Continuing with short story reading for February. There is a break when a preordered fantasy novel, The Age of Death by Michael J. Sullivan arrived and I immediately started reading it. Back to stories next week. So far…
From Deep Waters, Mysteries on the Waves, edited by Martin Edwards, British Library Crime Classics:
The Echo of A Mutiny- RA Freeman (1912): Inverted tale of a murder with its roots in past misdeeds.
Rather dull.
The Pool of Secrets- Gwyn Evans (1935): Fun story, with a robot and an innovative murder method, by a prolific and bohemian writer, featuring the mysterious detective, Quentin Ellery Drex.
Four Friends and Death- C StJ Sprigg (1935): Amusing and clever take on classic detection by three amateurs faced with a poisoning.
The Turning of the Tide- CS Forester (1936): Atmospheric inverted story of a well-planned murder…
The Swimming Pool- HC Bailey (1936): Reggie Fortune investigates a disappearance and murders in a tale with twist which was longer than necessary.
From Lost Lore: A Fantasy Anthology edited by Mark Lawrence. New (2017) original stories. Terrible Ten Press, Kindle Edition.
How is your short story reading for the month coming along?
Tip the Wink 
Looked at Lost Lore. Seems to be pretty much unknown authors which doesn’t bode well. As far as short stories I just reread The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford. Ford is probably in my top five active short story writers.
The idea of these anthology is to introduce the work of newish authors. Read a story, if you like it, then go to their other work (usually a novel). I liked the first in the book enough to buy the ebook of the first novel. None others so far.
Good. By coincidence I just read the Sprigg story yesterday – I am reading the shorter ones in the anthology first – and then bought the Kindle edition of his CRIME IN KENSINGTON (the second of his I have bought) as it was only $1.99 and the library doesn’t have it.
In DEEP WATERS:
A. Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’ (“first” Sherlock Holmes story as told by him to Watson; I hadn’t reread this one in years)
William Hope Hodgson, Bullion! (I am more familiar with his horror tales of Carnacki, the Ghost Finder)
C. St. John Sprigg, Four Friends and Death
O. Henry, continued:
The Defeat of the City
The Shocks of Doom
The Plutonium Fire
Nemesis and the Candy Man
Squaring the Circle
Roses, Ruses and Romance
The City of Dreadful Night (I like it when he references someone I don’t know other than a name, which I can then look up and learn something about, like Hetty Green)
Clayton Rawson, The Great Merlini:
The World’s Smallest Locked Room
From Another World
Off the Face of the Earth
Nothing is Impossible (I finished the book with these, the four longest stories; fun stuff)
I’ve just today started back on The Thinking Machine stories. The book is Very thick, with 50 stories/novelettes, so it will be awhile. Yes, it does sound like you’re having fun. You are a true short story aficionado. I read them throughout the year, but this is the month I really concentrate on them.
I also started to read a book on Tesla, but the author is a well-known naysayer, and I gave it up. Back to short stories!
I am almost done with all the stories in Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. Will do a post later this week on that one. Slower reading week for me.
I need to try another short story collection edited by Martin Edwards. I have only read one, which had a Christmas theme.
There are several, I believe, beside this one.
We have workmen in our house this week removing our old kitchen countertop. The Measuring Guy just left with his computer and laser. Very precise measurements! We have a new super-duper DELTA kitchen faucet that will be installed after the new Quartz countertop is installed, perhaps Thursday. So all of this activity is cutting into my Reading Time. I do have a stack of short story collections to read as soon as I have a chance.
How exciting, for Diane, and maybe you, too. Hope you have a table to set things on during the no counters time! I’m assuming there will be pictures on your blog. Short stories are the perfect reading for disruptive times like that.
Finished THE MYSTERY BOOK and started Frank Owen’s 1947 anthology FIRESIDE MYSTERY BOOK with twenty short stories mainly from the pulps. I’m also continuing to read early SF magazines from the 50s — this week it was six F&SFs from 1953. I’m still going through John Creasey’s Roger West novels; this week it was MURDER, LONDON–MIAMI.
Coming up is another doorstop anthology, Horace Walpole’s A SECOND CENTURY OF CREEPY STORIES (1937; 27 stories and 1023 pages — phew!).
The Fireside is really old. The Second Century is WAY too long.
“The Fireside is really old.” ??? Ptah! It’s younger than I am, Rick!
Well, me too, by a couple of years… but still
I gave up on Lost Lore, too many substandard stories.
Helllo mate nice blog