Deep Waters is an anthology of mysteries from the Golden Age collected by Martin Edwards who has brought together several similar thematic anthologies, This one, if the title is not clear enough, takes place in deep water with one exception that takes place on a tidal river. Edwards introduces each mystery with a short literary bio of the author, putting the story in the context of the author’s career.

There are sixteen stories and most of them are quite good. I did not care for “The Swimming Pool” by H. C. Bailey. I think Edwards acknowledges this by describing his “idiosyncratic prose..” I fell asleep three times while reading it but then stayed up late reading the rest and finishing the book. I didn’t follow my own advice which is to skip a story if it’s not reaching you. Of course, other readers may enjoy the arch tone of the story. Variety is what makes books and life interesting.

My favorite story is “Four Friends and Death” which has a complex murder with a limited number of suspects since there were only four friends on the boat and one of them is dead of poisoning. There is such acute understanding of human nature combined with an interesting exploration of friendship and how far it can bend before breaking.



Deep Waters is a great boatload of stories. I keep my eye out for Martin Edwards anthologies because I like his sensibility. I enjoy his short introductions and deep understanding of the genre. The only thing is when an anthology is focused on a theme as this is, you will read Edwards describing a better story that is not in the book and want to read that one. There are enough recommendations of better stories and novels to keep Poisoned Pen Press busy for a year from just this book.

Deep Waters will be released September 3rd. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

Deep Waters at Poisoned Pen Press
Martin Edwards author site

A delightful and eclectic collection of golden age, short story mysteries. The authors range from the well-known to the obscure, and the watery theme of all of the murders is expressed in any number of ways. The introductions to the authors from editor Martin Edwards are always informative, and have resulted in considerable additions to my to-read pile. The oddest story of the lot has to be 1935's "The Pool of Secrets," by Gwyn Evans, which adds a nearly science fiction element in the form of the detective's robot assistant. All in all, a great deal of fun for classic mystery genre fans!

I have always enjoyed reading the British Library Crime Classic's short stories compilations but for some reasons I couldn't get into "Deep Waters" at all. There are few solid and excellent stories but I skimmed through a good numbers of them. The "water" elements are great but the plots of many of the stories are dull. The redemption quality is always the introduction by Martin Edwards. Unfortunately, "Deep Waters" did not warm to me at all. To me, it was only an average read.

The British Library Crime Classics series (published and marketed in the US by Poisoned Pen Press) is growing into a veritable library spanning the “Golden Age” of crime fiction. Since 2012, the series has presented to the public forgotten gems of the genre.

Martin Edwards, who is himself an award-winning crime writer and Chairperson of the Crime Writers’ Association, deserves much of the credit for the success of this venture. Besides acting as series consultant, he has also edited several of its “themed anthologies”. I must admit that although I enjoy some crime fiction now and then, it is not the genre I typically read. I guess that for persons like me, these multi-author anthologies are an ideal entry point to the Crime Classics series. Edwards is an erudite and intelligent editor, who knows how to keep a reader interested through the variety of the chosen stories.

“Deep Waters”, the thirteenth anthology to appear in the series, is an excellent example. It features a total of sixteen stories which all bear some relation to water. Edwards casts his net wide, and the watery settings to the chosen tales range from cruise liners sailing the oceans, to river boats, canals and even ponds and swimming pools. The stories are spread over a century or so, starting in 1893 with the very first piece in the Sherlock Holmes canon (Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Gloria Scott”) and ending with “Death by Water” by Michael Innes (the pen-name of Edinburgh-born academic John Innes Mackintosh Stewart), first published in the 1975 collection “The Appleby File”.

