling short of the mark.

"Blood on the Tracks" a collection of 15 short story mysteries published in the late 1800s up to the 1950s. Most of the stories were from the detective's point of view and were tales of old cases, cases where the detective quickly figured out whodunit but still needed to catch the criminal, or stories where the detective found clues, put them together, and solved the crime. There were two ghost stories, and a couple stories from the murderer's point of view. Not all of the stories were about murder. And trains--while always mentioned--didn't play a large role in several of the stories. Overall, I enjoyed the interesting detectives and mysteries. I'd recommend this collection.

Included stories:
The Man with the Watches by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
How He Cut His Stick by Matthias McDonnell Bodkin
The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway by Baroness Orczy
The Affair of the Corridor Express by Victor L. Whitechurch
The Case of Oscar Brodski by R. Austin Freeman
The Eighth Lamp by Roy Vickers
The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem by Ernest Bramah
The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Railway Carriage by F. Tennyson Jesse
Mystery of the Slip-Coach by Sapper
The Level Crossing by Freeman Wills Crofts
The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage by Ronald Knox
Murder on the 7.16 by Michael Innes
The Coulman Handicap by Michael Gilbert

How much fun is this book? As a collection of older short mysteries, all having to do, in one way or another, with railroads, this is a spiffy and very pleasurable read. Martin Edwards, the editor, is well-known for his excellent collations of stories, and he has done himself proud with this one.

The gang’s all here in this volume. Included are stories by such luminaries as Conan Doyle, Dorothy L Sayers, R Austin Freeman, Sapper, and Baroness Orczy. Some well-known sleuths are The Old Man in the Corner, Lord Peter Wimsey, Doctor Thorndyke, and Max Carrados. Not only can you not go wrong, choosing a favorite story is the hard part. I admit that for myself, I was delighted to find a Lord Peter Wimsey story that I either had never read or which I had forgotten, and I was pleased to renew an old acquaintance with Doctor Thorndyke.

There were some nice surprises in this book. I had heard of Victor Whitechurch, but not his detective Thorpe Hazell, and Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond is, of course, famous, but I was unfamiliar with another of his creations, Ronald Standish. I enjoyed these stories very much. In fact, with the exception of one story which I found rather sad, I liked everything I read.

If you are interested in older mysteries, or railroads, or just looking for something great to read, let me recommend “Blood on the Tracks.” This was most enjoyable, and my only complaint is that I wanted more stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the digital galley of this collection.

Martin Edwards, in conjunction with the British Library Crime Classics, has edited another wonderful collection of fifteen short stories; the theme of which is crime associated with the railroad. This book has one great advantage for signaling readers predictable enjoyment by including so many easily recognizable authors from the time of classic detective fiction. Edwards states that the stories are presented in more or less chronological order. I have listed the title, author and any well known featured detective.

The Man with the Watches, Arthur Conan Doyle (not a Sherlock Holmes story)
The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel, L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, featuring John Bell
How He Cut His Stick, Mathias McDonnell Bodkin, featuring Dora Myrl
The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway, Baroness Orczy, featuring The Old Man in the Corner
The Affair of the Corridor Express, Victor L. Whitechurch, featuring Thorpe Hazell
The Case of Oscar Brodski, R. Austin Freeman, featuring Dr. John Thorndyke
The Eighth Lamp, Roy Vickers
The Knight's Cross Signal Problem, Ernest Bramah, featuring Max Carrados
The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face, Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey
The Railway Carriage, F. Tennyson Jesse, featuring Solange Fontaine
Mystery of the Slip-Coach, Sapper, featuring Ronald Standish
The Level Crossing, Freeman Wills Crofts
The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage, Ronald Knox, a Sherlock Holmes pastiche
Murder on the 7.6, Michael Innes, featuring Sir John Appleby
Handicap, Michael Gilbert, featuring Patrick Petrella

As is evidenced by the title of the collection and the titles of most of the stories these are all mysteries which take place on a train or crimes which are solved after the train incident had happened. I found all the stories most enjoyable and had only read one of the stories previously. There are some very good "impossible" or "locked room" stories because of the confining nature of a railway car. This is one collection where I can say I liked each of the stories, probably because so many of the authors are writers I chose to read when I'm looking for a good mystery novel.

