Another excellent collection from editor Martin Edwards, collecting golden age short stories from a variety of mystery writers, all of which center on books as a key part of the story. I always find new authors to add to my list after reading one of these collections!

Books within a book. That is what this is and it was quite fun to read all the crime stories had book related themes which I found rather interesting and fun.

This is a book you can read, put down when one story is finished and then return at another time to start the next book/story. I quite enjoyed them all as they were all different and they all had a story to tell. It is a lot of fun reading collections like this and I really enjoyed it.

A good collection which contains nothing I've previously read, but the connecting thread is barely passable. | I was very pleased to read this, as it's a stronger collection than many mystery short story sets, and because somehow I had never read any of them before. The reference to bibliomysteries in the introduction felt like a cheap advertisement for Penzler's book, and since the bookish aspects of several of these stories are subtle at best, it felt a bit of a cheat to claim they were connected by it. Frankly, though, I'm not concerned about that aspect. I wanted to read some good classic mystery short stories, and that's what I got. That I only recalled the literary conceit of the structure when I had finished and came to rate the book is unimportant to me.
I appreciate the content notices; I know some people will jeer at them, but it's better to know before going in that there's going to be casual racism or ableism or antisemitism in a text. It allows the reader to decide if they're up for dealing with it or want to read the story at a different time.
Thanks to the publisher via NetGalley for providing me with an ARC free of charge. This did not in any way impact the content of my review or rating.

A fun collection of book-centered mysteries wherein books, booksellers, book enthusiasts, and writers all play interesting parts. Perhaps because writers like writing about their craft there's hardly a stinker in the bunch - a solid 95% are As and the other are probably Bs just by comparison (although I'd give "We Know You're Busy Writing" a fairly low grade as it just grated immensely). Christianna Brand's "Dear Mr. Editor..." is amazingly modern and striking for its sort of "off" tone - it's as if Ms. Brand got a writing prompt from Shirley Jackson and went ham. The gem, for me, of this anthology is Marjorie Bremner's "Murder in Advance." I'll be pursuing her (only two!) mystery novels as her writing is fresh and cinematic and her mystery plays fair with the reader. All in all a strong recommend.

Martin Edwards is a master anthologist and MURDER BY THE BOOK is a tantalizing array of biblio-mysteries. Perfect to dip into!

Many thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for the opportunity and pleasure of an early read.

A collection of classic crime short stories connected in someway to books - each story is written by by a different author. I enjoyed the biographical notes on the authors that introduced each story.
Thanks to Netgalley for a copy.

This collection of stories is tied together by books… there are crime novelists, collectors, and so forth, or sometimes it’s a case of some important information hiding within the pages of a book. The stories are mostly very compelling, and are by a mix of authors of varying degrees of renown. What I didn’t enjoy were the multiple stories told through the eyes of murderers and would-be murderers. Too hard-boiled for me. Depending on what kind of crime fiction you can handle, your mileage may vary. Some of the stories were more traditional detective tales, and those were pretty good.

How does editor Martin Edwards do it? I have lost count of how many anthologies of mostly British, mostly Golden Age writers Edwards, a lawyer and a mystery writer in his own right, has compiled, and, yet, this anthology of book-related short stories does not have A SINGLE BAD ENTRY.. Not one!

Favorites? It’s hard to have them with so many contenders, but I think they’d be Philip MacDonald’s “Malice Domestic,” Christianna Brand’s “Dear Mr. Editor…,” A.A. Milne’s (yes, THAT A.A. Milne) “A Savage Game,” Edmund Crispin’s “We Know You’re Busy Writing,” and Victor Canning’s “A Question of Character.” The only short stories that weren’t excellent were S.C. Roberts’ “The Strange Case of the Megatherium Thefts” by S.C. Roberts and John Creasey’s “The Book of Honour,” which were still good enough.

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

A very fun and well written mystery. I would recommend to anyone who like cozy mysteries. A series of short stories that will keep you entertained.
#MurderbytheBook#NetGalley

I really enjoyed this cozy mystery. My first book by this author and really enjoyed it. There are other books in the series and can't wait to read them!

An excellent and engaging murder mystery book. All of the stories were so entertaining to read! I recommend thus book to anyone who reads and likes murder mysteries

Another amazing anthology by Martin Edwards. And this one is about my favorite topic...books. And bookstores. And writers Such a wonderful collection with wit, humor, mystery, thrills and different era. Highly recommend and looking forward to Martins next collection! Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy for review.

Outstanding…
Another perfect compilation with a nigh on perfect theme - mysteries for bibliophiles. What could possibly better than that! Packed with mysteries of the bookish variety from some of the greats of the Golden Age of Crime and with the talented Martin Edwards as guide it’s impossible to put a foot wrong. Just outstanding.

