Favorite Mystery and Crime Short Stories?

Guttersnipe

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I used to be a strictly speculative reader, but I've gotten interested in stories of mystery and crime thanks to watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents and reading some of the collections Hitchcock edited/sponsored. These favorite stories of yours need not be so old, but I have found I enjoy reading older ones. They can be any length from flash fiction to novelette.

My favorites:
"The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" by Ray Bradbury
"For All the Rude People" by Jack Ritchie
"I'm Better Than You" by Henry Slesar
and almost anything by Stanley Ellin
 
The Adventures & the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries by Melville Davison Post
"The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" by Thomas Burke
"The Scorched Face" & "The "The Gutting of Couffignal" by Dashiell Hammett
"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell
"The Specialty of the House" & "Death on Christmas Eve" & "The Question" by Stanley Ellin
"Red Wind" by Raymond Chandler
"Beware the Trains" by Edmund Crispin
"The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers" by Dorothy L. Sayers

The collection, Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives is quite good, and Margaret Millar's "The People Across the Canyon" a stand out.
 
The Adventures & the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries by Melville Davison Post
"The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" by Thomas Burke
"The Scorched Face" & "The "The Gutting of Couffignal" by Dashiell Hammett
"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell
"The Specialty of the House" & "Death on Christmas Eve" & "The Question" by Stanley Ellin
"Red Wind" by Raymond Chandler
"Beware the Trains" by Edmund Crispin
"The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers" by Dorothy L. Sayers

The collection, Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives is quite good, and Margaret Millar's "The People Across the Canyon" a stand out.

"The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I read Millar's story and some others in the collection you mentioned. Another anthologh with the same theme is John MacDonald's The Lethal Sex.
 
Probably anything by Raymond Chandler. There's a particularly good one about a hotel detective called "I'll be Waiting".
 
There are a lot of great Noir and Hardboiled tales I like.
But I have recently started reading Agatha Christie's Poirot's Early Cases. It is it says a collection of Hercule Poirot short stories. So far they all have a certain cozy charm.
 
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Naturally, after posting, a few more titles came to mind:
"Dick Contino's Blues" by James Ellroy (novella)
"Batman's Helpers" by Lawrence Block
"When the Women Come Out" and "Karen Makes Out" by Elmore Leonard
"Two Bottle of Relish" by Lord Dunsany

Also, if you should ever see it, I recall T.S. Stribling's Best Dr. Poggioli Detective Stories as being great fun and very funny.

I didn't see the Hitchcock Presents adaptation of "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole," but I've noted that it's been anthologized twice in the last 10-12 years by Otto Penzler in The Big Book of Jack the Ripper and The Big Book of Rogues & Villains. I first read it in 101 Years' Entertainment ed. by Ellery Queen, a major mystery/crime 1940s anthology somehow still retained on the shelves of my high school library.
 
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Any of the "Rumpole Of The Bailey" stories by John Mortimer.
Also for Detective/S.F. try the Wendell Urth (I think that's how you spell it) stories by Isaac Asimov, not very many but worth a read.
For Detective/Fantasy then try the Lord Darcy stories and novel by Randall Garrett.
As mentioned above I highly recommend the Otto Penzler anthologies, they are all big fat books so you really get a lot for your money!
He also does a Black Mask magazine anthology, Christmas mystery stories, Sherlock Holmes pastiche collection, Adventure stories plus a load of horror/supernatural, needless to say as a bookaholic I think I've got most of them!
The Zombie one has the first ever short story from the 20s or 30s, maybe from Weird Tales, "Dead Men Working In The Cane Field", great title!
Any of his anthologies are worth a read!
P.S. Also "Four And Twenty Blackbirds" by Agatha Christie.
"In The Teeth Of The Evidence" and also mentioned "The Man With Copper Fingers" both by Dorothy L. Sayers.
Plus as also mentioned any of The Saint stories by Leslie Charteris, such as "The Sizzerling Saboteur" and his dip into S.F. "The Man Who Loved Ants", remember seeing the TV version of this one with Sir Roger Moore as The Saint!
P.P.S. For good collections of crime stories look out for the old Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock anthologies!
P.P.P.S. Good news folks, all of the Dashiell Hammett Conental Op stories are now available in one volume!
 
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I never did get into the Mystery/Crime genre, but i did go through a phase of reading John Grisham. There were several good ones, but my favourite was A Painted House, which didn't have anything to the courtroom.
 
I am a bit of a dabbler in this stuff.

I enjoy the Florida Noir subgenre.

Notably Carl Hiaasen who writes very readable crime thrillers about corrupt, usually inept developers and politicians, with an ecological bent and often funny and grotesque characters.

Also Tim Dorsey, who writes what might be described as a rancid version of Hiaasen, with a leading character, Serge Storms, who is a screamingly funny single-minded psychopath (came before Dexter, more humour and less restraint) with an interesting morality, and where it is always the bad guys that get it.
 
I am not knowledgeable about the detective story genre but there is or was a sub-genre of lighthearted murders that I used to enjoy. British examples, in order of publication, include “The Poisoned Chocolates Case” by Anthony Berkeley The Poisoned Chocolates Case (Roger Sheringham Cases, #5), “The Blackheath Poisonings” by Julian Symons The Blackheath Poisonings, “Thus Was Adonis Murdered” by Sarah Caudwell Thus Was Adonis Murdered (Hilary Tamar, #1), “Caroline Miniscule” by Andrew Taylor Caroline Miniscule, and “The False Inspector Dew” by Peter Lovesey The False Inspector Dew. The only American example that comes immediately to my mind is “Two plus two equals minus seven” by John Festus Adams Two Plus Two Equals Minus Seven.
 

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