Too short to be really effective. Also a bit repetitive in how the crime is committed.

These are surprisingly good, even if the basic formula gets a bit repetitive by the twelfth story. I was also struck by the preponderance of women in all roles - perpetrators, victims, bystanders and even as the narrator - sometimes reading books from this era written by male authors makes you feel as if women hadn't been invented yet.

I really enjoyed all the stories in this collection, and seeing as Orczy was employing the old trick of 'most-unlikely -is-murderer' (which isn't a spoiler, really!) I did try to solve some of the mysteries. Didn't quite succeed, but I certainly enjoyed reading it! But that end...

I didn't really like it, but maybe it is just not my cup of tea (even if I usually like tea).....

Non é che mi sia piaciuto, ma magari é solo che non é il mio genere (anche se in generale lo é)...

THANKS EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!

I'm going to go with a three star rating for this one. It was indeed 'good', but I wouldn't go so far as very good or great. The Baroness wrote these stories after the success of Sherlock Holmes and you can tell as it fills a similar void, without being just simply reading the same stories all over again. And maybe that's the problem, because I was also listening to the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes in the same chunk of time. It might just have been too similar at the same time?
But while it does, as I said, fill the same void, how they go about solving the mysteries is very different. Sherlock learns only slightly before the reader does, the old man in the corner already knows and testing you to see if you do. Sherlock is clearly out to stop the villain, but will show mercy on people who simply were caught up in a bad situation. The old man in the corner does nothing to effect events or people in any way, but is content to simply know the facts.
Honestly, I spent most of the book wondering about the moral character of a man who knows the truth of someone's crimes and instead of bringing it to light, simply lets things play out as they have.

It was interesting to see how, perhaps because the Baroness was a woman, women were portrayed in these stories. They tended to have larger roles, operated more independently, and simply appear more frequently. Not nearly as much as they would in stories written today, but more than I usually see in other stories written at that time.

Overall, glad I read it, but probably won't read the sequel.

No warnings apply.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free eCopy in exchange for an honest review.