mike_brough's review
4.0
A good collection of Christmas-related mysteries, mostly of the old school although the Rankin and McDermid stories are from the present-day. I'd read a couple of these before in The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries but they were no worse for the re-visiting.
The pick of the, for Christmas spirit at least, are Ian Rankin's Rebus short story and Chesterton's Father Brown, although Block's Nero Wolfe pastiche is entertaining too.
Well worth a read, especially if you like Christmas to be a little darker than most do.
The pick of the, for Christmas spirit at least, are Ian Rankin's Rebus short story and Chesterton's Father Brown, although Block's Nero Wolfe pastiche is entertaining too.
Well worth a read, especially if you like Christmas to be a little darker than most do.
1mpossiblealice's review
3.0
As with most short story collections, this was a mixed bag. Two of them, the Val McDermid and Margery Allingham, I'd read in other collections and enjoyed. A couple of them were a bit rubbish. Several were good. I think my favourite was The Four Seasons by Michael Innes which has no murder or crime at all, I just really enjoyed it.
I think the British Library Crime Classics collections are better because for each story/author there's a short introduction about the story and the writer, which helps with context when many of the stories are older. But I've read several of these ones too, and there are always a few very good stories in each one.
I think the British Library Crime Classics collections are better because for each story/author there's a short introduction about the story and the writer, which helps with context when many of the stories are older. But I've read several of these ones too, and there are always a few very good stories in each one.
niamhsewell's review
4.5
🕰 The Trinity Cat by Ellis Peters - 5 stars
🕰 The Santa Claus Club by Julian Symons - 5 stars
🕰 The Four Seasons by Michael Innes - 3 stars
🕰 No Sanity Claus by Ian Rankin - 4 stars
🕰 The Footprint in the Sky by John Dickson Carr - 4 stars
🕰 A Wife in a Million by Val McDermid - 5 stars
🕰 The Dagger with Wings by G. K. Chesterton - 2 stars
🕰 Cambric Tea by Marjorie Bowen - 5 stars
🕰 As Dark as Christmas Gets by Lawrence Block - 4 stars
🕰 On Christmas Day in the Morning by Margery Allingham - 3 stars
rabspur's review against another edition
3.0
Enjoyable read a compilation of murder stories on Christmas Eve, would recommend to anyone interested in these type of stories.
lau_evs's review against another edition
3.0
This is a collection of 10 crime mysteries, from various authors, set at Christmas time. There are some really interesting short stories in this book. My favourites were The Trinity Cat, The Santa Claus Club and A Wife in a Million. As with other collections this one ended up being a really quick read. As each story is between 10 and 20 pages, so it’s easy to read one on the morning commute. Which I like. There’s something poetic about starting and completing a story during the same train journey.
kez91's review against another edition
3.0
3.5* This is a great collection of classic Christmas stories- I especially liked The Trinity Cat, A Wife in a Million, and As Dark as Christmas Gets, though all of the stories were enjoyable and worked well as short stories. Some of the authors I will be looking up as I liked their writing style and would be interesting in reading more from them.
jesikasbookshelf's review
2.0
This wasn't particularly festive - the stories just all have a forced Christmas setting. There were also only 2-3 good shorts in this collection that had me want to keep reading. Really only 1 that I think was great. Bit of a no from me.