Anthologies
A collection of essays offers a celebration of fiction's greatest sleuths, including Julian Symonds writing on Sam Spade and H. R. F. Keating on Sherlock Holmes
Gathers mystery stories by Ruth Rendell, Catherine Aird, Simon Brett, Sara Paretsky, H.R.F. Keating, and Dick Francis
An anthology of crime stories commissioned by the Detection Club in celebration of Julian Symons' 80th birthday. As a tribute to Symons' contribution to the world of crime fiction, Peter Lovesey, Ruth Rendell, Antonia Fraser, Len Deighton and others have written a short story in his honour.
Fifty Best Mysteries is a who's who of mystery from the pages of the leading magazine in the field. Showcasing the best short fiction published in Ellery Queen magazine over the past sixty years, this book is a treasure trove for mystery lovers everywhere. As editor Eleanor Sullivan writes, "I took the task by decades and decided to go after solid and entertaining stories by regular and significant contributors, stories that reflected the time in which they were written and the best work being produced in that decade." To this end, Sullivan has collected an astounding array of talent, from early works by John Dickson Carr, Margery Allingham, Anthony Boucher, and Ngaio Marsh in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, to later selections by Patricia Highsmith, Robert Bloch, Ruth Rendell, Donald E. Westlake, and Simon Brett that have appeared over the past three decades.
Features interviews, essays, photographic layouts, and recommended reading lists, with contributions by such notables as Robert Bloch, Dorothy Cannell, and Bill Pronzini
Collects seventeen traditional mysteries by such contemporary writers as Marjorie Eccles, Jan Burke, Anthea Fraser, and Edward Marston
A terrifying collection of fairy tales with a wicked twist features the work of such best-selling mystery writers as Sharyn McCrumb, Joan Hess, John Lutz, and others, in stories that explore the themes of envy, jealousy, greed, spite, revenge, and death.
Most of these stories are about murder. Murder of a stranger or a relative, murder in a quiet English town or in a crowded American city. It happens everywhere, it seems, for all kinds of reasons. In these stories by some of the finest modern crime writers in English, we see what can drive a person to murder - and that trying to catch them can be complicated and extremely dangerous!
A tenth anthology celebrating the cozy mystery genre presents the work of some of today's finest mystery writers, including Agatha Award winners and nominees, such as Simon Brett, Carolyn Hart, Peter Lovesey, Anne Perry, Nancy Pickard, Margaret Maron, M. D. Lake, Susan Dunlap, K. K. Beck, and others. Original.
Fourteen masters of the mystery and suspense genre--including Jan Burke, Carolyn Hart, Simon Brett, and Edward Marston--each contribute an individual chapter to a round robin mystery about a weekend house party in a small English village that is turned upside down by murder. Reprint.
The greatest story ever told; the rise and fall of civilizations, empires, kings, despots, prophets and disciples; tales of love, betrayal, revenge, war, and disaster, the most fundamental and eternal myths and fables of Judeo-Christian society; the end of the world -the Bible has all of these. And now acclaimed mystery author Anne Perry has culled together an extraordinary list of writers—from Sharyn McCrumb, Carole Nelson Douglas, Robert Barnard, Marcia Talley, Susan Moody and Peter Lovesey to Sharan Newman, Nancy Pickard, Reginald Hill, Gillian Linscott, Simon Brett, and Peter Robinson—to contribute all new mystery and crime stories inspired by and based on these most ancient of biblical tales. From Sampson and Delilah to David and Goliath; from Mount Sinai to the Last Supper, Thou Shalt Not Kill explores the stories of the bible as chilling expressions of the most basic instincts found in the Good Book. With fifteen unique and inspired twists on the traditional mystery story, Thou Shalt Not Kill is an inimitable edition to any library.
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 original volume includes never-before-published stories from Lindsey Davis, P.D. James, Robert Barnard, Colin Dexter, John Harvey, Reginald Hill, Peter Lovesey, and others, as well as an introduction and history of the Detection Club from the current Club president Simon Brett. This outstanding collection is a true must-have volume for mystery lovers around the world.
Leading crime critic Maxim Jakubowski presents this year's must-have collection of British mystery fiction.
