The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books

Starred review from April 17, 2017
Written as a companion to the British Library’s Crime Classics series of reprints, this descriptive critical catalogue of 100 crime and mystery novels (mostly British) published in the first half of the 20th century is irresistible for aficionados and a reliable reading list for newcomers. Edwards’ picks, most published during detective fiction’s golden age between the two world wars, range chronologically from Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) to Julian Symons’s The 31st of February (1950) and include, in addition to many of the usual suspects, a few outliers sure to enliven debates among diehard fans. He groups his selections into 24 chapters that cover numerous aspects of the literature—the great detectives, the fair-play mystery (epitomized by Ronald Knox’s The Body in the Silo), the miraculous or locked-room mystery (a specialty of John Dickson Carr), country house and manor murder mysteries, and so on—and whose ordering shows classic tropes giving way to newer approaches more resonant with modern times. A crime novelist in his own right, Edwards (The Golden Age of Murder) brings a specialist’s discerning eye to discussions of each book’s significance, and without giving away key plot points. This is an exemplary reference book sure to lead readers to gems of mystery and detective fiction.

June 1, 2017
An "unashamedly idiosyncratic" checklist from prolific novelist/editor/genre historian Edwards (The Dungeon House, 2015, etc.).As readers will expect from the editor of the British Library Crime Classics series, the lion's share of these 100 brief program notes, which read like a collection of prefaces, concern mystery novels published in England between the world wars. In addition to dozens of inescapably obvious titles from The Hound of the Baskervilles to Strangers on a Train, Edwards, determined to share "new discoveries" even with the most well-read fans of the genre, includes warmly appreciative, brief essays on neglected classics like Roy Horniman's Israel Rank, Bernard Capes' The Skeleton Key, C.H.B. Kitchin's Birthday Party, Milward Kennedy's Death to the Rescue, and Sebastian Farr's Death on the Down Beat. Although the scenic, thematic organization of chapters like "Murder at the Manor," "Playing Politics," and "Fiction from Fact" makes the book read more like geography than history and often seems to dictate odd choices--e.g., Michael Innes' Death at the President's Lodging instead of his much better known Hamlet, Revenge! or Lament for a Maker--the coverage is impressive. Of the major golden-age British writers, only Georgette Heyer is notably absent, and even she makes a cameo as the model for a fictional character. Devoted American readers may wonder why Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse made the cut but not Mary Roberts Rinehart or the "wildly popular" Philo Vance novels by S.S. Van Dine, which hew much more closely to golden-age models. The quality of individual commentaries naturally varies, but for every pedestrian plod like the entry for J.S. Fletcher's The Middle Temple Murder, there are three sharp evocations like those of A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, Rupert Penny's She Had to Have Gas, and Helen Simpson's Vantage Striker. Even the most quarrelsome readers, their blood pressures duly raised, will take comfort in comprehensive indexes that list titles and authors that didn't make the top 100.

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