CYANIDE IN THE SUN

Crime never takes a holiday in the stories Edwards reprints in a sequel to his anthology Resorting to Murder (2015).

The absence of the canonical authors who played a leading role in the earlier collection turns out to be a strength, for virtually all of the 18 stories here, 11 first published in the 1950s, are discoveries bound to be new to all but the most dedicated fans. On the whole, they alternate between brief, one-clue anecdotes and longer, more ambitious and fully fleshed out stories. Standout short-shorts include Michael Gilbert’s “Even Murderers Take Holidays,” in which a hit man tries in vain to go on vacation; Nicholas Bentley’s “In the Picture,” which first conceals and then neatly reveals the crucial evidence in a husband’s murder; Shelley Smith’s “Crooked Harvest,” in a which a robbery victim discovers his thief at the home of a young lady he encounters on holiday, leading to a nifty reversal with a deft final twist; Celia Fremlin’s “The Summer Holiday,” which unfolds the fate of Emmy, a grandmother who hates holidays; Michael Innes’ jumped-or-pushed riddle “Two on a Tower”; and Guy Cullingford’s “Kill and Cure,” which tracks the nightmares (or maybe something more real) of a thriller writer on a therapeutic do-nothing stay in Bunmouth. The most successful of the longer stories are Anthony Berkeley’s “‘Mr. Bearstowe Says…,’” another version of “Razor Edge,” which appeared in Resorting to Murder, and Christianna Brand’s “Cyanide in the Sun,” in which the nine Scampton Murders are plotted and peopled densely enough for a much longer tale. Julian Symons’ “The Summer Holiday Murders,” the longest story of all, is workmanlike and professional but, as the other contributors clearly demonstrate, not worth 40 pages.

The perfect vacation companion, especially if you’d rather get away with murder than get away from it.