Bodies from the Library 6, edited by Tony Medawar

The Bodies from the Library series of anthologies has resurrected a large number of obscure vintage mysteries, including a number of radio plays. It's a tribute to the research skills of editor Tony Medawar that even though this is his sixth collection, there is only one story in this book that I can recall reading before, namely E.C. Bentley's 'Greedy Night'.

One great find is a very early short story by Cyril Hare. 'The Blackmailers' was first published in 1929, years before Hare's first novel appeared, but it displays his characteristic irony and smoothly readable writing style, as well as benefiting from his legal know-how. I really was pleased to discover this one.

My other favourites were quite different. Alice Campbell's 'No Evidence'  is an obscure tale from 1930 and a good read. Christianna Brand's 'A Piece of Cake' dates from 1983, so it's by no means a Golden Age story in any meaningful sense, but it's rather nicely done.'The Glass Gravestone' by the under-estimated American writer Joseph Commings is also enjoyable.

The book includes stories by such well-known writers as Margery Allingham, George Bellairs, Andrew Garve, and Anthony Gilbert. Another story I've never even heard of, let alone read, is actually a round-robin novella, 'Sinister Sequence'. This is a pulpy thriller of interest mainly as an illustration of the different writing styles and techniques of authors such as Michael Cronin and Geoffrey Household. One of the other contributors to the novella was L.P. Hartley, a terrific writer, and his involvement in the enterprise is perhaps the biggest surprise in the book. What isn't a surprise is that Tony Medawar's notes are consistently informative.