Great Irish Detective Stories

This is an interesting collection of crime stories written by authors who hail from Ireland. The stories span nearly two centuries of Irish crime fiction ranging from the "The Hand and the Word" written in 1827 to "Mugging in Harcourt Street" published in 1982. A few stories in this collection like "Two Bottles of Relish" and "Murder at Cobbler's Hulk" may be classified as great. Most of the remainder are reasonably entertaining. A variety of styles and subjects in crime fiction are on display here. Though the editor gives this collection the title of "detective stories", many stories here don't fit the mould of the archetypal detective story. Contained here are stories of humor, horror, action and psychology. I found it difficult to follow a small number of stories in this book because of my inability to understand Irish slang and colloquialisms.