Martin Edwards has done a decent job of selecting these stories, although some of them, like the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Copper Beeches," will be familiar to most readers. But I was disappointed in this anthology for a couple of reasons. First, although Edwards has written a brief introduction to each story, he typically doesn't state when the story was written or where it was first published. To me, this information is useful to understanding the context in which the story was written: pre-Golden Age, Golden Age, post-Golden Age. I had to find this information by Googling it.
A second problem is that the table of contents lists the stories, but not the pages on which the stories begin! I can't recall ever seeing such an omission before. The problem is compounded because the running head at the top of the page gives the book title, not the title of the story that appears on that page. In other words, there is no way to locate a particular story in the book without going though the book page by page.
Finally, I applaud the Poisoned Pen Press for bringing these classic British mysteries back into print -- may they continue to turn them out! But the bindings are too tight. I have a feeling that these books will not bear up well under repeat readings. I much prefer the bindings of Harper's current paperback reprints of Agatha Christie's books.
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