The World's Greatest Detective Stories

by Herbert van Thal (Editor)

Edited by Herbert Van Thal, this book is a compilation of intriguing mysteries from the greatest writers of crime fiction including contributions from : Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Sayers, E W Hornung, Agatha Christie, G K Chesterton, Georges Simeno, and many others

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Herbert Maurice van Thal (1904-1983), known as Bertie van Thal, was a British bookseller, publisher, agent, biographer, and anthologist.

Reviews

[Santosh Bhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

To start off, let me make it clear, the title of this anthology is misleading - this is by no accounts a collection of the greatest detective stories in the world. What it does feature are some of the greatest crime and detective fiction writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century including Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Georges Simenon, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, E.W. Hornung among others. The stories included range from the sublime to the strictly OK categories.
The best ones include Raymond Chandler's "The Goldfish" - a hard-boiled thriller about the search for some stolen jewels and "The evidence of the altar boy" featuring Simenon's famous detective Jules Maigret. Strangely one of the weakest ones was a second rate Agatha Christie story, "Sing a Song of Sixpence".
I spent three long leisurely weekends enjoying these tales, discovering hitherto unknown gems such as H.R.F Keating's sleuth, Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID in " The case of the miracle baby ", a decidedly adult tale for that era.
The best part of reading such anthologies is such discoveries.