Trying to pick one favorite story to highlight this month’s theme proved impossible for me. There are so many stories in crime fiction I love. So I decided to select a variety of stories from the classics of crime fiction. Over the years, I have discussed these stories in more detail, so I’m putting links to those posts.
Sherlock Holmes
“The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” from The Return of Sherlock Holmes — Holmes and Watson decide they are justified in committing burglary to save a woman from a professional blackmailer. I love this story because we get to see how much Watson enjoys his adventures with Holmes. He’s thrilled to the core to be sneaking through the night to commit a noble crime.
“The Illustrious Client” from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes — I tend to like the stories where the superhuman reasoning machines are shown to be human after all. While trying to prevent a woman from marrying a sexual predator, Holmes is beat up, Watson is outraged, and once again, Holmes believes he needs to break the law to achieve justice.
“The Three Garridebs” from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes — While trying to help a client who will receive a large bequest if three people with a rare last name are located, Holmes finally reveals the depth of his feelings for Watson. Watson’s description of seeing this side to his best friend’s nature is both touching and funny.
Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin
“Christmas Party” from And Four to Go — As with Sherlock Holmes, I like the stories that humanize Wolfe, who I find much less likable than his assistant/bodyguard Archie Goodwin. Wolfe becomes a suspect in a murder when he thinks Archie might be considering marriage.
“Black Orchids” and “Cordially Invited to Meet Death” from Black Orchids — The rare black orchid ties these two novellas together. The first concerns how Wolfe acquires the black orchid. It’s hilarious to read how he’s eaten up with envy when a rival orchid fancier cultivates it. This story also has a clever way of forcing a murderer to reveal himself. In the second story, a client meets a particularly nasty end. When Archie sees that Wolfe has sent a spray of black orchids for the funeral, he knows his boss is paying for than his condolences. But why?
Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple
Death on the Nile — Hercule Poirot has no shortage of suspects to consider when a beautiful young heiress is murdered on a boat cruising the Nile. I saw the movie of this book when I was in sixth grade, and the plotting blew me away. I think it’s one of Agatha Chrisities’ more clever puzzles, and the relationship between the two murderers is unusually complex.
Thirteen Problems — Miss Jane Marple solves a variety of mysteries in this short story collection. I’ve always like this characters because younger people and the authorities think the elderly spinster is too sheltered to know anything about real life. But because Miss Marple is a keen observer of human behavior in her small hometown, she understands people better than anyone.
And now for something really obscure …
The Third Omnibus of Crime, edited by Dorothy L. Sayers — I stumbled across this collections of mystery and horror short stories at my library when I was searching for titles by Dorothy L. Sayers. Compiled in the 1930’s, it features two mystery stories which are among my favorites. In “Wet Paint”, fishermen of the Pacific Northwest are disappearing from the boats while out fishing, leaving no clues. The sense of growing dread the fishermen feel is expertly conveyed. And the solution is perfectly reasonable and still perfectly surprising. “Inquest” has the most original motive for a murder I’ve ever read.
If you like classic crime fiction, what are some of your favorites?
Aside from Sherlock, i think the only one that sounds familiar is Death on the Nile. I’ve never read the others though.
Nero Wolfe was popular in his day, and author Rex Stout combined two detectives styles in this series: Nero Wolfe, the thinking machine of the British mystery, like Sherlock Holmes, and Archie Goodwin, who’s like a hard-boiled detective of American crime fiction.