I don't know where to begin.

This is a wonderful anthology of short mysteries. Each story involves some train, one train is a movie set, there are journeys on the “Tube” as well as steam trains. These stories were written when train travel in England was the norm. Whether you were going into the city for work, or traveling to a distant part of the country, you rode the train. Train travel was sensible but it also had a wonderful sense of adventure, romance and danger.

The authors of these stories are well known British authors from early in the twentieth century. Everyone was known for creating a talented investigator.

Each story is an individual treasure. Each author is introduced by the editor, Martin Edwards. In these introductions, we learn about each author and their contributions to the world of British detective literature.

Dorothy L Sayers was the best known author to me. But, I found new to me authors who write wonderfully. Every author has created an atmosphere which is spot on for a train journey. If you listen carefully you can hear the clickity clack of the wheels on the tracks.

I loved this book and now I must start searching for more stories by these authors.

I received this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I am voluntarily writing this review and all opinions are completely my own.

This is a good collection of mysteries that all revolve around the British railway system. Some of them rely on the railway for a solution, others for the setting, and others for atmosphere, but all rely on it. There are stories here from well-known authors and some who have been forgotten. There are murders, thefts, disappearances, and ghosts. I would have rated it higher, but I personally wasn't fond of serval of the stories.
So here are my thoughts on those stories.
The Man with the Watches by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Three passengers catch a train, all three disappear, and in their place is found a dead man. Who is he? No one knows; or do they?
I really liked the way we were offered so many possible solutions before the real one came out. Do you think he was hinting that one solution was supplied by Holmes himself? I like to think so.
The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace
This one is spooky. People are dying, but how? Why? This one relies heavily on atmosphere. It has it all, remote location, tunnels, solitude, night, and speeding trains.
How He Cut His Stick by Matthias McDonnell Bodkin
The atmosphere of this one is not so dark and makes a nice contrast with the former. It also varies from the standard formula as it has a woman detective and no murder. It’s just a fun little mystery.
The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway by Baroness Orczy
A woman is found dead at the end of the line. Her reputation is shattered, her killer suspected, but is it all as it seems? What does the Old Man in the Corner think?
The Affair of the Corridor Express
How can a child disappear from a speeding train? Is it a childish prank or something more sinister? This is one of the easier ones to figure out, but still fun.
This one has one instance of vulgar slang.
The Case of Oscar Brodski by R. Austin Freeman
As with any inverted mystery, this one builds suspense not by guessing who did it, but by attempting to get away with it. Has he done it? Has he shifted all blame to the railway, or will Dr. Thorndyke catch him in the end?
The Eighth Lamp by Roy Vickers
This one plays on our fears of the dark, solitude, and the unknown. From there it just gets stranger. [(spoiler) I not fond of ghost stories, but this one is certainly spooky if you like that sort of thing.]
The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem Ernest Bramah
This one takes the most technical knowledge to understand, but don’t be discouraged. I got through it, and I don’t know anything about trains or railways. I did enjoy it more for the detective than I did for the mystery though, probably for that reason.
The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face by Dorothy L. Sayers
This one has the most swearing, and a rather unsatisfactory ending. It may not be that way for everyone though. I just like my endings a bit tidier. It starts out with a few gossips discussing a recent murder and ends with a vindication of the theory put forward there.
The Railway Carriage
What a grotesque little story! At first, I wanted to go find the rest of this series, but after that, I’m not so sure I will, but then I’m not all that fond of [(spoiler)ghost stories].
The Coulman Handicap by Michael Gilbert
That is the most unusual of the stories in this collection. It almost feels as if is part of a larger story, but it’s still completely satisfying as a short story. The use of the trains in this one is quite unique and really very clever. Unfortunately, it also has one use of offensive slang.
The Mystery of the Slip-Coach Sapper
This has, what has to be, one of the most unusual clues I’ve ever read. It’s a murder mystery, but with that as a clue, it’s almost lighthearted. It makes an excellent ending to the collection.
Received free from NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press. No favorable review was required. These are my honest opinions.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for my copy of this book! I enjoy very much the short stories selected by Martin Edwards. Just like in another short stories collection by the editor, “Foreign Bodies”, I’m amazed by the fantastic selection in “Blood on the tracks”. I enjoyed “The affair of the corridor express” and “Murder on the 7.16” the best. I enjoyed the theme of the book, which reminded me many times of one of favorite Murder mysteries, “Murder on the Orient Express”. Every short story is unique in its own way and at the same time, cleverly selected so there’s a link between them. This is a really great book.

