Unexpected Gems

 I adore the British Library Crime Classics series. They re-publish books by authors that aren't as well known as some of the big names in classic crime fiction, like Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers. I've discovered several authors that are new to me through these books and I'm always on the lookout for more, whether at the library or in charity shops. I rarely find these in charity shops, but I have found a few. My most recent find was this one, originally published in 1864. I haven't read it yet, but it's up next.

Most of the BLCC books I've seen have been later than the Victorian era, often Golden Age or later. The first one I ever found in a charity shop was Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay. I'd never heard of her, but I took it home with me and looked her up. Turns out she only wrote 3 mystery novels, all published by BLCC. Bill got me the other two, Death on the Cherwell and The Santa Klaus Murder, online.

Late last year, unbeknownst to me, he was looking for more of these books on ebay and he found a woman selling a lot of 5 in Ireland. He bought them, paid for them, and assumed they'd be arriving pretty quickly. Then the woman emailed him and said that she couldn't find them, so sent him a refund. A few days later, she emailed again to say she'd found them. Bill was trying to figure out how to pay her again, since there was no longer a listing and he couldn't do it through ebay. He asked her to send him an invoice so he could do it that way. She told him to forget about it. She sent them. They arrived a day or two later. I was ridiculously excited to see what books I had and when I opened the parcel, I was thrilled! I hadn't read any of them before. I read them slowly and didn't gobble them down all at once. There were a couple of authors I knew of, but had only read one or two of their short stories.

sorry about the weird haze on the photo

Then there were the new-to-me authors.

Margot Bennett wrote less than a dozen novels, along with a few screenplays. In this book, The Man Who Didn't Fly, a small plane crashes in the Irish Sea. All on board are killed. There were four passengers booked for the flight, but it's soon discovered that only three boarded the plane. Who was the man who didn't fly and where is he now? 

Ellen Wilkinson was one of the first women to be an MP and she wrote The Division Bell Mystery after she lost her seat in 1931 (she won it back in 1936). It's a locked room mystery in which a financier is found dead in the halls of parliament. 

I loved all of these books and they all had interesting plots, characters, and/or structures, but the best one of all, and one of the best classic crime novels I've ever read (so far) is Verdict of Twelve by Raymond Postgate.

The mystery is really well done and kept me on my toes right up until the last paragraph. The structure of the book is the other thing that made this book vault up to the top tier for me. Almost all of the story is told through the thoughts of the jurors deciding the fate of the accused. The book opens with the jurors' stories being told--and some of these stories are gripping in and of themselves. Readers learn about their lives and histories, as well as their thoughts about being summoned to jury duty. Some of the stories are more detailed than others and some chapters focus on one juror in particular while others focus on a group. Once the jurors are sworn in, the trial gets underway and we again see things from the points of view of the jurors as the witnesses testify. Then we're in the room as they're deliberating and when the verdict is given. I won't say any more about the book because I wouldn't want to give even a hint of a spoiler. What I will say is, if you're a fan of classic crime fiction, this is a book I can highly recommend. It's so good.

I know there are more unexpected gems out there in the British Library Crime Classics collection and more are added regularly. I will probably be getting them from the library in future, because the two charity shops where I've found them are ones that I won't be going to anymore. But I do have a local library again now, so it's all good. In the meantime, I still have a couple of charity shop finds on my pile, one of which I plan to pick up tomorrow. 

Whatever you're reading, I hope it's excellent! Life's too short to spend any time reading books that aren't your thing. Remember, it's OK to DNF and move on to something more to your liking!😀😏📘

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