I"m not typically a short story reader, but this was a very enjoyable and varied mixture of styles and writers. Great for mystery readers in the holiday season.

Most Christmas-themed books are romance, which isn’t a genre I read much of, so I was looking forward to this classic collection of crime-themed Christmas stories.

I wasn’t wowed.

For many of these stories, the Christmas theme is a stretch, and the crimes aren’t all that interesting. I wound up skimming and skipping a lot.

A few stood out and were enjoyable, but not enough for me to recommend this collection.

This is a superb collection of short stories all set at Christmastime. There is a good mix across the twelve tales and the book includes work by Margery Allingham, G.K. Chesterton, and Julian Symons. Quite a few of the authors were new to me so this was a good introduction to their writing. My favourite story was "The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep" by Catherine Louisa Pirkis, and I also really enjoyed "Dead Man's Hand" by E.R. Punshon. Mystery and short story enthusiasts will treasure this.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

Another enjoyable collection of vintage mystery stories related in some way to the Christmas season. Once again curated by Martin Edwards. Of the 12 stories, I rated 8 at 4, 4.5 or 5, and none lower than 3 so this was a successful and enjoyable read. Among my favorites: “The Turn-Again Bell,” not a mystery per se but an atmospheric story set in in a small village with a Norman church whose rector is awaiting his son’s return home for the holidays; “Give Me a Ring,” a complex crime story involving innocent people; “Death on the Air,” the death of a person no one likes; and “The Black Bag Left on a Doorstop,” which particularly appealed to me for its female detective in a story written in the 19th century.

Recommended to readers of Golden Age mysteries.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Can anything get me into the Christmas spirit faster than a murder and mystery story set around the holidays? Yes! Well, how about numerous classic crime stories written by a bunch of authors that were unfamiliar to me. A Surprise For Christmas has twelve short tales that have been published by the British Library. In Martin Edward's introduction, he talks about the history behind this anthology(it is the fourth one), and before each story, he gives some background information about each author.
It is fairly uncommon for me to love every story in this type of book, and the first one, The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep didn't pique my interest. I tend to read short stories, one at a time between other reads, kind of like a palate cleanser between longer books. I am really glad that I picked this one up again because some of the other stories were good. I hadn't read anything by these authors, and now I have a list of names I want to check out.
A few of my favorites were: The Christmas Eve Ghost by Ernest Dudley, The Turn-Again Bell by Barry Perowne, and A Surprise For Christmas by Cyril Hare. An interesting mix of authors I might otherwise have missed. Also, a nice way to escape for a little while before all the holiday madness begins.

This was fun and the closed room mystery set in the Restoration period was probably one of the best closed room mysteries I read in a while. Naturally, as with all collection, you never like all the stories, but this collection was better than most. A good seasonal read.

I love the British Library Crime Classics and have read one of their festive offering during the season for the last few years. This contained a great collection of stories and I really like the range of well known vs obscure authors and long vs short lengths. The title story, A Surprise For Christmas, was particularly enjoyable. This was perfect reading during lunch breaks for a couple weeks!

A collection of short stories, a Christmas theme, all of varying lengths, a bit of mystery and a a bit of fun reading them. as with most books of short stories some are good and some are average and this book was as would be expected.

I enjoyed most of the stories although a few (especially at the beginning) were a bit hit and miss for me as they juts didn't grab my attention. I was a bit disappointed that the Christmas theme wasn't more prevalent in these stories as I had expected them to be.

All in all a good read as with short stories you can read one and put the book down without forgetting what had already happened.

Liked these stories but didn't love the book.

12 short stories set on or around the Christmas holiday season by well known authors that will set your neck hairs on edge and have you jumping at that creaky stair. An excellent anthology, stories short enough to read in one sitting or while waiting at the doctor's office but so well written, you'll fall into them and not hear when they call your name. There are no duds in this book. Each is written with skill and sets an atmosphere that does not usually come to mind when thinking of Christmas. A great gift to yourself or the favorite reader on your list. Read, enjoy, share....

A Surprise For Christmas is a collection of Christmas, classic mystery short stories from British Library Crime Classics. With the pretty cover, the stories inside are a great way to start the holiday season.

There were stories from authors I have read before and others new to me that I want to check out further works of. Each story has a brief introduction to the author. The stories vary in length, style, and tone. A couple of the stories could be described as crime/suspense.

There is a story by Ngaio Marsh that feels so complete and A Surprise For Christmas by Cyril Hare is short but wickedly sweet. My only complaint is that not all of the stories had much of a Christmas feel but Martin Edwards explains in the introduction that this is the fourth anthology for British Library Crime Classics so there probably aren't many left.

I really liked getting to read some authors again and I have some new ones to add to my list. Thank you so much to Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read!

A Surprise For Christmas is a delightful collection of mysteries from classic authors, some of whom I'd never heard of before. The collection is like a mixed box of chocolates; some were old favorites, some had flavors that you need to savor, some you just wanted to have a whole book of.