A selection of stories, all with a railway background all set in a particular time and setting very reminiscent of Briish colonial times!

It was nostalgic to read this collection of stories. All mysteries, some murders some could be solved very easily, some inexplicable, and some were sheer genius in the solving.

A book ideal not just for readers of crime, but also for those who love the railways!

Very well put together, extremely entertaining

This book contains a bunch of short-stories that are railway mysteries. Some of the stories were well-written and interesting but so many of them were long-winded and not as intetesting. A hit or miss really, Do I regret requesting this book? No, however, I would not be interested in buying.

Reading this book is like visiting a very old relative in a home for retired gentlefolk. They have some amusing and interesting stories to tell but somewhat tame compared to the more recent escapades of your younger friends. Their slightly crude stereotyping of class, gender and nationality makes you cringe at times….
Okay, so I don’t mean to be ageist as this relative does not exist. The stories in Blood on the Tracks are mostly around 100 years old and, while valuable for those interested in the development of the detective story (and there are plenty of editor’s notes on this), were not particularly memorable for me.
Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the review copy.
Visit my blog at https://mypertopinions.blogspot.co.uk/

Editor Martin Edwards has collected short stories dealing with trains and railways from a sampling of well-known and obscure writers — with the obscure more deserving of accolades. Ironically, it has taken a swift-moving train story to nudge me to revisit an author whom I had dismissed.

As with all anthologies, there are gems, mediocrities and one loser. (Martin, a mystery author in his own right, has remarkably limited it to one. Kudos to him!) First the famous. Dorothy L. Sayers delights with “The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face,” featuring Lord Peter Wimsey at his most philosophical. Michael Innes soars with “Murder on the 7.16” (how is it I’ve only read one John Appleby novel?), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Man with the Watches” doesn’t rise to the level of Sherlock Holmes, but it’s enjoyable. Baroness Orczy’s “The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway” was enjoyable, but not enough for me to check out her other mysteries. I had read Freeman Wills Crofts’ lackluster Mystery in the Channel, but “The Case of Oscar Brodski” has inspired me to give the scientific Inspector French another chance.

Now for the obscure, I liked Matthias McDonnell Bodkin’s “How He Cut His Stick” enough that I will try to find his Dora Myrl series books; the same goes for T. Tennyson Jesse’s Solange Fontaine from Jesse’s wonderful, paranormal “The Railway Carriage,” R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thondyke series based on “The Level Crossing”, and Sapper’s Ronald Standish, featured in “Mystery of the Slip-Coach.” Ernest Bramah’s “The Knight’s Crossing Signal Problem” did not induce me to change my mind about the irritating Max Carrados. There are a few other short stories that will probably also nudge me to new horizons. Thanks so much, Mr. Edwards!

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, British Library and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

I love anthologies/collections of short stories. Especially those that are centered around mysteries. This was a great collection of railway themed mysteries. What a fantastic blend of different styles/techniques of the various writers. It's wonderful to read a short story here and there. No break in storylines and perfect for quick reads when you don't have hours to devote to a book. I enjoyed reading them before bed, while drinking my morning coffee, while enjoying lunch. Absolutely perfect!

