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A review by lokster71
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes by William Hope Hodgson, L.T. Meade, Clifford Ashdown, William Le Queux, Hugh Greene, Ernest Bramah, Arthur Morrison, Max Pemberton, Baroness Orczy, Guy Newell Boothby
3.0
This is an interesting selection of stories written during what I'm going to call the fin de siecle featuring Detectives of various types: from the blatant Sherlock Holmes rip-off, through the corrupt, the occult, the blind and even - shock, horror - the female.
It's a mixed bag in terms of quality for me. Some of the stories are shruggable nonsense but there's a few - The Horse of the Invisible featuring the occult investigator Carnacki springs to mind - that are genuinely fascinating. Written by William Hope Hodgson this was strange enough and well-written enough to encourage me to get 'Carnacki: The Ghost Finder' for my Kindle (as it is free being out of copyright.)
And it was interesting to discover that Baroness Orczy, who I only knew as the author of the Scarlett Pimpernel, also does a fine line in detective stories. Her stories I think are the best written, although I saw the solution to 'The Woman in the Big Hat' coming from quite a distance.
I also particularly enjoyed 'The Duchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds' by Guy Boothby and 'The Affair of the Avalanche Bicycle and Tire Co. Ltd.' by Arthur Morrison about which I won't go into detail because it would spoil by of them.
The introduction by Hugh Greene, who edited the collection, is also worth a read as it outlines a little about the writer's whose stories are included in the collection (about some of whom little is known indeed.)
It's a mixed bag in terms of quality for me. Some of the stories are shruggable nonsense but there's a few - The Horse of the Invisible featuring the occult investigator Carnacki springs to mind - that are genuinely fascinating. Written by William Hope Hodgson this was strange enough and well-written enough to encourage me to get 'Carnacki: The Ghost Finder' for my Kindle (as it is free being out of copyright.)
And it was interesting to discover that Baroness Orczy, who I only knew as the author of the Scarlett Pimpernel, also does a fine line in detective stories. Her stories I think are the best written, although I saw the solution to 'The Woman in the Big Hat' coming from quite a distance.
I also particularly enjoyed 'The Duchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds' by Guy Boothby and 'The Affair of the Avalanche Bicycle and Tire Co. Ltd.' by Arthur Morrison about which I won't go into detail because it would spoil by of them.
The introduction by Hugh Greene, who edited the collection, is also worth a read as it outlines a little about the writer's whose stories are included in the collection (about some of whom little is known indeed.)