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		Edwards, Martin, 1955-

	Subjects
		Detection Club.
		Mystery fiction -- History and criticism.
		Mystery fiction, English -- History and criticism.
		Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism.
		Detective and mystery stories, English -- Bio-bibliography.
		Popular literature -- History and criticism.
		English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
		Novelists, English -- Biography.
		Murder in literature.
		Crime in literature.

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		Edwards, Martin, 1955-

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		Edwards, Martin, 1955-
		Detection Club.
		Mystery fiction -- History and criticism.
		Mystery fiction, English -- History and criticism.
		Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism.
		Detective and mystery stories, English -- Bio-bibliography.
		Popular literature -- History and criticism.
		English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
		Novelists, English -- Biography.
		Murder in literature.
		Crime in literature.


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

by Edwards, Martin, 1955-

View full image

HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015.

Detection Club.

Mystery fiction -- History and criticism.

Mystery fiction, English -- History and criticism.

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

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

Popular literature -- History and criticism.

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

Novelists, English -- Biography.

Murder in literature.

Crime in literature.

9780008105969 (hc.)

0008105960 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Murder : the mystery of the writers who invented the modern detective story

xxiv, 481 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Includes facsimile reproductions of the 1932 Constitution and Rules of the Detection Club (pages 441-447).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 449-457) and indexes.

Part one: the unusual suspects. The ritual in the dark ; A bitter sin ; Conversations about a hanged woman ; 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 hear 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. 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 -- 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 -- Part seven: unravelling the mysteries. Murder goes on forever.

"A real-life detective story, investigating how Agatha Christie and colleagues in a mysterious literary club transformed crime fiction, writing books casting new light on unsolved murders whilst hiding clues to their authors' darkest secrets. The story of the Detection Club, a mysterious social network of crime writers. The Detection Club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, John Rhode, Jessie Rickard, Baroness Emma Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, G. D. H. Cole, Margaret Cole, E. C. Bentley, Henry Wade, and H. C. Bailey. The first president was G. K. Chesterton and the club held regular dinner meetings in London. This is the astonishing story of how members such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers reinvented detective fiction. Detective stories from the so-called "Golden Age" between the wars are often dismissed as being too cosy and conventional. Nothing could be further from the truth: some explore forensic pathology and shocking serial murders, others delve into police brutality and miscarriages of justice; occasionally the innocent are hanged, or murderers get away scot-free. Their authors faced up to the economic depression and the rise of Hitler, and wrote books agonising over guilt and innocence, good and evil, and explored whether killing a fellow human being was ever justified. Though the stories included no graphic sex scenes, sexual passions of all kinds seethed just beneath the surface. Attracting feminists, gay and lesbian writers, Socialists and Marxist sympathisers, the Detection Club authors were young, ambitious and at the cutting edge of popular culture -- some had sex lives as bizarre as their mystery plots. Fascinated by real life crimes, they cracked unsolved cases and threw down challenges to Scotland Yard, using their fiction to take revenge on people who hurt them, to conduct covert relationships, and even as an outlet for homicidal fantasy. Their books anticipated not only CSI, Jack Reacher and Gone Girl, but also Lord of the Flies. The Club occupies a unique place in Britain's cultural history, and its influence on storytelling in fiction, film and television throughout the world continues to this day"--Provided by publisher.

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