We’ve reached the sixth Tuesday of 2026 and I’ve picked a British Library Crime Classic as Book of the Week. I haven’t quite made it to two months since the last time I picked a BLCC book, but given that I was disappointed by a couple of the things I read this week, I really had no other option…
Cyanide in the Sun is a collection of eighteen holiday-themed short stories. Among the authors are Christanna Brand, Anthony Berkley, Anthony Gilbert, Julian Symons and Michael Innes among others. I hadn’t read any of these before – which I think is because a lot of them were either published in newspapers or in hard to get collections. And the nature of newspaper stories means some of them are really quite short, but I enjoyed that about the collection – they were in and out and didn’t outstay their welcome if that makes sense. There are a few here that are really quite clever with nice twists that leave you surprised.
I find that short story collections can be a bit patchy – with the BLCC it can sometimes be because the stories aren’t as good as you want them to be, as opposed to there being something that’s been around a bit in them. But this is a good one with stories picked from some of the most successful of the recent BLCC authors. Here in the UK it’s definitely not the right time of year to be reading holiday stories if reading about sunshine and beaches when the weather outside is wet and cold gets you down, but personally I usefully find it a nice treat to be taken away from the worst of the weather. And last week was definitely in the worst of the weather category at times!
This one is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so it’s not on Kobo, but once it has rotated out of that it should be back on other ebook platforms. And of course it’s also available in paperback which you can get direct from the British Library bookshop where they have a three for two on the Crime Classics.
Happy Reading!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 