The golden age of murder : the mystery of the writers who invented the modern detective story / Martin Edwards.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edwards, Martin, 1955- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Detection Club.

Detective and mystery stories, English--History and criticism.

Detective and mystery stories, English.

Detective and mystery stories, English--Bio-bibliography.

English fiction--20th century--Bio-bibliography.

English fiction.

Novelists, English--Biography.

Novelists, English.

Murder in literature.

English fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Genre:

bibliographies.

Bio-bibliographies.

Biographies.

Literary criticism.

Bibliographies.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 573 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 22 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Paperback edition, revised and expanded.

Place of Publication:

London : Collins Crime Club, 2025.

Summary:

"A gripping real-life detective story, The Golden Age of Murder investigates how Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie and their contemporaries both competed and collaborated to turn the genre into a literary powerhouse that still dominates popular fiction today. Written in times of social and political turmoil, their books cast new light on unsolved murders whilst hiding clues to the authors' darkest secrets and their complex and sometimes bizarre private lives. Ten years since its first publication, Martin Edwards - now the Detection Club's President and author of subsequent award-winning publications including Howdunit and the monumental The Life of Crime - revisits the story with major updates, new revelations and four brand new chapters that no crime connoisseur will want to miss" -- Back cover.

Contents:

Part one : The unusual suspects. The ritual in the dark

A bitter sin

Conversations about a hanged woman

The mystery of the silent pool

A Bolshevik soul in a Fabian muzzle

Wearing their criminological spurs

The art of self-tormenting

Part two : The rules of the game. Setting a good example to the Mafia

The Fungus-story and the meaning of life

Wistful plans for killing off wives

The least likely person

The best advertisement in the world

Part three : Looking to escape. 'Human life's the cheapest thing there is'

Echoes of war

Murder, transvestism and suicide during a trapeze act

A severed head in a fish-bag

'Have you heard of sexual perversions?'

Clearing up the mess

What it means to be stuck for money

Neglecting Demosthenes in favour of Freud

Part four : Taking on the police. Playing games with Scotland Yard

Why was the shift put in the boiler-hole?

Trent's very last case

A coffin entombed in a crypt of granite

Part five : Justifying murder. The heady liquor of ambition

Knives engraved with 'blood and honour'

Touching with a fingertip the fringe of great events

Collecting murderers

No judge or jury but my own conscience

Every ridge and notch of the blue outlines

Part six : The end game. Playing the grandest game in the world

The work of a pestilential creature

Frank to the point of indecency

Shocked by the brethren

The home of lost corpses

Moments of violence

Part seven : Unravelling the mysteries. Murder goes on forever

Constitution and rules of the Detection Club.

Notes:

Originally published: London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015.

"Fully revised and expanded"--Title page.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 539-548) and index.

ISBN:

9780008708948

0008708940

OCLC:

1518000677

Publisher Number:

CIPO000200587