Book Review - Murder by the Seaside by Various Authors

Title: Murder By the Seaside (Vintage Summer Murders)
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle, Cyril Hare, John Dickson Carr, G.K. Chesterton, Anthony Berkeley, Michael Innes, R. Austin Freeman, G.D.H. & M. Cole, Edmund Crispin
Genre: Mystery/ Short Stories/ Crime
Published: 2022
 
Description: It’s the heights of summer. As the heat shimmers on the pavements and holidaymakers depart for the coast, tempers begin to rise and old grudges surface. From an impossible murder on a remote Cornish beach to a coastal honeymoon gone horribly wrong, it’s not just a holiday that’s on people’s minds… it’s murder. In ten classic stories, you’ll find mayhem and mysteries aplenty.
 
Review: “Murder by the Seaside” is a short story collection, filled with ten murder mysteries set during the summer, written by classic authors. These stories were not specifically written for this collection, because this was released in 2022.
 
While the seaside is the red thread through this collection, it’s not that present in all the stories. I don’t read classic novels often, so of all the authors that had stories in this collection, Arthur Conan Doyle was the only author I had read from before. The rest were all new to me.
 
There were a few stories I particularly liked. “Weight and See” by Cyril Hare is a story about a woman that was found dead in her house, with a blow to the head and no forced entry. I enjoyed the simplicity of this story, with the detective going over all the evidence he has in the house. “The Furies” by Michael Innes follows the death of Miss Pinhorn, a wealthy woman that wasn’t very loved by people. I felt a lot like a “Knives Out” type of story. “Error at Daybreak” by John Dickson Carr follows Bill, who is visiting his friend at his beach house and he sees him collapse. And he believes he was murdered. This story had a fun twist. But my favorite story was “Razor Edge” by Anthony Berkeley, where a woman reports her husband missing after he went swimming and didn’t return. They find a body, which is identified as his and they questions is: was his drowning accidental or was it murder? We follow the autopsy closely and it felt like an episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”. These stories really stood out. The Sherlock Holmes story, “The Boscomb Valley Mystery” by Arthur Conan Doyle, was also enjoyable. The rest of the stories were pretty forgettable, rating them from 2 to 3 stars.
 
I expected this book to be as good as it was, with some really good stories, some average ones and some I didn’t really care about. It’s easy to read, even though it’s more classic writing and slower paced, but because the stories are so short, you really fly through.
 
Rating: 3/ 5