RANDOM JOTTINGS

Martin Edward's book The Golden Age of Murder is being published in May 2015 and I have just finished it and can tell you it is simply brilliant. If you are a crime aficionado then you simply HAVE to own this book and that is that. I have spoken.

Martin is my guest blogger today and it is a privilege to have him visiting Random. Here is what he has to say and please note that I actually had a hand in helping Martin in his research. If I was tweeting this I would add #thrilled to bits.

"I’m delighted that Elaine has been kind enough to host a guest blog post from me about my book The Golden Age of Murder, which Harper Collins are just about to publish in the UK and US. It’s only right that I should take the opportunity to thank her, not just for allowing me to trespass on this terrific blog (suffice to say that I share Elaine’s interest in sport, her fond recollections of the BBC’s The Count of Monte Cristo, and much else besides) but also for some practical help that she gave me in writing the book.

My book is a sort of literary mystery story. For years, I’ve been intrigued by Golden Age writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and the less well-remembered Henry Wade, and I’ve long believed that many of the critical commentaries fail to do justice to their books. But I’m also intrigued by the authors’ relationships with each other. This is a subject that previous books about the crime genre have ignored altogether, but I don’t understand why. I find it utterly fascinating, and I hope readers of The Golden Age of Murder will agree.

When the gifted but troubled Anthony Berkeley formed the Detection Club in 1930, it was meant to be an elite social network of authors who wrote to a high standard. The Club became the first serious association of crime writers to be formed anywhere in the world, and achieved great renown. And the people who became members were at least as interesting as – and, I’d argue, even more mysterious than – the books they wrote.

Take Berkeley, for instance. He was the author of dazzling detective novels such as the very clever The Poisoned Chocolates Case. Agatha Christie herself rhapsodised about his brilliance. Not content with writing whodunits, under the name Francis Iles, he became a pioneer of the psychological crime novel, with books such as Malice Aforethought and Before the Fact. I discovered that he found unexpected inspiration, and also some torment, in his dealings with E.M. Delafield, now remembered today as the witty author of The Diary of a Provincial Lady.

Whilst I was researching Delafield, I came across Elaine’s mention, on this very blog, of Love Has No Resurrection. This is a book of short stories that I’ve never actually seen, but feeling rather like Hercule Poirot (whom I don’t otherwise resemble!) I deduced, from a brief account elsewhere, that the plot of a story in it, called “They Don’t Wear Labels” might cast some light on Delafield’s strange connection with Berkeley.

Does this sound like a very long shot? I suppose it was, but sometimes long shots hit the target. Elaine very kindly sent me the story, and I indulged in some literary sleuthing that yielded a very thought-provoking pointer to a central mystery in Delafield’s personal life. In putting together the various clues that I uncovered over the years, I came up with a theory about her life that has escaped her previous biographers. And it fitted in perfectly with the narrative arc of The Golden Age of Murder.

“They Don’t Wear Labels” is, on its own merits, a fine story, and I was so taken with it that I included it in Capital Crimes, my collection of London-based short stories published recently as part of the British Library’s lovely series of Crime Classics.  So I – and readers of that collection – have Elaine to thank for that, too (SO excited about this…Elaine)

The Golden Age of Murder covers a great deal of ground, and ranges far beyond discussion of Delafield and Berkeley. But that part of the book is one that I’ve especially enjoyed putting together, not least because I enjoyed playing the detective myself. It’s something I have in common with Sayers, Christie and other Detection Club members. As I’ve described in the book, they did much more detective work themselves than has widely been recognised. But that’s another story…"

The Berkeley/Delafield link is particularly fascinating, not such a Provincial Lady after all. I shall have to reread it now and look out for the clues that Martin has mentioned.

Intrigued? So you should be and, I will say once again, this is a terrific book and kept me pinned to the sofa the other day while I read and read and read. I shall be reviewing more fully at a later date.

My thanks to Martin Edwards for visiting Random Jottings.