The Measure of Malice by Martin Edwards

The Measure of Malice by Martin Edwards ISBN-13: 9781492699620 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press Released: February 4, 2020

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description from NetGalley:
The detective's role is simple: to catch the culprit. Yet behind each casual observation lies a learned mind, trained on finding the key to the mystery. Crimes, whatever their form, are often best solved through deliberations of logic—preferably amid complicated gadgetry and a pile of hefty scientific volumes.

The detectives in this collection are masters of scientific deduction, whether they are identifying the perpetrator from a single scrap of fabric, or picking out the poison from a sinister line-up. Containing stories by R. Austin Freeman, J. J. Connington and the master of logical reasoning, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Measure of Malice collects tales of rational thinking to prove the power of the human brain over villainous deeds.


My Review:
The Measure of Malice is a collection of 14 short stories written between 1891 and 1955. These stories were mainly clue-based puzzle mysteries told as the events happened, and science played a role in the mysteries. Sometimes you can guess whodunit, but usually the sleuth is mentally seeing clues that the reader knows nothing about or is at least as quick to understand the clues as a reader.

Overall, there was occasional use of bad language. There was no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this mystery collection.

The included stories are:
The Boscombe Valley Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Horror of Studley Grange by L. T. Meade and Clifford Halifax
The Tragedy of a Third Smoker by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
The Man who Disappeared by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
The Cyprian Bees by Anthony Wynne
The English Filter by C. E. Bechhofer Roberts
The Contents of a Mare’s Nest by R. Austin Freeman
After Death the Doctor by J.J. Connington
The Broken Toad by H. C. Bailey
In the Teeth of the Evidence by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Case of the Chemist in the Cupboard by Ernest Dudley
The Purple Line by John Rhode
Blood Sport by Edmund Crispin
The New Cement by Freeman Wills Crofts


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.