I wish I'd had a crackling fire and a warm cup of cocoa to read along with.

4.0/5 stars

I do enjoy short-form mystery stories from Golden Age writers, but this collection is not well-balanced. There are some great stories and some duds. Martin Edwards is usually a skillful editor, but putting the tedious Give Me a Ring smack in the middle of this collection just about did me in.

Even so, most of the other stories are successful and intriguing additions to the collection. I was delighted to reacquaint myself with Loveday Brooke and Roderick Alleyn among others. Given the nature of short story collections, it’s easy to skim or skip the ones that fall flat, so I’d still recommend this to readers looking for a low-commitment few hours of reading.

In my teens and twenties, my mother and I often shared books. After she had read them, she would pass along the paperback mysteries that she had found used somewhere. I know there were many of them (and I actually have a list of all of them) but the ones I most remember were Christmas mysteries. We used to joke that “Nothing says Christmas like a good old-fashioned murder!”.
Mysteries that come in short story form often do not feature a murder. It is also, in such a succinct format, difficult to lay down clues in the way needed for the reader to have a puzzle to solve, so the stories often end up being more of what I call a “gotcha” than an actual puzzle.
A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards, is the fourth Christmas anthology that Edwards has edited for The British Library Crime Classics Series. I have read two of these (missing, somehow the first, Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, an oversight I hope to rectify this Christmas season) and found this latest addition to be on par with the previous releases. I highly enjoyed many of the stories and appreciated Edwards’s brief bio/introduction for each story and its author, which will be especially helpful for those authors whose other work I plan to seek out later. I particularly enjoyed the Ngaio Marsh story “Death on the Air” and hope very much that other readers who have not had the joy of reading Marsh previously will take the time to seek her out. Her books are not hard to find these days, electronically at least, and are well worth the effort. Also delightful was the Cyril Hare story “A Surprise for Christmas”. Hare is an author I have recently discovered and I was greatly pleased to find his work featured.
Of the authors whose work I had not previously read, I greatly enjoyed “The Dead Man’s Hand” by ER Punshon. Although not a puzzle, really, it was a delicious spooky story in the old-fashioned tradition of Christmas ghost stories.
All in all, this was an entertaining collection, well worth reading this holiday season. Readers who are interested in golden age detective fiction will likely be familiar with some, if not many, of the featured authors, but the individual stories will likely be new. For those to whom the phrase “golden age detective fiction” means nothing, a wonderful treasure trove awaits.

EXCERPT: 'After all,' said our host, 'it's Christmas. Why not let the skeleton out of the bag?'

'Or the cat out of the closet?' said the historian, who likes to be precise even about clichés. 'Are you serious?'

'Yes,' said our host. 'I want to know if it's safe for anyone to sleep in that little room at the head of the stairs.'

He had just bought the place. This party was in the nature of a house warming; and I had already decided privately that the place needed one. It was a long damp, high-windowed house, hidden behind a high hill in Sussex. The drawing-room, where a group of us had gathered around the fire after dinner, was much too long and much too draughty. It had fine panelling - a rich brown where the firelight was always finding new gleams - and a hundred little reflections trembled down it's length, as in so many small gloomy mirrors. But it remained draughty.

Of course, we all liked the house. It had the most modern of lighting and heating arrangements, though the plumbing sent ghostly noises and clanks far down into the interior whenever you turned on a tap. But the smell of the past was in it; and you could not get over the idea that somebody was following you about. Now, at the host's flat mention of a certain possibility, we all looked at our wives.

'But you never told us,' said the historian's wife, rather shocked, 'you never told us you had a ghost here!'

'I don't know that I have,' replied our host quite seriously. 'All I have is a bundle of evidence about something queer that once happened. It's all right; I haven't put anyone in that little room at the head of the stairs. So we can drop the discussion, if you'd rather.'

'You know we can't,' said the Inspector: who, as a matter of strict fact, is an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He smoked a large cigar, and contemplated ghosts with satisfaction. 'This is exactly the time and place to hear about it. What is it?' - Taken from Persons or Things Unknown by Carter Dickson.

ABOUT 'A SURPRISE FOR CHRISTMAS': Two dead bodies and a Christmas stocking weaponised. A Postman murdered delivering cards on Christmas morning. A Christmas tree growing over a forgotten homicide. It's the most wonderful time of the year, except for the victims of these shocking and often elaborate murders. When there's magic in the air, sometimes even the facts don't quite add up and the impossible can happen -- and it's up to the detective's trained eye to unwrap the clues and put together an explanation neatly tied up with a bow. Martin Edwards compiles an anthology filled with tales of seasonal suspense where the snow runs red, perfect to be shared between super-sleuths by the fire on a cold winter's night.

MY THOUGHTS: This is one of the better collections of short stories that I have read in some time. All are set at Christmas, although Santa only features in one story.

The stories range from extremely short and pithy, to very long and rambling.

