“The Mammoth Book…” series is a well-curated set of themed anthologies, sometimes comprising mostly new stories and sometimes with more reprints than originals; the current volume, “The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, Volume 2,” contains 22 stories set from Roman times to roughly the mid-1600s, most original to this volume. As with any such anthology, each reader will have his/her favourites: mine include Steven Saylor’s “Poppy and the Poisoned Cake,” the only reprint here; “The Last Legion,” by Richard Butler, depicting murder within the precincts of the last Roman legion, about to leave Britain; a new entry in Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma series, in which she investigates the death of a scholar/monk; Susan Gregory’s “The Death Toll,” about a dispute along the Welsh Marches as to who is empowered to collect tolls from a nearby ford, a dispute leading to death; “The Amorous Armourer,” by Michael Jecks, featuring Keeper of the King’s Peace Sir Baldwin, who must determine whether the new, foppish Coroner is guilty of murder; Mat Coward’s “And What Can They Sow, or What Reasons Give?”, set during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and my favourite in the whole book; “House of the Moon,” by Claire Griffen, set first in Venice and then in Istanbul in 1503, and featuring a Borgia spy; and Paul Finch’s novella, “Flibbertigibbet,” which has a serial killer stalking the Southwark Stews in 1581 during the reign of Elizabeth I (squeamish readers should be warned that explicit violence and Elizabethan methods of torture are described in detail here). Once again, Mr. Ashley provides lively and interesting introductions to each story, and all of them are well-told and well worth the reading for anyone interested in historical mystery fiction; recommended! ( )