Blood on the Tracks

Edwards’s entertaining railway-themed anthology, part of the British Library Crime Classics series, contains 15 short stories mainly from authors little known today. Arthur Conan Doyle, the most notable exception, kicks things off splendidly with “The Man with the Watches,” in which a “well-known criminal investigator” offers his solution to the bizarre murder of a man who was found shot in a railway carriage, which he seemingly could not have entered, with six gold American watches in his pockets. Others introduce worthy sleuths to a new generation, such as Ernest Bramah’s blind detective, Max Carrados, who cracks the mystery of more than 30 railroad-related deaths in “The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem.” Also noteworthy is R. Austin Freeman’s “The Case of Oscar Brodksi,” the first inverted detective story, in which, as Freeman once noted, “the reader knows everything, the detective knows nothing, and the interest focuses on the significance of trivial circumstances.” This is the perfect volume for fans of short, high-quality, fair-play detective fiction. (July)