Originally published a decade ago and now expanded, this book is a homage to the greatest detective story writer of the 20th century, an Anglo-American who took Los Angeles, his adopted home, off the road maps and into the land of legend. For Raymond Chandler, who died in 1959, his literary descendants will do just about anything, and that includes contributing to an anthology honoring him. Thus, in here we find the likes of Sara Paretsky, Robert Crais, Loren D. Estleman, Jonathan Valin, Robert Campbell, Eric Van Lustbader, Simon Brett, Julie Smith, Jeremiah Healy, Roger L. Simon, James Grady, and numerous others creating stories in the style of Chandler and in the voice of Marlowe. But, as editor Byron Preiss remarks, "The contributors of this book are here to honor Chandler, not to steal from him." He also says, "Many would not be the writers they are had not Chandler followed Hammett and Cain down the back alley of fiction into the realm of art." That's certainly a succinctly expressive summation. Moreover, today the idea of the "mean streets" that Chandler wished the best heroes to traverse is one that has, perhaps more than ever before, seized the imagination of the public when it comes to popular entertainment. What's old is new again, as they say, and in this case that means noir. In an introduction by Robert B. Parker--who himself finished the incomplete Chandler novel Poodle Springs (1990)--we learn the essentials of Chandler's life (the British public school education, the wife who was 18 years older than he, etc.). But in the stories essayed here we get the effects of an imagined world that has become an entire universe. Among the many included are tales of the Thelma Todd murder scandal by Max Allan Collins; of Dr. Seuss's missing watercolors by Robert L. Simon; of a pro wrestler called The Crusher by Jonathan Valin; and of the ancient jeweled skull that was the inspiration for Hammett's Maltese Falcon by Dick Lochte. Two new stories, not in the earlier edition of this volume, are by Simon, creator of Moses Wine, and J. Madison Davis, the author of Red Knight and White Rook and president of the North American Association of International Crime Writers. Finally, there is an afterword by Chandler scholar and biographer Frank McShane. And, yes, the real Raymond Chandler is here too, represented by the story "The Pencil," in which that particular writing instrument turns out to be one gift you never want to receive. This book is not quite the real thing; it can't be. But it's as close as you could hope to find. --Otto Penzler From Library Journal Philip Marlowe is arguably the most popular and influential character in American hard-boiled detective fiction. There is a little bit of the wise-cracking, incorruptible Marlowe in just about every detective that followed since he made his debut in Chandler's The Big Sleep in 1939. To commemorate Chandler's 1988 centenary, 25 of today's top mystery writers, e.g., Max Allan Collins, Sara Paretsky, and Loren Estleman, offer their take on Marlowe. The collection is nicely capped with Chandler's own last Marlowe story, "The Pencil." Marlowe's popularity has waned very little, so this should circulate well.
To celebrate the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Jubilee, a collection of original stories from distinguished members of the CWA especially commissioned for this volume An eclectic collection of short stories from the following members of the CWA: SIMON BRETT ANN CLEEVES LIZA CODY LINDSEY DAVIS MARTIN EDWARDS RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS CHRISTOPHER FOWLER JOHN HARVEY DAVID HEWSON ALISON JOSEPH PETER LOVESEY CLAIRE McGOWAN MICHAEL RIDPATH PETER ROBINSON CATH STAINCLIFFE ANDREW TAYLOR CHARLES TODD MARGARET YORKE
Investigate the killer plots of twenty mysteries - nearly all specially commissioned and all with a literary flavour - published in honour of Heffers and independent bookshops everywhere. Chase down the criminals in new stories featuring Carole & Jude, Gary Goodhew, the Good Thief, and the redoubtable Baroness 'Jack' Troutbeck, by their respective creators: Simon Brett, Alison Bruce, Chris Ewan and Ruth Dudley Edwards.
