Best of the best detective stories Book

Morrison at his best can write like an angel. The Hole in the Wall is, in its mature use of craft techniques, worthy of Dickens. However, the Martin Hewitt stories are a disappointment. They are not 'detective stories' in the rigorous mode of Conan Doyle. Hewitt frequently plucks the solution out of thin air, having given the reader few if any clues to work on. (In this, he is gifted with implausible insights worthy of Father Brown.) Sometimes, Hewitt disappears for cryptic investigations which, however, he does does not share with the reader until the denouement. Too often, the plots hinge upon absurd coincidences.

But the stories do contain some nifty plot ideas that, I feel, Austin Freeman - a better detective writer - could have worked up into tours de force of 'ratiocinative' detection. The Hewitt stories make a long plane journey go faster but they should not (unlike Freeman's) be taken on a world cruise.