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The stories are good. I did think that they were perhaps not top-of-the-range but there's a good reason for that which will become clear in due course. They're very much stories of their time - the mid-twentieth century - when the police were not quite so vigorously restricted as they are now. ''Don't ask me to use my fist on a child'' one officer tells his superior. There's an excellent variety in the stories too.
Hart's sensitive. When McAllister fails to eat some his mussels at dinner she ensures that she leaves some too. Her probing into the author's past, and into a murder which happened in 1940 and which seems to be foreshadowed and echoed in the stories, is subtle but demanding. You won't realise just how subtle Hart has been until you get to the final pages.
When talking about books the word ''original'' is dramatically overused, so it almost seems too tame to use it to describe ''Eight Detectives'', but I can't think of a better description. I have never read anything quite like it. The characters are excellent, both in the short stories and in the over-arching narrative. That's a very considerable achievement as different skills are required in short stories and the long-form novel. The individual plots are clever too - you'll realise quite how clever when you finish the book.
Did I work out what had happened? I wasn't even close, but all the clues were there. It's a book to read for the sheer enjoyment of it - and then to read again to see how it was done. I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.
If you are a fan of crime short stories we can recommend [[Miraculous Mysteries (British Library Crime Classics) by Martin Edwards (editor)]]. For something else that's a bit different, you might enjoy [[Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates]]. {{amazontext|amazon=0241433568}}
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