Nick Rennison is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in the Victorian era and in crime fiction. He is the editor of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and The Rivals of Dracula, both collections of short stories. He is also the author of The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Crime Fiction, 100 Must-Read Crime Novels and Sherlock Holmes: An Unauthorised Biography. He is a regular reviewer for both The Sunday Times and BBC History Magazine.
There are some very good stories here, some actually feel like they are adopting the Holmesian ethos; the use of observation and reasoning, (often traduced to deductive reasoning), the apparently inexplicable mystery and the plodding dullness of the police. Others are simply female detectives with their own way of doing things, none the worse for that. These stories make for a relaxing afternoon's reading and are a fascinating window on their times * Crime Time *