For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading a short story every night before falling asleep. They're mysteries, written between the 1930s and the 1970s by a variety of British authors and anthologized in "Murder by the Book," edited by Martin Edwards and published last month by Poison Pen Press.
The stories are delightful, if reading about murders can be called delightful — each little mystery has something to do with books, or libraries, or authors. In one, a mystery writer is murdered by someone who wants to see if he can outwit the author. In another, the will of a murdered man is found hidden in a Lewis Carroll book. (Why Lewis Carroll? There's a reason.)
They aren't hard to figure out, these little mysteries, each done and dusted in about 20 pages, but they are soothing to read. These are words I might not have written before I fell in love with mysteries during the pandemic.
