Everything's been in a bit of a whirl since I got home from New Zealand, and it's only today that I'm getting round to celebrating my latest publication. This is Playing Dead, an anthology of brand new short stories written by members of the Detection Club to raise funds for the Club (all contributors kindly donated their work for this purpose) and to celebrate this year's 80th birthday of our President Emeritus, Simon Brett.
Simon was my predecessor as President of the Club, and he's been extremely supportive of me since I took over from him in the latter part of 2015 - almost a decade ago, how time flies! I felt that a book of this kind (we did something similar to celebrate Peter Lovesey's 80th, and there were earlier collections to celebrate Julian Symons and H.R.F. Keating before I joined the Club) was the ideal way for us to express our appreciation of Simon.
Many of the contributors referenced Simon and his wide range of works in their stories. I did so myself in 'Sanctuary', a jokey homage to classic crime. There are stories with a political edge (of very different kinds) from Ruth Dudley Edwards and Abir Mukherjee, and a wide range of excellent, imaginative contributions from writers as different as Lynne Truss and Andrew Taylor. Peter may have given up writing novels, but his story is superb. John Harvey gives us a Charlie Resnick story, much to my delight. There is a bittersweet element to the book, however. Three of the contributors, David Stuart Davies, Catherine Aird, and Christopher Fowler, are no longer with us. But their stories are wonderful reminders of their talents.
Simon's contribution is twofold. There is a long and excellent new Charles Paris mystery, a story to be savoured. And he has included his memories of membership of the Club, which are wickedly entertaining and not to be missed.
This is a book I'm proud to have produced, following my previous Detection Club books, Motives for Murder and Howdunit.. Early reviews have been great, and I'm hugely grateful to all the Club members who helped to make this one of the Club's best collections of stories.