23 November 2018

Perfect potato-chip book


       Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander. 100 Malicious Little Mysteries (1981) A wonderful potato chip book. The stories are mostly 3 to 4 pages long, with a few outliers. Common plot twists feature poetic justice, radical shifts in point of view, or sudden recognition of a minor clue’s meaning. Each could be redone as a full-length novel, which makes this book a reference work of sorts. Most are little gems of narrative art, the whole book a master class in how to put much meaning into a very small frame. A keeper. ***

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Unnatural Death (Sayers, 1927)

 Dorothy Sayers. Unnatural Death. (1927) Agatha Dawson, a well-off old lady, dies of old age. But Lord Peter doesn’t believe it was a natur...