Two Envelopes And A Phone’s Reviews > Golden Age Whodunits > Status Update

Well, I reneged on what I announced mere moments ago. I did not leave the last story in this book for tomorrow morning; I decided to put the kibosh on this odd collection tonight, clearing the way for my vampire novel to kickstart the oncoming a.m.. The last tale - ‘A Passage to Benares’ - was one of the most startling in the book. I liked it, cringe-y parts aside, but it made the whole book even more bizarre.

One story left - I’ll leave it for tomorrow morning. If it was ten pages or thereabouts, I’d whisk through it right now, but I’m a bit tired and it’s long. This has been a strange bunch of stories, many of them not whodunits. I think the book should have been called Golden Age Crime Stories.

This is an okay anthology, so far - not that impressive. Not all the stories are whodunits, and some of the whodunits are not really solvable by the reader. I suppose I have to let that fact go, because nobody said these were all “Fair Play” examples. Anyway, the next story is ‘Man Bites Dog’ by Ellery Queen. One of my fave movies is called Man Bites Dog, and it’s a Crime movie, but I’m gonna assume No Relation!

I liked the F. Scott Fitzgerald story. It fits right in - I didn’t know it existed.

Despite all the Fredric Brown short stories I have read - especially in the last few years - I think this was my first time reading ‘Crisis, 1999’. It’s not really a whodunit, which makes it a dubious inclusion here. I liked it; it’s part of his SF output, and it does have a Crime angle. Not my favourite by him, but it was the reason I committed to buying the book. Lots more great writers ahead, of course.

The Anthony Boucher story was solid, and gosh did I miss something that was staring me in da face. Fredric Brown next - and I think it’s one I haven’t read. I mean, considering that I collected the entire Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps series, I’m a little flummoxed by that, but it looks like this story comes from the SF side of Brown’s output, in terms of where it was published previously. SF whodunit!