The Folio Treasury of Shorter Crime Fiction

This four-volume set gathers longer short stories and novellas of crime, arranged by kind rather than by date: early mystery adventures, cases for private detectives, police investigations, and studies of people who kill. Typical pieces include locked-room puzzles, inverted tales that show the crime first, and origin stories for known investigators. Settings run from Victorian houses and interwar country places to later city stations and offices. Brief introductions by crime writers and readers sit before the fiction. There is no single plot. The collection is a cross-section of the genre at medium length, not a novel and not a handbook of detection.

Quarter bound in dark brown cloth with boards printed with designs by Nick Hardcastle. Dark brown illustrated four-volume slipcase.