Continuing my exploration of Golden Age SF and mystery stories, I came across this British Library Publishing collection which combines both genres in the same volume. The original publication dates range from 1912 to 1972, mainly spanning the 50s and 60s. Asimov, Russell and McCaffrey are familiar authors to me, while I've not read anything by the others. So the introductory notes before each story were quite interesting to set the context of the piece.

The editing seemed good, and I didn't notice any obvious typos or OCR-type errors. All the stories were readable, although of course written in different styles. Perhaps because the focus included mysteries as well as SF elements, they didn't strike me as quite as dated as other SF works from the period.

My favourite was "Legwork" by Eric Frank Russell, but then he's my favourite author out of this collection. On reading "Apple" by Anne McCaffrey, I found the characterisation much flatter than in her other stories. Perhaps too much emphasis on the mechanics of the mystery, as opposed to the people of the world?

This collection's currently on Kindle Unlimited, and worth checking out if you want to sample some authors writing outside the areas they're known for.