Along the way, we meet examples of works by leading representatives of the “Golden Age” crime fiction, such as E.W. Hornung and Edmund Crispin, alongside lesser-known authors such as Kem Bennett. Crime fiction is often dismissed as being too formulaic – this selection shows that nothing can be further from the truth and that the best authors find ingenious ways of presenting, reinterpreting and in some cases subverting the expectations of the genre. The protagonists range from professional to amateur or even ‘accidental’ investigators and there’s an appearance by E.W. Hornung’s amiable rogue ‘Raffles’. There are also some excellent examples of crime sub-genres such as the ‘locked-room mystery’ (as in “Bullion”, by William Hope Hodgson, possibly better-known as the author of creepy ghost stories) and the “inverted mystery”, where the solution to the mystery is presented to the reader at the outset and the pleasure lies in discovering how the puzzle will be unravelled.

Although the style of some of featured pieces feels rather dated, there is much enjoyment to be had from these watery tales. As a bonus, Martin Edwards provides a foreword to the anthology, as well as an introduction to each story, with biographical and bibliographical details.

Deep Waters

This collection of sixteen short stories, all with a watery theme, is another excellent addition to the British Library Crime Classics series and published by Poisoned Pen Press. The original publication dates of the stories range from 1893 (Conan Doyle) to 1975 (Michael Innes). Although some have appeared in readily available collections (Conan Doyle of course, R Austin Freeman, Edmund Crispin & Michael Innes), several are rare and probably haven’t been seen since their original publication in newspapers or magazines. Martin Edwards, who edits these British Library Crime Classics, hunts down these obscure stories and gives us the opportunity to re-discover authors who have undeservedly been covered by the curtain of obscurity.

If you enjoy British detective fiction, especially stories from the Golden Age, you will not be disappointed in this book. And I hope that, like me, you then want to hunt for books by unfamiliar names. In my case, H C Bailey, Kem Bennett and Josephine Bell…

#DeepWaters
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Anthologies can be a bit hit and miss but this is one of the better ones: all of the stories are connected by water and there's a nice sampling of established and relatively well-known names from Conan Doyle to Edmund Crispin, Michael Innes, Phyllis Bentley and R. Austen Freeman. It's ideal, then, if you're drawn to vintage crime and want tasters of some of these names. With all these plus stories from obscure authors, there's plenty to entertain here - ideal commute reading.

Martin Edwards is the editor of this collection of sixteen short stories which have water as their central theme. Be it an ocean or a backyard swimming pool it's for sure each of these stories will end up with somebody getting wet. Each story leads off with Edwards providing background information for the author and their career. This is where I pick up some very interesting information that helps me feel I know the author just a little bit better. All of these stories are short and I was already familiar with the first three but it was still nice to read them again. Recommended reading for anybody who enjoys getting their feet wet with classic detective stories.

A list of authors and story titles as they appear in the book:
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'
L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace - The Eight-Mile Lock
E.W. Hornung - The Gift of the Emperor
William Hope Hodgson - Bullion!
R. Austin Freeman - The Echo of a Mutiny
Gwyn Evans - The Pool of Secrets
Christopher St John Sprigg - Four Friends and Death
C.S. Forester - The Turning of the Tide
H.C. Bailey - The Swimming Pool
Phyllis Bentley - A Question of Timing
Josephine Bell - The Thimble River Mystery
Edmund Crispin - Man Overboard
Kem Bennett - The Queer Fish
James Pattinson - The Man Who Was Drowned
Andrew Garve - Seasprite
Michael Innes - Death by Water

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press, British Library Crime Classics for an e-Galley of this book.

A stellar collection (absent a deeply ho-hum Sherlock Holmes story); was I super lost sometimes? For sure! There's some boat talk that was completely incomprehensible to me but it was few and far between, and fortunately none of the mysteries truly hinge on the reader's independent knowledge of knots and sails and barnacles. Truly, this series is a delight for Golden Age fans. A strong recommend.

"Deep Waters" is a short story collection of 16 mysteries written in the 1880s to 1950s. The mysteries were set on boats and ships, along the coast, or just involve a pool. Most of the stories had the detective as the point of view character, but some were from the villain's point of view. Most were told as they happened, but a few were the detective telling about the case after it was finished. While whodunit in most of the mysteries was either obvious or not guessable (due to lack of necessary clues until the reveal), a few of these had clues and were guessable. The enjoyment mainly came from watching a detective work through a tough mystery to solve it. There was no sex. There was some bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable mystery collection.

