A series of short story gems with a single theme. Excellent reading! Thank you, David. (TheBookworm, Manchester, UK). Great stories and a fine reader! TheBookworm 2008-04-25 05:01:14 2008-04-25 05:01:14 5 In "The Club of Queer Trades" the detective, Rupert Grant, is a Sherlock Holmes-like private eye who investigates crimes and chases crooks with great self-assuredness in his powers of deduction. But he is always wrong. The hero of these stories is not Rupert, but his older brother, Basil Grant, a retired judge. In each case, Basil proves to Rupert hat there has been no crime and no crooks! The stories are funny and entertaining and they are very well read by David Barnes. Many thanks for this excellent performance. A lively recording Philippe Horak 2008-05-11 13:14:57 2008-05-11 13:14:57 5 This may start off a little slow, but it is well worth staying with and listening to all of the stories. They all seem to have a twist which reminded me of the title. The Club of Queer Trades trail_runnr 2008-07-19 19:21:28 2008-07-19 19:21:28 4 Great book! Summary Apt411 2009-02-22 04:51:30 2009-02-21 04:58:17 5 This is an anti-Sherlock Holmes collection of detective stories. The Honorable Justice Basil Grant is everything that Holms is not, good humored, intuitive, and compassionate and more than a bit nutty. It is quite witty. It is riddled with perceptive criticism and observations about modern life which I found very relevant even today although it was written more than a century ago. I would say it is good not great. The main fault lies in the predictability of the stories which is inevitable given the central conceit of the collection. So to that extent it does not work so well as a mystery. But as parody, humor, wit and social criticism it excels. anti-Sherlock Holmes Marc4UCB 2009-05-14 17:33:59 2009-05-14 17:30:49 4 5 4.60