I’ve read all the “Black Widower” stories by Asimov and I’m looking for something similar. In these stories, a group invites a guest to each meeting. Coincidentally this guest always seems to have some mystery that he can’t work out. The Black Widowers press him for information, and then present various theories, until Henry the waiter cuts through the bullshit and solves it. Some of the mysteries are great, some are poor but they all some things in common.
They’re quite short, the mystery is pretty much introduced, debated about and solved. There is not much ‘filler’. They are always fair, enough information is included in the telling of the mystery, subsequent discussion and ancillary conversation so that you should be able to solve it before Henry pipes up.
Anybody have any recommendation for similar short sharp mystery stories? Preferably a book which contains several.
I love mystery anthologies and own several collections (including the Black Widowers and the Union Club books), but I’m afraid they’re out of print. Alfred Hitchcock’s stories were collected into books (from his mystery magazine during the 1950s and 60s)…I’d bet you could still find them at used bookstores. Actually, I just googled, and found this site. You might find it interesting.
More recently (as in the last 10 years or so), I bought “Ellery Queen’s Masters of Mystery”, a hardback anthology published by Barnes and Noble. There are stories by Edward Hoch, Richard Matheson, Edgar Wallace, and Lawrence Treat, among others.
I’ve also got “100 Malicious Little Mysteries,” selected by Asimov, also published by Barnes and Noble.
And in a semi-serious suggestion, it’s hard to beat Donald J. Sobol’s “Two-Minute Mysteries,” even though it’s written for kids. (He’s more famous for writing the Encyclopedia Brown series, but the Two-Minute Mystery books were among the first I ever read, and fell in love with them – they’re clever and entertaining, even if they’re written for children.)