The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books

Martin Edwards (Editor)

The main aim of detective stories is to entertain, but the best cast a light on human behaviour, and display both literary ambition and accomplishment. Even unpretentious detective stories, written for unashamedly commercial reasons, can give us clues to the past, and give us insight into a long-vanished world that, for all its imperfections, continues to fascinate. This book, written by award-winning crime writer and president of the Detection Club, Martin Edwards, serves as a companion to the British Library's internationally acclaimed series of Crime Classics. Long-forgotten stories republished in the series have won a devoted new readership, with several titles entering the bestseller charts and sales outstripping those of highly acclaimed contemporary thrillers.

• ISBN10: 1464207240
• ISBN13: 9781464207242
• Publish Date: 1 August 2017 (first published 28 June 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Poisoned Pen Press
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Aidan Brack (Mysteries Ahoy)]

An entertaining thematic overview of crime fiction in the first half of the twentieth century. Just be aware that you will probably come away from this with a long list of obscure (and sometimes expensive) books to track down!

Read the full review at Mysteries Ahoy!

[MurderByDeath]

This is what I imagine a bibliography in narrative form would look like.  I don't know how else to describe it.  I'd go so far as to say that there's no actual 'story', as the title implies, because there doesn't seem to be a cohesive ... point (message/timeline/etc.) between chapters.  Each chapter represents some facet that Golden Age Crime books took on:  locked-room mystery, country-house mystery, political mystery, etc. and begins with the narrative bibliography of notable works.  This is followed up with 2-4 longer essays, each giving closer attention to books that the author believes best represents that facet.   None of that is to say that it wasn't excellent - it was.  But this is a book for the serious mystery lover, not a reader with a casual curiosity about the evolution of crime writing.  Or anyone trying to curb their TBR piles.  I have so many new (old) books and authors to start hunting down it's overwhelming.  I might actually have to resort to a spreadsheet; I hate spreadsheets, but there's just too many appealing treasures here and Edwards sells them up, even when he's trying not to.     I deducted a star because I found some of the writing sort of clunky (this is a cultural thing, I'm sure) but mostly because the chapter openings were just too crammed full of goodness; at times there could be as many as three titles and authors mentioned in a single sentence, with more immediately following.  It got to be too much at times and I'd catch myself just glazing over, without really taking in what I was reading.   This is definitely going to be a life-long source of reference for me, as well as a source of income for the used book sellers.