English Country House Murders: Classic Crime Fiction of Britain's Upper Crust

This collection gets 5 stars, but only because it would be churlish to award less to a book of 22 stories at such a giveaway price.As an example of the anthologer's art it rates only 2 stars, or 3 stars at most. Which is kind of strange, given that that when he compiled this collection (and at least 2 others) Godfrey was listed as:"... former editor-in-chief of *Mystery* magazine and a regular columnist for *The Armchair Detective*."Despite these apparently substantial credentials (I've actually never heard of either of these magazines, but then I don't read many magazines), Mr Godfrey's selection of tidbits from the vast canon of English (note "English") Country House Murders is truly eccentric.In the first place, his introduction goes at great length into the necessary qualifications for "the English Country House Mystery" - rather than *murders*. If he'd stopped right there I'd have been beating the drum on his behalf. But he doesn't. On the contrary, he seems to fancy himself as the new Haycraft, because he starts in on a list of 14 qualities needed to justify a story as belonging in this category. The fourteenth quality, by the way, (how to identify "a proper English Country House") is subdivided into no less than a further 11 conditions!Wow, this guy must really know his stuff. Right? Actually, that seems to be in some doubt.The very first point Mr Godfrey makes is that "Authentic English Country House Mysteries are written by authentic English writers. Americans, even Canadians, may study the form and give it a go, but they invariably give themselves away as pretenders to the tradition."Well - it's 'Godfrey's rule' - so why on earth does he insist on breaking it? There's a story by Baroness Orczy (Hungarian), one by Dame Ngaio Marsh (New Zealander), and one by John Dickson Carr (born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania!). To be honest the first two don't accord with Godfrey's rule anyway, but Dickson Carr's story could just as easily be set in Palm Springs, California and all you'd have to do would be change the place names to give it the note of authenticity. It's a great story, but typical English Country House it is NOT.There are several other criticisms - some stories don't feature murders, some don't take place in a English Country House - as defined by Godfrey's rules - but my main beef is that all of these criticisms could have been easily avoided by a more judicious selection of stories.For example, why do we get nearly 70 pages of a tedious Wilkie Collins story (no murder and precious little country house) - yet not a whiff of Ernest Bramah's blind detective, Max Carrados, nor H.C. Bailey's Mr Fortune? Why Gideon Fell, but no hint of Edgar Wallace's epitome of understated Englishness - Mr J.G. Reeder? Why the hysteria-ridden offering from Ethel Lina White (with little or no hint of the brilliance of her full-length works) but not a glimpse of a true 'gem' such as an item featuring Max Pemberton's Bernard Sutton (jeweller) as featured

I had already read a few of these stories, but I made many new discoveries of authors to add to my reading list. I liked the way this collection was defined and arranged so that it was at once entertaining and informative. I feel like I learned a good deal about the genre's development in the process.

* Perfidious Albion: One of the expressions Napoleon used when referring to England. Loosely translated it means "Treacherous England.This is an anthology of twenty-two English Country House Mysteries. Godfrey begins his book by defining what constitutes an English Country House Mystery. There are rules for everything, you know! He then proceeds to entertain us with the twenty-two selected examples which are, if not the cream of the crop, right up there with the best of them.As for his rules, some of them are delightful. To wit:An English Country House Mystery must take place in an English Country House.To be self respecting, an English Country House Mystery must include a crime.The nature of the crime must be puzzling. The identity of the perpetrator must be kept unknown for a long time.The deduction of the identity must involve genuine reasoning ability.These are but a few of the rules that Godfrey sets forth. These mysteries, to qualify, must truly be British, preferably upper class British.Having defined the rules of the genre, he goes on to the works of several of the pioneers in the field and of some next generation disciples. It seems that many of Agatha Christie's stories and novels meet the requirements. In this book, we are treated to her "The Shadow on the Glass." Works by such diverse authors as G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and P. G. Wodehouse are also included. Wodehouse and his Jeeves remind me of another rule. There should generally be live-in staff, such as a butler, in these mysteries.I don't think that any anthology on this subject would be complete without one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventures. "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" is the Holmes selection for this anthology.They're all good, and it's almost unrealistic to pick a favorite story. That said, I particularly enjoyed Robert Barr's "Lord Chizelrigg's Missing Fortune," which did violate one of the rules. It was a puzzle without a crime. Barr's detective, Valmont, was the prototype of the early British fictional detective, and he had a sense of humor. Many people believe that Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot was modeled on Valmont. Barr was one of the first writers to mix fictional characters with real life people in his stories. In this case, it was Thomas Alva Edison. A piece of advice Valmont had once received from Edison had become a centerpiece of Valmont's approach to solving crimes.One of the beauties of ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE MURDERS, or any good anthology for that matter, is that it serves as a sort of a tour. On a tour, you get a little sampling of a lot of places. The intelligent traveler than uses this information to choose places that he wants to revisit, seeing much more of what the place has to offer. This anthology serves exactly the same purpose. The reader is likely to discover new (to him, at least) authors, whose fiction he likes and whose greater body of works seem wo

This collection included several gems, but perhaps twenty stories is five too many. This is great for a little story before bedtime, a little story before you get the dishes done, a little story while you wait in line at the bank, a little story over coffee in the morning. The stories themselves are excellent examples of their craft, entertaining and clever.Well worth a read, and you might consider even reading some stories twice.