Changes

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.

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.