Seldom has a book received a more appropriate title. Arthur Conan Doyle was a miraculously gifted tale-teller. He combines a remarkably vivid imagination with a mastery of narrative technique that puts him absolutely in the front rank of fictioneers. The stories in this collection present a diverse sampling of his skills: science fiction (“The Horror of the Heights”, “When the World Screamed”), detection (two classic Sherlock Holmes entries, “Silver Blaze”, and “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, which, with indisputable internal evidence I can prove must be attributed to a narrator other than Dr. John Watson), swashbuckling comedy (two tales of Brigadier Gerard, one of the most risible of unreliable narrators), and a dandy boxing story “The Croxley Master”, which leads off the compilation. I am lost in admiration, and could go on and on. Let me simply note the marvel of how Doyle is able to camouflage the absurdity of the conceit at the center of “When the World Screamed” by distracting the reader’s attention through expert characterization and an adroit use of technical detail. For any reader who knows Doyle only as the creator of Holmes, this book is a fine introduction to what lies beyond the Sherlockian canon. ( )