Book Review: "Detectives, Inc: A Mystery Story for Boys" (1935) by William Heyliger
A serviceable collection of mystery stories with a twist.
*Detectives, Inc: A Mystery Story for Boys* is actually quite an odd name for this book. "Detectives, Inc" isn't mentioned in the text in any way; the stories are about a retired police surgeon who solves mysteries that fall into his lap. And it's not *one* story, but **eight**. About the only thing that makes sense is that the stories are, indeed, for boys. Although the writing is relatively sophisticated in some ways for modern boys, I suspect, at least when it comes to vocabulary.
The twist, such as it is, is that the detective in this case is blind. We never find *how* he became blind (at least not in this book), but he's blind, retired, and has a seeing-eye dog - which was apparently a relatively new thing back then, as the book begins with a detailed explanation of seeing-eye dogs and how they help their humans.
The detective, Dr. Stone, is primarily helped by his dog Lady. But his young nephew Joe comes along for every adventure. The stories are primarily told from his point of view, but not in first person. The writing is solid and readable, but nowhere near as memorable as Heyliger's "You're On the Air". The mysteries are...okay. Not bad, but not brilliant. I guessed some things correctly in advance, but not *everything*. In terms of sheer cleverness, though, they're nowhere near on the level of Jacques Futrelle's *The Thinking Machine* stories. Servicable, not brilliant.
You can download *Detectives, Inc* free in all the major ebook formats from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44249
There are also two other books of his there that you can download. I'd recommend *You're On the Air*.
In a fractional system I'd give this book 3.4 stars out of five.
⭐⭐⭐
https://bookwyrm.social/user/BobQuasit/review/9577957/s/a-serviceable-collection-of-mystery-stories-with-a-twist#anchor-9577957
#Books #Bookstodon #BookReview #Review #Mystery #YA