*I would like to thank the authors/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review*

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

A collection of detective stories all featuring railway (and underground railway) crimes. The editor, Martin Edwards, has included interesting mini-biographies of each of the authors. I can't say I really enjoyed these, and I gave up at the half-way point. I liked the "Affair of the Corridor Express", and the "Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway", but they all started to merge together after a while - there are only so many ways some one can mysteriously die on or disappear from a train.

I also found the stories rather cerebral (like a puzzle as opposed to a realistic description of human behaviour). The solutions were often very far-fetched and impossible for the reader to work out on his own. Not for me.

Another excellent anthology by Martin Edwards - this one is about crime linked with trains. If you like reading books written by authors up to the Golden Age, this book will be very welcomed. Again a mixture of writing styles and stories, and again very enjoyable. There was only one I did not enjoy but that is personal taste, the book does give a good mix of story some of which I have encountered previously, some were new to me.

There was much to interest, amuse, and intrigue all but the most seasoned of mystery readers in
this volume which consists of fifteen stories and an Introduction by the editor, Martin Edwards. Each item has a brief preamble, some with biographical and bibliographical information.

The stated aim of the collection is to celebrate the classic railway mystery. All the authors were British-based and only four are women. The earliest story dates from 1898, the latest from the 1950’s.

The selection includes:-

1. The Man with the Watches: A. Conan Doyle (1898)- Interesting mystery of a body found on a train with two solutions proposed.

2.The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel: L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace (1898)- John Bell investigates two mysterious deaths using his scientific knowledge. This feels dated in a way that the Conan Doyle does not.

3.How He Cut His Stick: M McDonnell Bodkin (1900)-Slight and somewhat far-fetched tale of Dora Myrl solving a railway robbery.

4.The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway: Baroness Orczy (1901)- the Old Man in the Corner is one of my favourite “armchair detectives” and here he gives his solution to a death in a railway carriage.

5.The Affair of the Corridor Express: Victor L Whitechurch (1912)- Thorpe Hazell, the original railway detective, solves a kidnapping case in this well-known tale.

6.The Case of Oscar Brodski: R.Austin Freeman (1912)-Dr. Thorndyke investigates a death on the railway tracks in what is considered to be the first “inverted” detective story. This gives it historical interest, although it is not a personal favourite.

7.The Eighth Lamp: Roy Vickers (1916)-Neat short story of murder, conscience, and a ghost, set in the London Underground.

8.The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem: Ernest Bramah (1913)- Max Carrados solves the mystery surrounding a serious rail accident in this enjoyable story.

9. The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face: Dorothy L. Sayers (1928)-Interesting Peter Wimsey
murder tale with two solutions. Only tenuously is it a railway mystery.

10. The Railway Carriage: F. Tennyson Jesse (1931)-Curiously atmospheric tale of a railway accident involving Solange Fontaine, the “occult sleuth”.

11.Mystery of the Slip-Coach: H.C.McNeile aka“Sapper“(1933)-Ronald Standish, “gentleman detective”, works out the solution to a murder in a train carriage,Rather unexpectedly enjoyable.

12. The Level Crossing: Freeman Wills Crofts (1933)- Not quite an inverted murder story, showing the power of circumstantial evidence.

13. The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage: Ronald Knox (1947)-Pleasant Holmes pastiche but only incidentally a railway mystery.

14.Murder on the 7.16: Michael Innes (1956)-Sir John Appleby in a whimsical piece about a killing on a film set.

15. The Coulman Handicap: Michael Gilbert (1950’s)-Patrick Petrella gets his man in this neat tale which has only a slight link to railways.

I must admit to a slight personal disappointment that so many of the stories were familiar.

I had read several of these elsewhere. One of the original delights of these British Library themed collections was that they included stories by neglected authors or shed new light on the well-known ones by publishing hard-to-find items. This was not so much in evidence this time.

It would be useful to have sources, follow-up reading or further reading suggestions included in anthologies, even given that a lot of information can be found on the internet

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the digital ARC.