The Golden Age of Murder
Winner of the 2016 EDGAR, AGATHA, MACAVITY and H.R.F.KEATING crime writing awards, this real-life detective story investigates how Agatha Christie and colleagues in a mysterious literary club transformed crime fiction.Detective stories of the Twenties and Thirties have long been stereotyped as cosily conventional. Nothing could be further from the truth.The Golden Age of Murder tells for the first time the extraordinary story of British detective fiction between the two World Wars. A gripping real-life detective story, it investigates how Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie and their colleagues in the mysterious Detection Club transformed crime fiction. Their work cast new light on unsolved murders whilst hiding clues to their authors’ darkest secrets, and their complex and sometimes bizarre private lives.Crime novelist and current Detection Club President Martin Edwards rewrites the history of crime fiction with unique authority, transforming our understanding of detective stories, and the brilliant but tormented men and women who wrote them.
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Published by Collins Crime Club
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Martin Edwards 2015
Jacket illustration © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2015
Martin Edwards asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008105969
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008105976
Version: 2015-04-20
To the members of the Detection Club, past and present.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Members of the Detection Club elected 1930–49
Author Gallery
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
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
Appendices
Constitution and Rules of the Detection Club
Bibliography
Index
Index of Titles
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
The origins of my quest to solve the mysteries of the Detection Club date back to when I was eight years old. A rich American called John L. Snyder II, who retired to the picturesque Cheshire village of Great Budworth after making a fortune in Hollywood, hosted the annual summer fete at his country house, Sandicroft. He decided to show a film in a marquee in Sandicroft’s extensive grounds – and set about pulling strings with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A remarkably persuasive man, Snyder secured permission to present the world premiere of MGM’s brand new movie, Murder Most Foul.
This stranger-than-fiction initiative guaranteed publicity in the local and national Press. Snyder’s ambition was demonstrated by his search for a celebrity to open the fete. He began by approaching Brigitte Bardot, but when Brigitte declared herself unavailable (did this surprise him? I wonder), he changed tack and recruited the star of the film – Margaret Rutherford. My family lived near Great Budworth, and my parents took me to the fete as a birthday treat. So many people wanted to go that it was impossible to drive there. A fleet of coaches bussed everyone to Sandicroft.
I can still picture that afternoon among the crowds under the July sun. And I remember the excitement as a noisy helicopter circled overhead, coming in to land on a cleared patch of lawn before disgorging Margaret Rutherford, alias Miss Jane Marple. After much queuing, we squeezed into a showing of the film. Already I loved reading and writing stories, but this was my first exposure to Agatha Christie, and I was thrilled by the confection of clues and red herrings, suspects and surprises. I went home in a daze, dreaming that one day I would concoct a story that fascinated others as this light-hearted murder puzzle had fascinated me. I soon discovered the film bore little resemblance to the novel on which it was based, but that didn’t matter. I was hooked.
