This collection of short stories represents a selection of mysteries, mainly involving murder, which were all written in the Golden Age of Detective fiction. They are brought together by the theme of water in many forms: pools, ponds and of course, the sea. They range through the complex and clever, featuring disguise and bluff, to the basic where a simple deceit leads to arrests. There are humourous elements, as when the reminiscence of past cases gives pleasure to the investigator, whereas others reveal criminal acts that are shocking. As with other books in the British Library Crime Classics series, this book benefits from an Introduction from Martin Edwards in which he examines the common theme of mysteries connected with water, including some well known novels. Each story is prefaced with a short biography of the author, which is useful, especially given that several of the writers adopted different names when publishing their work. Altogether this is an excellent collection of short stories which covers a wide range of stories and styles.

I read this and found it intriguing. I think the story I like the most was the murder mystery set on a river. I loved the solving of the mystery involving a lock along the waterway and the frightened locksman.

Thanks to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC to review. I'm loving all the books being republished. Finding so many great hidden jems. Looking forward to reading and collecting them all.

Martin Edwards has produced a solid anthology of Golden Age style crime fiction short stores, the theme of which is aptly expressed by the sub-title, "Murder on the Waves". The stories are set in, on or around a body of water. They come from from a variety of authors, including some well-known crime writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Edmund Crispin. Lesser known authors are also represented, e.g. Andrew Garve and Phyllis Bennett; some readers like me may not have heard of them before this book.

As in any anthology, some stories stand out more than others. I enjoyed Doyle's "The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'", the first Sherlock Holmes investigation. "The Thimble River Mystery" introduced . me to the writing of Josephine Bell and I hope to soon enjoy some of her other crime fiction.

Overall, the stories are entertaining. They vary in length too which makes it easy to dip into the book when reading time is short; "The Seasprite" is over before you know it, with an ending some may feel is too abrupt. Reading tastes differ of course so what one person likes may not suit others. One of the appeals of a Martin Edwards crime fiction anthology is the variety of the selected stories. With sixteen stories there is plenty from which to choose. Edwards's Introduction to the collection serves as a useful guide to making your selections.

I received my advance reader's review copy of this eBook from Poisoned Pen Press, via Netgalley. The comments about it are my own.

Princess Fuzzypants here: I am fond of short stories and I am especially fond of anthologies of short stories. One of the editors I enjoy most is Martin Edwards. He finds classic mysteries that he presents with some background on the author and the times. This particular book all has something to do with the sea. There is a wide selection of stories that the reader can dip into at will. It is one of the reasons I am so fond of anthologies of short stories. It is like a literary smorgasbord where you can take as little or as much as you wish of a wide variety of tastes. It is great when the reader does not have a lot of time or just wants a quick read to relax after a long day.
Five purrs and two paws up.

Deep Waters is an anthology of 16 stories with a water theme. Released 3rd Sept 2019 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 352 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats. Editor Martin Edwards provides erudite, interesting commentary and an introduction for each of the stories.

The stories themselves are classic and varied. There's a canonical Holmes and Watson short, a Raffles story, as well as stories by luminaries of the genre including Edmund Crispin, Josephine Bell, C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), and others. Honestly, the author list reads like a who's who of classic and golden age mystery fiction. The commentary and introduction are also top rate. I always learn something from Mr. Edwards' vast storehouse of mystery history; this time it was that E. W. Hornung (Raffles) was also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brother in law!

These are wonderful old stories. They mostly still play very well to a modern readership and all of these are worthy of preservation and publishing for new generations of mystery lovers.

Well done! Five stars.

A pool of death, poisoned cognac, haunted bride, piranhas, ghosts…

Deep Waters is a collection of mystery/crime short stories which are somehow connected with water. In these 16 stories the crime either has been committed on board a ship or in a pool or near a pond.
Anyway, there is water involved.

I enjoyed reading all of the stories, some more than the others.
My favorites are Four Friends and Death, A Question of Timing, The Turning of the Tide and Seasprite.
It is always a pleasure to read a book edited by Martin Edwards.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and the NetGalley for my copy.

This is another British Library anthology edited by Martin Edwards. As usual, the introductions by Edwards make me want to read more works by many of the authors. The stories themselves are a mixed bag with the theme of water tying them together. The plots range from crimes on the ocean to crimes on rivers and even crimes in swimming pools. My favorites were Man Overboard by Crispin Fen and the last story Deep Waters by Michael. Innes. All in all, a very nice collection to dip into.

This was a lovely theme of historical fiction mixed liberally with mysteries on anything water. Canals, lakes, seas, everything connected to the murder or the mystery was linked to a waterway and they were all picturesque, all descriptive and some of them remote.

All the stories are slightly old fashioned form of detective work, many of them were solved by laymen in collaboration with the police force and all conducted in a very gentlemanly like and orderly manner, despite the final brutality of the act itself!

