Crime stories Book

Do you remember the old "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" where Clive Anderson would get film & theatre styles from the audience and then have his panel act out a scene, but he would keep buzzing and changing the style? The resulting sketch could be funny, but often the storyline established in the first segment would be completely obliterated by the time the players reached the end. That was the closest analogue I could come up with for what it feels like to read these two Detective Club member-penned pieces.

Both stories start out fairly strong, to the extent that I vaguely wished that John Dickson Carr had completed "Crime on the Coast" itself, or that Dorothy L. Sayers had continued to write "No Flowers By Request." Both of those pieces were entertaining, and entirely in keeping with the normal authorial voice that I expect from Carr and Sayers' works. But within short order (specifically, two short chapters), each tale fell apart, with the jarring transition from voice to voice and emphasis to new and different emphasis. Even Gladys Mitchell, whose style I otherwise quite like, seemed almost featureless in her contribution to "Flowers". Indeed, "Crime" at least holds it together to reach some kind of ending, even if it's miles away from what Carr might have done. "Flowers" doesn't even really do that.

So as an historical curio for fans of any of these authors in particular, you might actively seek this book out to read. Otherwise? Unless you just have an hour to kill and a 120-page quota to make, you could safely give this volume a miss.