Anything for a Quiet Life (short story collection)

Upon publication, Kirkus Reviews found it to be:A charming collection of nine stories.... None of these stories is particularly noteworthy for the mystery it presents, but, taken together, they offer a wry commentary on English-village attitudes toward gypsies, Londoners, foreigners, holidayers, tradesmen, country gentry, business partnerships, farmers, small-town nabobs, and the relative discomfort that exists between the police and members of the legal profession.... A companionable way to while away the time... and a clear pleasure for partisans of the cozy.

[7]There are three other main characters, his partner, Sabrina Mountjoy; their secretary, Claire Easterbrook; and a general handyman, Sam Conybeare, "a mountain of a man who had once performed remarkable feats of strength and daring in a circus."

In Holy Writ, for instance, a deranged but nevertheless sympathetically portrayed parson is only narrowly prevented by Pickett and Sam Conybeare from killing his trusting young son in emulation of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

In the final story, The Freedom Folk, an encampment of squatters refuses to heed a warning from Pickett and is carried away to the sea by a flash flood; the fairgrounds strongman, Conybeare, heroically manages to save six of them from the waters, but the other 70 are drowned.

In the second story, there is a small role for Chief Superintendent Morrisey, head of the London District Regional Crime Squad, a character in a number of works by Gilbert.