I was not particularly impressed by the first two stories, but once I got past them, there were several in a row that I absolutely adored. Overall this is an excellent collection. I have read stories by some of the authors before, other authors were new to me, as were all the stories.

Below is my rating for each story:

1. The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep by Catherine Louisa Pirkis ⭐⭐⭐

2. The Hole in the Wall by G.K. Chesterton ⭐⭐.5

3. Death on the Air by Ngaio Marsh ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

4. Persons or Things Unknown by Carter Dickson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

5. Dead Man's Hand by E.R. Punshon ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

6. The Christmas Eve Ghost by Ernest Dudley ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

7. Dick Whittington's Cat by Victor Canning ⭐⭐⭐⭐

8. A Surprise for Christmas by Cyril Hare ⭐⭐⭐⭐

9. On A Christmas Day in the Morning by Margery Allingham ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

10. Give Me A Ring by Anthony Gilbert ⭐⭐⭐

11. Father Christmas Comes to Orbins by Julian Symons ⭐⭐⭐.5

12. The Turn-Again Bell by Barry Perowne ⭐⭐⭐⭐

My absolute favourite was the Ngaio Marsh story featuring Inspector Roderick Allyen, followed by the Margery Allingham story, On Christmas Day in the Morning.

If you are looking for a Christmas treat to dip into over the festive season, this is it, or it would make a wonderful gift for the mystery lover in your life.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.1

#ASurpriseforChristmasandOtherSeasonalMysteries #NetGalley

I: @medwardsbooks @poisonedpenpress

T: @medwardsbooks @PPPress

#christmasfiction #cosymystery #crime #detectivefiction #historicalfiction #murdermystery #mystery #shortstories

THE AUTHOR: Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won awards in the UK and the United States. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Mysteries compiled by Martin Edwards for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Sipping my tea and reading a medley of Christmas mysteries edited and introduced by the fabulous Martin Edwards.
This short story collection includes works by the great mystery authors of the golden age of British crime fiction stretching from Margery Allingham to Ngaio Marsh and Cyril Hare. These seasonal short stories are just the right length to read while drinking a tea or coffee, and they are classics I love comparing the style of a classic short story to the modern style we see published today - what sells today what sold in last centuries 20s and what makes something a classic as opposed to just old - anyhow I am loving my British classics and the atmosphere they evoke with my cup of British Winter Spiced Orange Clipper Tea
- newly published in the US this Tuesday October 12th.

Thank you to @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review !

This was such a delightful collection of short stories - in the mystery/detective genre but going back a few
decades so the pace was slower, more quiet deduction and plodding rather than hi tech solutions. It also showed
in a number of cases the cleverness of the detectives who spotted human errors and were thus able very quickly,
very smoothly to solve the crime.

All the stories set during Christmas, it brought a small degree of Christmas spirit to me personally. What with a
extended lockdown, curfews, horrendous number of Covid cases and deaths, the inability to get to a church has
left many of us feeling slightly isolated and as time went on depressed. I could not wrap my head around the fact
that Christmas seems around the corner.

This book of stories took me out of it for a bit, made me relive Christmas's past. The stories were all very well
written, with central characters and slick side characters, also very descriptive of settings as well.

Would be enjoyed by those readers who like a slightly older vintage of the mystery genre.

Another delightful collection of Christmas and other wintery mysteries. After all, who hasn’t been driven almost to murder or theft to get that desired present during this season. A nice mixture of well-known mystery writers and others not so well known. Perfect for the season because you may not have the time to read a whole book, but shorter stories fit in nicely for when you want to get away (or indulge in some murderous fantasies) but you don’t have a lot of time.

Enjoy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in return for an honest review.

A Medley Of Mysteries….
A medley of Christmas mysteries edited and introduced by the inimitable Martin Edwards. Some nice surprises await between these pages, including some top notch tales and with the cherry on the cake being a tale from Cyril Hare. These books have now become firm tradition, eagerly awaited. .As ever, a joy.

A collection of twelve vintage crime stories all with a Christmas theme. The stories are a varied mix of style and pace. My favourites would possible be Persons or Things Unknown - Carter Dickson (1938) where the homeowner tells a tale set in 1660 and the mystery of a murder in a locked room, and The Christmas Eve Ghost - Ernest Dudley (1948) - The Hotel has a ghost but who is it.
Overall an enjoyable collection of well-written stories.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Some absolute genius thought of reissuing forgotten mysteries under the imprint of the British Library Crime Classics. Some of these are novels, others, like this book, anthologies of short stories. They are all edited by the mystery writer Martin Edwards, who pens an introduction to each volume.

What a pleasure these books are, and this one is no different. Because it is an anthology, and a seasonal one at that, some of the short stories will appeal to individual readers more than others. I especially liked the stories by Ngaio Marsh, Cyril Hare, and Margery Allingham.

I am so glad that these stories have been brought back for contemporary readers to enjoy. I am always curious about what will be unearthed next!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.