Another wonderful anthology by Martin Edwards, I love these books, as not only do the have a theme (such as this one library/books) but they introduce some author that I have not previously read. The stories are always fresh and well collected. A real pleasure to read.

This collection of short stories is, overall, delightful. Some of the stories are a bit underwhelming, but there are enough winners to make it worthwhile for any mystery lover.

Another anthology from the British Library Crime Classics series, this one with books/authors as it's theme.

I really enjoyed these ones, and unlike most anthologies, there weren't any I felt were particularly weak, though naturally some were better than others. I really liked the A.A. Milne story, so much so, I'm now reading The Red House Mystery, which I'd been meaning to get to for ages. One I'll be dipping into from time to time.

Another wonderful collection of short stories from the British Library Crime Classics, this time centered on “bibliomysteries” - basically any mystery that involves books, writers, publishers and so on.

Obviously, I loved the theme of this one. I almost can’t believe it took this long for a collection with this theme to be released, it’s such a perfect addition to this series. The selection was enjoyable, although personally, the stories didn’t leave as much of a lasting impression on me as the ones from the last collection I read (Guilty Creatures). There weren’t any I really disliked, but also not so many that I felt strongly invested in. So overall, kind of middle-of-the-road for me.

Martin Edwards’s introductions for each story are as insightful as ever, though. I love the context he provides for each story, and he’s good at getting to the point with useful information. I also appreciated that the publisher made a point to acknowledge the outdated language and attitudes that appeared in a few of these stories. It’s inevitable when reading works from these time periods that you’ll run into a bit of that, but I’m glad it was not glossed over.

All that said, here are my favorites from the collection!

--Grey’s Ghost by Michael Innes - I liked that this one involved not only writers but also a bit of word play.

--Dear Mr. Editor… by Christianna Brand - Written in the form of a letter to the editor, this one was unnerving but clever.

--A Question of Character by Victor Canning - A writer, jealous of his wife’s publishing success, plans her murder with unexpected results. Very well-paced and well-written.

--We Know You’re Busy Writing by Edmund Crispin - A work-from-home writer finally reaches his limit with unwanted house guests. Loved the dark comedy in this one.

My sincere thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for granting me access to this eARC in return for my honest review.

The first thing that struck me about this book is that the introduction to the book, and then the introductions to each story, are a valuable resource since they list so many other books to look for! Other books by the authors whose stories appear, previous anthologies that the stories were in; I've collected a long list of books to look for. There's also information about other books in the British Library Crime Classics series, and individual novels being reissued by Poisoned Pen Press. My reading list runneth over!

Some of the stories I particularly enjoyed:
-A Sherlock Holmes adventure by S.C. Roberts, involving stolen signed first editions - and within the story, a mention of some books on a professor's bookshelf, including one of my favorites, Three Men In A Boat.
-Dear Mr. Editor.... by Christianna Brand, possibly my favorite, involving a letter requesting a contribution to an anthology - amusing but chilling!
-We Know You're Busy Writing, But We Thought You Wouldn't Mind If We Just Dropped in for a Minute, by Edmund Crispin (whom I did not previously know was also the film score composer Bruce Montgomery!) Any story with a title like that is going to be good, and I wasn't disappointed.
-A Roderick Alleyn story by Ngaio Marsh, where, as is often the case, one is watching for the dry snark from Fox and is not disappointed.

For me, as an American, there are some things to consider in reading these stories: I'm not always familiar with British slang/idioms/colloquialisms, especially not those of 50 or even 90 years ago. (The original publication dates of the stories range from 1933 to 1973.) There's also a question of things that a British person would instantly recognize about social class and status, that I don't - if a story refers to someone living in a particular place, that alone tells a British reader something about what to expect, where it doesn't convey that same information to me. It doesn't make the stories less enjoyable, but it does make reading them a little harder work as I figure these things out from context or through internet research. On the other hand, there is one story in here that to a British reader in 1952 might have been a genuine puzzle, but any literate American of the period would instantly see as obvious.

A couple of stories reflect attitudes of their times in ways that we would not consider acceptable from a modern author; as one might expect from stories that are 50 to 90 years old. I did not find any of them to be unreadable, but it's only fair to mention it so that readers who weren't around in 1973, let alone 1933, won't be too shocked. The introductions to stories do give fair warning of such content.

All in all, a nice anthology to browse through, and to enlarge one's Mount To-Be-Read with. Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with the eARC of this book; their digital platform made both reading and reviewing easy.

I received this ARC via Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press, in return for an honest review. This is a Golden Age mystery short-story compilation, set in or around books. The sixteen stories also include brief biographies of the authors. Many are still well-known, like Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn, but some have fallen away from the reading public’s awareness. For mystery & short story lover’s, this is a fascinating look at the evolution of the mystery in its heyday.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Poisoned Pen Press and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Save this one to read again. Murder, mystery, thrills, suspense.