"Hildegarde Withers: Uncollected Riddles"

Riddles can be funny. Riddles can be provocative or profound. And - when those riddles involve murder and mayhem - they can be a real treat for mystery readers. That's certainly the case with "Hildegarde Withers: Uncollected Riddles," which features Stuart Palmer's "meddlesome old battleaxe" of a schoolteacher, Hildegarde Withers, in eleven hitherto uncollected short stories, most dating from the 1930s. The collection is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to it by clicking here.

There are some intriguing stories here, including a number of seemingly impossible crimes, the sort which usually do stump Hildy's foil and sparring partner, Homicide Inspector Oscar Piper. And, as usualy, Hildy is more than up to the challenge of solving the mysteries - and doing so in such a way that Piper can claim the credit.

There's a lot of humor in some of the stories, although there are nightmarish overtones to some of them - not surprising, perhaps, in a collection of murder mysteries. And Hildy seems to be unflappable, whether it's finding the holes in a supposedly perfect alibi or figuring out where a thief hid a priceless cup stolen from a museum. They're all tied together in an entertaining package, courtesy of publisher Crippen & Landru's "Lost Classics" series. If you're looking for some light beach reading, these stories will do very nicely indeed.