The included mysteries:
The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ Arthur Conan Doyle
The Eight-Mile Lock L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
The Gift of the Emperor E. W. Hornung
Bullion! William Hope Hodgson
The Echo of a Mutiny R. Austin Freeman
The Pool of Secrets Gwyn Evans
Four Friends and Death Christopher St John Sprigg
The Turning of the Tide C. S. Forester
The Swimming Pool H. C. Bailey
A Question of Timing by Phyllis Bentley
The Thimble River Mystery Josephine Bell
Man Overboard Edmund Crispin
The Queer Fish Kem Bennett
The Man Who Was Drowned James Pattinson
Seasprite Andrew Garve
Death by Water Michael Innes

A really solid collection. A good mix of known and lesser known authors -- you're bound to find a new one you'll like. Recommended for almost any mystery fan.

I really appreciate the advanced copy for review.

For a mystery-loving landlubber such as myself, these stories provide a fun glimpse into a new setting.
It starts off with a tried and true pleaser, The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Then it moves on to a fine assortment of stories all tied in some manner to water; whether it’s oceans, streams, or pools of it. Beyond that and the element of mystery, these stories vary widely. They feature police detectives, private eyes, amateur sleuths, or writers all caught up in theft, blackmail, fraud, or murder. Some of the stories have a supernatural element, such as L.T Meade’s The Eight-Mile Lock & Bullion! by William Hope Hodgson. One or two even have an element of sci-fi. Some of the stories are lighthearted and humorous; while others are dark and gruesome. I really enjoyed that variety. It was fun not knowing what the crime would be, who the detective would be, or even where it would be set.
It also introduced me to several new authors most of whose writing I really enjoyed. There was one story that I really didn’t like, and that was The Swimming Pool by H. C. Bailey. His writing style was so unusual that I had a hard time understanding it. Especially in the dialogue, it was choppy in the extreme; with fragments seeming to be the preferred style. The plot was good, but I couldn’t get past the writing style. That one also had the majority of the curse words in the book.
As side from the aforementioned story, this book is quite clean. There were only a couple of more curse words in the other stories.
I received this book as a free ARC through NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press. No favorable review was required, and it was my pleasure to provide my honest opinions.

Editor Martin Edwards has collected short stories dealing with water of all sorts: oceans, rivers, canals, even swimming pools.

Deep Waters has some real gems. I enjoyed “The Swimming Pool” by H.C. Bailey so much that I bought his Call Mr. Fortune (1920) so I could enjoy more about Reggie Fortune, a curmudgeonly medical examiner long before Quincy. Edwards includes “Man Overboard” by Edmund Crispin, author of the fabulous Gervaise Fen novels, which I love. The riveting “Four Friends and Death” comes from Christopher St. John Sprigg, who died in World War I after too brief a career. (I heartily recommend his Death of an Airman.) Michael Innes pens a short story “Death by Water” featuring his popular detective, Inspector John Appleby. C.S. Forester (yes, the Horatio Hornblower guy) contributes the ironic “The Turning of the Tide,” while some relatively unknown writers reveal their depths with some pretty good reads (“A Question of Timing” by Phyllis Bentley, “The Echo of a Mutiny” by R. Austin Freeman, and “The Man Who Was Drowned” by James Pattinson — not to be confused with James Patterson).

As with all anthologies, there are some mediocrities. The anthology also contains Sherlock Holmes’ very first case, “The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott,’” a so-so effort from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. But not a single short story was a dud, quite an accomplishment in itself.

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

Always enjoy the anthologies written by Martin Edwards. This one relates to mysteries associated with water, as with all mixed short stories, some of them are good others not so much, but as always the introduction to all stories and authors are very interesting. These are a collection of stories that encompass the period of the times they were written and the people that wrote them.