DETECTIVE AND MYSTERY · SHORT
The Detection Club
Also known as: "Detection Club", Detection Club.
Most acclaimed
Ask A Policeman
Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country house poses a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours before his death, Lord Comstock’s visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all and threatens the impartiality of any police investigation. Abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four famous detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham. All are different, all are plausible, all are on their own – and none of them can ask a policeman... To produce this classic whodunit, the Detection Club adopted a completely new approach: Milward Kennedy proposed the title, John Rhode plotted the murder and provided the suspects, and four of their contemporaries were asked to lend their well-known detectives to the task of providing solutions to the crime. But there was to be another twist: the authors would swap detectives and use the characters in their sections of the book. Thus Gladys Mitchell and Helen Simpson swapped Mrs Bradley and Sir John Saumarez, and Dorothy Sayers and Anthony Berkeley swapped Lord Peter Wimsey and Roger Sheringham, enabling the authors to indulge in skilful and sly parodies of each other. The contributors are: John Rhode, Helen Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Milward Kennedy.
The Detection Collection
The Detection Club is the oldest and most exclusive crime writing organization and it has always represented the cream of British crime writing talent. The founding and early members were amongst the most famous and best loved figures in the golden age - Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesteron, Dorothy Sayers, John Dickson Carr (the only American ever to be a member) among others - and membership remains by invitation only. Now to celebrate the impending seventy-fifth anniversary of The Detection Club, its members have produced The Detection Collection - a collection of eleven new stories from the best and the brightest in the British crime field. This outstanding collection is a must for crime lovers everywhere. The Part-Time Job by P.D. James Partnership Track by Michael Ridpath A Toothbrush by H.R.F. Keating The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars by John Harvey 'Going Anywhere Nice? by Lindsey Davis Between the Lines by Colin Dexter The Life-Lie by Robert Barnard The Woman From Marlow by Margaret Yorke Toupee for a Bald Tyre by Robert Goddard The Holiday by Clare Francis Fool of Myself by Reginald Hill The Detection Club: a brief history by Simon Brett
The Verdict of Us All
Seventeen Detection Club colleagues join together to create a surprise 80th birthday tribute to H.R.F. Keating that may be the most unusual festschrift ever assembled. Practically every contributor has chosen to memorialize a particular aspect of Inspector Ghote’s creator. Lionel Davidson focuses on his birthday celebration, Tim Heald his beard, Liza Cody his fascination with Hindu mythology, Catherine Aird a second-hand encounter with Keating in the south of France, editor Lovesey his hobby of “popping round to the post,” Len Deighton (in his first short story in 30 years) his passion for Sherlock Holmes. Robert Barnard takes off from Keating’s dislike of airports; Jonathan Gash sets a romantic triangle on a ship out of Bombay; June Thomson inscribes a dying message inspired by Keating; P.D. James traces the impact of a Ghote novel on a murder at school; and James Melville recalls Keating’s charlady/sleuth Emma Craggs. Thinly disguised versions of Keating are suspects in the stories of Reginald Hill, Colin Dexter and Michael Z. Lewin. In honor of Keating’s verse novel Jack the Lady Killer, Simon Brett supplies a short story in verse. Andrew Taylor and Michael Hartland venture further afield before Sheila Keating concludes the volume with a reprint of her husband’s “Arkady Nikolaivich.” --Kirkus review