The Man Who Solved Mysteries: More Short Fiction by William Brittain

edited by Josh Pachter

Given the success of The Man Who Read Mysteries: The Short Fiction of William Brittain, I I proposed a second volume of my old friend Bill's short crime stories, this one to include all of the Mr. Strang stories that didn't appear in the original book.

Everyone -- meaning Bill's widow Ginny plus Jeff Marks and Doug Greene at Crippen & Landru -- agreed, and we began compiling the stories for editing. That proved to be challenging, given library closures during the COVID pandemic, but nevertheless we persisted, and I was finally able to deliver a complete manuscript to C&L.

Jeff commissioned the talented Gail Azdid -- who also created the cover for Read -- to do one for Solved, and she and Jeff and I went back and forth several times and wound up with another lovely illustration. (I caught a factual error on what was originally presented as the final version of the cover, and we shared that one on social media and offered a free copy of the book to the first person to correctly identify the mistake. After a dozen or so people guessed incorrectly, Dan Napolitano finally came up with the right answer. If you'd like to compare the incorrect version with the corrected final version, they're both over at the left side of this page, with the corrected final version at the top and the incorrect version below it.)

The book came out in February of 2022, and you can order a copy directly from Crippen & Landru.

A third volume, to be titled The Man Who Wrote Mysteries: The Rest of Brittain, will include all of Bill's nonseries stories, and is in the works for publication in 2025.

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