News about The Life of Crime and The Golden Age of Murder

I'm delighted to bring exciting news. Well, exciting to me, anyway! I'm happy to announce not one but two new editions of my most successful non-fiction books, both published by HarperCollins. First, I'm glad to say that the paperback edition of The Life of Crime, due to appear in May, has been expanded very significantly (not that it was a slim volume to begin with). The paperback is about 7000 words longer than the hardback, with the result that more than 200 additional authors and works have been included. 

A book as wide-ranging as The Life of Crime ,which covers the whole history of crime fiction across the globe, can never cover every single author of note, of course, but I've always been keen that it should be as representative as possible. So I'm hugely grateful to my editor David Brawn for agreeing to the update as well as for his splendid work on updating the indexes (a big task, believe me). 

You may wonder why I've undertaken this extra work. The hardback received a fantastic reception, in terms of reviews, sales, and awards, and I'm deeply appreciative. Of course, it's tempting to say, 'If it ain't broke, why fix it?' but the fact is that I want all of my books to be the best they can possibly be - it is never possible to achieve perfection, but there's no harm in striving for it. 

This is what David says about the book in the press release: '‘For an author as prolific as Martin Edwards, it can be hard to identify their magnum opus. The Life of Crime, however, is an extraordinary feat of both scholarship and readability, the culmination of a lifetime devotion to studying the genre, and was deservedly selected in the books of the year by publications as widespread as the New York Times and the Spectator. The Times rightly described Martin as “the closest thing there has been to a philosopher of crime writing”, and I’ve no doubt that this is indeed a genuine magnum opus – and now will be even more magnum in paperback!’

And there is more news. HarperCollins have commissioned me to write a new edition of The Golden Age of Murder to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the book's publication next year. This is another book that means a great deal to me, and I'm looking forward to developing it further - again, mainly by way of including more material about the Detection Club and the Golden Age of detective fiction between the wars. So if there's anything relevant to the existing book that you think could usefully be developed in the new edition, feel free to let me know, so that I can take feedback into account before starting work...