The World's Best 100 Detective Stories Vol. 9

 The World's Best 100 Detective Stories Vol. 9 (1929) by Eugene Thwing (ed)

This the ninth volume in a ten-volume set made up of ten short stories per volume. As Thwing says in his introduction in the first volume, picking the 100 best stories even in the early years of the mystery field was no easy job. It's easier to just select personal favorites--but one really needs to select a wide variety of popular favorites to meet the tastes of more readers. Of course, no matter what an editor does, he will still not pick everyone's favorite and be able to make everyone happy. And I'm afraid he didn't make this reader very happy this time. I've enjoyed previous volumes, but the stories in volume nine seem to me to be extremely weak. The best are Green's first story--though it has more of a suspenseful, gothic feel to it than true mystery, Fletcher's story of the stolen coins, and the two selections by Rees. The rest have very little mystery to them and even less actual detective work. ★★ and 1/2

"Missing: Page Thirteen" by Anna Katharine Green: Miss Strange decides to take just one more case--at the instigation of Robert Upjohn. This time, she is busy tracking down a missing scientific formula relating to explosives [aren't they always?]. She quickly solves the mystery of the missing page and is then made privy to another, older secret. [Deaths = 2 stabbed]

"Thief" by Anna Katharine Green: a non-Miss Violet Strange story. A valuable coin goes missing during a dinner party. The obvious suspect runs off before he can be searched. When the coin is discovered in the room from which it went missing (in a place where the man could not have placed it), his host searches for him to make his apologies...and discovers a thief of a different sort.

"The Secret of the Barbican" by J. S. Fletcher: A small town solicitor visits a museum in distant town. While there, he views a set of rare siege coins and instantly recognizes them as a set of coins stolen from his own town quite a few years ago. He decides to investigate how the coins got to the museum and who the thief could have been. The trail leads him on an extraordinary journey. [one natural]

"Pig's Feet" by Frederic Arnold Kummer: A no-good lawyer gets his just desserts when a mild-mannered bank clerk gets the best of him. One of the earliest stories to feature big-shot bootleggers controlling territory, hit men, hijackers, and ties to political bosses. [one shot]

"Diamond Cut Diamond" by Kummer: Elinor, a wealthy young woman, likes to use her money to help other young women in need. When Miss Pennington, a secretary to a jeweler is accused of stealing a packet of diamonds worth $8,000, she pays the man their value. But she believes the secretary to be innocent and won't rest until she proves it.

"The Missing Passenger's Trunk" by Arthur J. Rees: Captain Samuel Master comes to Colwin Grey, a barrister with a flair for detective work, with a strange story of man thought lost at sea whose body appeared in a trunk the captain had taken to his own own home. Masters believes he'll be charged with murder, but swears he's innocent. [one natural; one drowned]

"The Finger of Death" by Arthur J. Rees: Colwin Grey clears a man of killing his father...even if he did shoot him. [one shot; one natural]

"The Mystery of the Gold Seal" by George Barton: Two women are poisoned with chocolates from a plain box with a gold seal. That gold seal leads Police Chief Lees straight to the murderer. [two poisoned; one natural]

"The Green Pocketbook" by George Barton: A miserly man is killed for his securities and the money in his green pocketbook. Monsieur Mace of the French Secret police knows the culprit by his possession of the pocketbook, but it is gravity that proves how and where the man was killed. [one hit on head; one hanged]

"The Toy Lantern" by George Barton: A child's toy lantern is all Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard needs to discover who killed Horace Smith in the garden near Highgate Woods. [one--but method not disclosed]

First line (1st story): "One more! just one more paying affair, and I promise to stop; really and truly to stop."

Last line (last story): It recalls the theory of a famous American detective who has often pointed out the fact that, plan and plan, as he may, the criminal invariably leaves some gap in the machination of his scheme, some rift, minute thought it may be, some crevice through which the detective may insert the little silver probe of his specialized knowledge, and thus discover the truth.