Very easy to read, very pleasant to read.

Sixteen short stories all relating to water,be it rivers,seasides,estuaries, pools and so on. And ranging in style from classic murder mysteries to tales of the unexpected. Some are good,very good indeed,and some do not quite enchant me so much.
But one of the great advantages and delights of these anthologies is the fact that you are introduced to different writers(some famous like Arthur Conan Doyle,C.S.Forester,Michael Innes and some now long forgotten) and their different approach to the "murder mystery". And notwithstanding the fact that some were written more than a century ago,they are still highly readable and are still a wonderfull source of bookish pleasure.

This is a fun anthology of short mystery stories with water as a central element
The stories are of varying quality, but the majority hit the bullseye
I had never read any of them before, so each was a discovery
I particularly liked the C.S. Firestorm story with its Twillight Zone ending

An anthology of classic, vintage crime - sixteen tales with water at their core. A mixed bag of stories from some very talented pens - all enjoyable in their own right, some better than others but extremely appealing as a whole. Edited by Martin Edwards and with his usual very informative introduction. Tremendous reading.

There are some excellent stories in this collection, along with some pretty good ones, and some of historical interest only. They acquire additional interest from the theme as strong common threads underlie very different stories.

Whether on the open sea or a stagnant pond, a river bustling with commercial traffic or a lonely marsh, even in a swimming pool; there is a deep respect for the danger of water, and for the necessity of an island nation that hosted an industrial revolution dependent on water power and transportation, to master water.

Drowning is the fifth leading cause of accidental death but in most cultures it carries no special horror or romance; it's just another accident. As a method of murder it has the advantages of being a plausible accident, needing no weapon and in many cases disposing of the body naturally while literally washing away trace evidence. Beyond being the cause of death, water can aid killers by providing isolated locations and trapping victims in enclosed spaces. All of these stories depend, to one extent or another, on emotional attitudes toward drowning and water that would be not normally be assumed in places other than England.

Five of the twelve stories are true murder mystery short stories. By that I mean they are literary short stories with fully developed themes, and that theme includes some form of investigation of a murder. It need not be a conventional investigation that starts with a body and ends with an arrest, with a detective in between. It can include description, character (but rarely character development) or other elements, but never for their own sake, only in service of the theme. The authors of these are R. Austin Freeman ("The Echo of a Mutiny"), Josephine Bell ("The Thimble River Mystery"), Kem Bennett ("The Queer Fish"), James Pattinson ("The Man Who Was Drowned") and Michael Innes ("Death by Water"). Four are superb efforts by masters, one is a bit of a dud.

Top mystery novelists could earn some easy money writing what I would call cameos for their beloved series characters. Three of the stories fit this definition, by Arthur Conan Doyle ("The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" featuring Sherlock Holmes), E. W. Hornung ("The Gift of the Emperor" featuring Raffles) and H. C. Bailey ("The Swimming Pool" featuring Reggie Fortune). There's little substance to these stories, the featured character merely does his shtick without the originality or depth of the novel, and without noticeable theme. These are entertaining for fans of the author, and can serve as introductions to the characters for others. Two are pleasant but forgettable stories, one is a mystery only in how the character ever found even one fan, much less became hugely popular.

Another form of hack work for talented writers was to stretch out anecdotes or sketches into short story length. These stories have no themes, the author just describes events. All make good reading to pass the time, none are compelling in any sense. There are four of these, written by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace ("The Eight Mile Lock"), C. S. Forester ("The Turning of the Tide"), Phyllis Bentley ("A Question of Timing") and Andrew Garve ("Seasprite").

Rounding out the book are four puzzles by William Hope Hodgson ("Bullion!"), Gwyn Evans ("The Pool of Secrets"), Christopher St. John Sprigg ("Four Friends and Death") and Edmund Crispin ("Man Overboard"). None of these are above fair as stories, but that's not the point, they are supposed to present puzzles in inference and deduction to the reader. Unfortunately they all fall into that common and irritating category of flawed puzzles. Without giving spoilers to the specific stories--the authors did enough spoiling--I will say these are the kinds puzzles that depend on repeated and exhaustive searches overlooking precisely what the searchers should have been looking for, or characters creating elaborate red herrings for unexplained reasons, or someone remembering that the Duke's illegitimate half-brother who died in India 20 years earlier was left handed.

Overall I recommend this book for the quality of the best stories, the reading pleasure of most of the rest, the illumination of literary history and the insight that comes from lining up twelve stories soaked to the skin in murder.

Another delightful collection of short stories and one novella from this outstanding series from The British Library. This time all the stories involve crimes having to do with bodies of water, ranging from the high seas to swimming pools.

The stories are arranged chronologically by their publication date beginning with a Sherlock Holmes story of his very first case to a story published in the early 1970's.

