Reviews for The mystery of the green ray

The average rating for The mystery of the green ray based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-03-25 00:00:00 Comer Allen I don't know...seemed to me like they could've gotten better stories, to put it up there with the Science Fiction Hall Of Fame; it seems like I've come across better stories. "Purloined Letter" putrid--Poe at his smug, belaboring worst. "The Monkey's Paw" of course great fun and a hardy perennial; Burke's "Mr Ottermole" an ancient artifact--although I suppose having the murderer be a cop must've been revolutionary in its time (when dinosaurs roamed the earth). "Two Bottles Of Relish"--God, there must be better Dunsany than that (though I'm as big a fan of cannibalism as the next guy). Dashiell Hammett's "Couffignal" lame--well, maybe I should just say what I liked. Liked "Red Wind" and "Rear Window"--and of course "Lamb To the Slaughter." And "Oblong Room" had a certain piquance--or is that poignance? "Don't Look Behind You" (Fredric Brown) good--although a little overdone; and the threat of murdering the reader, while a good gimmick, seemed contrived and (worse) superfluous, kind of irrelevant. Hard to believe "Specialty Of the House" came in first in votes--another victory for the Cannibal Party (of course, it is cool that it doesn't end with some "Lottery"-like struggle; subtle and Dahlishly dry). Guess I'm not really much for straight detection stories--they kinda bore me. To me that stuff's like a magician; once you find out how they do it it just seems tawdry. And they always seem sort of contrived and arbitrary--no matter how neat the wrap-up.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-25 00:00:00 Bryan Cline This distinguished book is the result of the Mystery Writers of America's early 1980s effort to collect all the Very, Very Best mystery stories in history. They took a poll of the MWA membership, asking them to list their five favorite stories and authors in the field. The result is this anthology, containing the stories most popular among the professional writers in the field. For any reader or fan mystery stories, the stories and authors are instantly familiar. In fact, as I have been reading mystery anthologies almost exclusively for the last four years. In that process, I had already read all but two of these stories in other books. And those two are also in several other anthologies; but I just hadn't gotten to those books. One of these stories, Jacques Futrelle's "The Problem of Cell 13," appears in 15 -- yes fifteen! -- other books in my collection. Thomas Burke's "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" appears in 11 of my other books. Fredric Brown's "Don't Look Behind You" is in 9 other books. Poe's "The Purloined Letter" is in 18 other books. The rest are similar, with the average being 7 or 8 other appearances each. You won't find a better book than this.