The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books - the cover and the first review...

 

It really is a great thrill for me to be able to give advance notice of the publication (in July in the UK, August in the US) of my new book, The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, published by the British Library.

The first thing for me to say is that although the book covers some of the same ground as The Golden Age of Murder, it's very different in approach, and in almost every other respect. It's not a list, not even a collection of personal favourites. The clue is in the title - I wanted here to tell a story.

I've invested a lot of time and effort in this book, so naturally I'm anxious about how it will be received. The Golden Age of Murder is perhaps, quite a hard act for me to follow. 

So you will appreciate that I was excited (and relieved, let's be honest) when Publishers' Weekly in the US gave the book one of its prized "starred reviews" the other day. It's a great way for the story of this particular book to begin. 

And it's such a nice review, perhaps I'll be forgiven for quoting it in full:

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.