I loved this collection for a couple of reasons, First many of the stories have absolutly delightful twists in them. It's one of the strengths if this form that the twists can be wonderfully sudden, more so than in full-length novels. I also loved that several of these stories were by authors not known for crime fiction, making this collection more varied than many.

I have to admit that I usually avoid short story collections. Not because I don't enjoy them, but as they are generally a bit longer than a chapter in length, you need a bit longer to sit down and enjoy them. The other danger is that the collection is often a mixed bag, of varying quality. Fortunately, with this collection, they were all enjoyable.
Of course, there were some that I enjoyed more than others. Possibly this had more to do with the style of the story rather than the writing. While some fit into the classic puzzle style, others just follow someone in the undertaking of a crime. One of my personal favourites actually followed someone who wanted to commit murder and get his comeuppance, by way of natural justice by the end of the tale.
I took quite a while over these, simply because I dipped into them from time to time as I read other books in between. Whether you take that approach or tackle one after another, I'm sure that you'll find plenty to enjoy in this collection.

This is the first BCLC-Anthology I read that featured a story by Doyle that’s an actual Holmes story: The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’; a story I didn’t remember at all, even though I have read/listened to all Holmes stories at least once. The reason for my memory-loss is…well that it’s not a very good story. It’s a lot like the non-Holmes story that featured in some of the previous anthologies that had no sleuthing and just a considerate person turning up and explaining everything. Here Holmes makes a couple of deductions early in the story, but the actual mystery is again solved by a convenient letter.

One of Holmes’ rivals (and an old acquaintance for Crime Library readers) also turns up: Dr Thorndyke solves another ‘inverted mystery’ in The Echo of a Mutiny and while it is a nice story, every reader with some prior experience with mystery will easily spot the mistake that will be the killer’s downfall.

Two more familiar names for me were E. W. Hornung who sends Raffles and Bunny after The Gift of the Emperor and William Hope Hodgson has a sailor telling a story of strange events on a ship in Bullion! I only read a couple of stories by both authors and in the case of the Raffles story that’s clearly a disadvantage. There are several references to past events that meant nothing to me and then the story also leaves you hanging at the end. Meanwhile the Hodgson-story was more of a positive surprise. I hadn’t much liked what I read by him so far but Bullion! is very nice and creepy.

Talking about creepy: to my great delight Gwyn Evans’ The Pool of Secrets is again a very pulpy story featuring a deadly swimming pool, lots of dead bodies and an utterly absurd solution. I loved it.


My totally reasonable and valid reason to include this gif is that the collection also features a short story by C. S. Forester who is better known for his Horatio Hornblower books. I was aware that he’d written a crime novel but didn’t know about any short stories. The Turning of the Tide also has some pulp elements. A dark and stormy night and an unusual and gruesome punishment for the bad guy but the story took itself a bit too seriously for me to enjoy it.

A first is that I ended up skipping a story completely: The Swimming Pool by H. C. Bailey. As Martin Edwards informs us in the introduction, Bailey’s “idiosyncratic prose” fell out of fashion. Idiosyncratic apparently means “Why use one short word when five long ones will do?” I tried to read it but kept forgetting how one sentence had started by the time I had come to the end of it.

From the rest of the stories two more were memorable to me because they also didn’t take themselves too serious. In Man Overboard Edmund Crispin lets Gervase Fan meditate on the usefulness of (dead) blackmailers. And in Kem Bennett’s The Queer Fish a lot of things go wrong for several people and in the end the right ones triumph. The remaining handful of stories were mainly…OK. Nothing I hated but also nothing that made me want to check out more by the author.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Press Books for my copy of this book. Martin Edwards does it again. I just can’t get enough of this meticulously chosen stories from the golden age of crime fiction that fit different themes from different books of the British Library collection. Deep Waters though, wasn’t my favorite. The last four stories were not captivating or interesting enough to keep my attention and that’s why I’m not giving the book five stars.

I'm a fan of British Library Crime Classic's books and I still have to find one that disappoint me.
This book was no exceptions.
All stories were well written and engrossing and I discovered new to me authors.
An entertaining and gripping read.
I look forward to reading another book in this collection.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A collection of sixteen stories all with a connection to water, published from the 1890s onwards. Displaying a vast range of different writing styles I did enjoy most of the stories, but the two I probably liked the most were Bullion and Seasprite.

This is a fascinating and enjoyable collection of detective and mystery stories involving the sea with an interesting introduction. The collection includes the first Sherlock Holmes story, a Dr Thorndike and other stories with famous detectives. It is a wide-ranging collection of tales concerning many different topics, which sometimes require complicated solutions, such as the one about the gold bullion. They are all extremely atmospheric - you can sometimes see and feel the deep fog spreading through the countryside.

Be warned. Some of these stories are quite creepy, such as the Case of the Silver Bride.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.