As usual, an enjoyable collection - and a particularly valuable one given it collects stories mostly not readily available in English - and with no really bad stories but unfortunately only a few that really made me take notice.

The Swedish Match by Chekhov is pleasingly absurd and humorous although I worry the translation might have dulled the comedy a bit.

The Spider by Koga Saburo isn't particularly great as a mystery but it really stands out by its fantastical setting - a laboratory shaped like a cylinder sitting on top of a 9m high pillar full of poisonous spiders.

Kippers by John Flanders is probably the stand out - it's not a mystery and it's very short but the method of killing is so over-the-top gross and cruel and well described and justified by revenge it really sticks in the mind.

Again, the other stories are a good read but there's nothing really distinctive about them. If you love mysteries though you'll definitely enjoy it ( )

Note: I accessed digital review copies of this book through Edelweiss and NetGalley. ( )

A collection of non-English stories (translated) from the 'Golden Era' of detective fiction. An interesting, variable, collection of stories with only two I didn't really care for.
A NetGalley Book ( )

A mixed bag of stories. One or two gems. As much as anything, it is great to see the detective story flourishing all around the globe. ( )

This is a collection of mystery short stories originally written in languages other than English, chiefly in the "Golden Age" as broadly defined, from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Some are what I would call good straightforward mysteries while others (notably The Kennel and The Spider) lean more to horror. i was very pleased this collection included one of Baldwin Groller's preWW1 Austrian stories, of which I have so far managed to find three after seeing them recommended in Queen's Quorum. I also enjoyed Palle Rosenkrantz's 'A Sensible Course of Action" with very neutral Danes trying to deal with possibly nIhilistic Russians, though I had previousy read it elsewhere. ( )