The Floating Admiral was the first of the Detection Club’s collaborative novels, in which twelve of its members wrote a single novel. Eighty-five years later, fourteen members of the club have once again collaborated to produce The Sinking Admiral. ‘The Admiral’ is a pub in the Suffolk seaside village of Crabwell, The Admiral Byng. ‘The Admiral’ is also the nickname of its landlord, Geoffrey Horatio Fitzsimmons, as well as the name of the landlord’s dinghy. None of them are as buoyant as they should be, for the pub is threatened with closure due to falling takings. Tempers are already frayed due to the arrival of a television documentary team when Fitzsimmons is found dead in his tethered boat. The villagers assume a simple case of suicide and fear that their debt-ridden pub will now sink without trace. The journalists seem determined to finish the job by raking up old skeletons, but they weren’t banking on the fact that this story has been written by 14 extremely competitive crime writers – arch bamboozlers who will stop at nothing to save a good pub. The Sinking Admiral, edited by the Detection Club’s outgoing President – author and broadcaster Simon Brett, OBE – continues a tradition established by the Detection Club’s founders in 1931 when Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Crofts and eleven other esteemed authors wrote The Floating Admiral, a ‘collaborative novel’ to challenge themselves, fox their readers and help to pay for the Club’s running costs. Now, 85 years later, 14 of today’s leading crime writers have repeated this unique game of literary consequences, producing an original, ebullient and archetypal whodunit that will keep readers guessing right up to what crime lovers insist on calling the dénouement… The contributors to The Sinking Admiral are: SIMON BRETT KATE CHARLES NATASHA COOPER STELLA DUFFY MARTIN EDWARDS RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS TIM HEALD MICHAEL JECKS JANET LAURENCE PETER LOVESEY MICHAEL RIDPATH DAVID ROBERTS L.C. TYLER LAURA WILSON all members of The Detection Club.
"Edwards and Muller have assembled top-notch talent in this entertaining anthology of 20 original short stories... High-quality entries from the likes of Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, and Ian Rankin, as well as from lesser-known authors such as Bill Beverly, elevate this above similar volumes."― Publishers Weekly The twenty brand new crime stories in this book have been specially commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of CrimeFest, described by the Guardian as "one of the 50 best festivals in the world." Contributors come from around the world and include the legendary Maj Sjöwall who, together with partner Per Wahlöö, was the originator of Nordic noir. The editors are Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller. Martin Edwards is responsible for many award-winning anthologies and Adrian Muller is one of the co-founders of CrimeFest. Contributors to Ten Year Stretch are: Bill Beverly, Simon Brett, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Peter Guttridge, Sophie Hannah, John Harvey, Mick Herron, Donna Moore, Caro Ramsay, Ian Rankin, James Sallis, Zoë Sharp, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Maj Sjöwall, Michael Stanley and Andrew Taylor.
Join us for a summer holiday to die for ... For most of us, a summer holiday is an opportunity to escape from it all: to lounge on warm sands or sip a cool drink in the shade of a city square. But, as the characters in this murderously good collection of classic crime stories discover to their cost ... trouble has a nasty habit of finding you out. From a body found on a beach without a single footprint, to a lemonade stand whose wares appear to have been poisoned and a Wimbledon final ruined by the mysterious disappearance of the championship player, these tales of murder and malice will take you on the trip of a lifetime. So pour that glass of Pimms, grab your sunhat and indulge your dark side: these stories will chill you to your very core, even in a heatwave ...
Members of the Detection Club, the most prestigious group of crime writers in the world, celebrate the eightieth birthday of their former president – the original king of cozy crime, Simon Brett – with this stunning collection of all-new short stories. A long-married crime-writing couple plot murder most horrid, with a jaw-dropping twist . . . A group of school friends dig up a long-buried dark secret . . . A widower joins a local amdram society, with surprisingly dramatic results . . . A deranged fan stalks a celebrated TV personality . . . An online romance turns sour . . . and much, much more. From police procedurals to the sharpest satire, from historical mystery to dark and twisted chillers, these twenty-two original tales, written by some of Britain’s most remarkable bestselling authors, are essential reading for crime and mystery fans. With stories by Abir Mukherjee , Aline Templeton , Alison Joseph , Andrew Taylor , Ann Cleeves , Catherine Aird, Christopher Fowler , David Stuart Davies , Elly Griffiths , Frances Brody , John Harvey , Kate Ellis , L.C. Tyler , Liza Cody , Lynne Truss , Martin Edwards , Michael Jecks , Michael Ridpath , Michael Z. Lewin , Peter Lovesey , Ruth Dudley Edwards – and last, but very much not least, Simon Brett , who’s brought back his much-loved amateur sleuth, washed-up actor Charles Paris, to tread the boards once again.