Reading the Detectives discussion

I thought we had a thread about this but can't find it! This is somewhere to share details of any articles or books about Golden Age writers/detectives we come across.

I've just noticed an article about 'gourmet detectives', which reveals that there are cookbooks featuring the favourite recipes of Poirot, Wimsey and Nero Wolfe... and also Nancy Drew!

https://www.eater.com/2017/8/31/16216...

Nero Wolfe's favorite recipes - sounds tempting but I don't have a Fritz to do the cooking for me!

Very interesting article!

Glad you started this...Crime Fiction Lovers blog is doing a classics month, just saw this interview with Ann Cleeves on her favorites:
http://www.crimefictionlover.com/2017...

And there are a few other interesting articles too, including Nicola Upson about Josephine Tey:
http://www.crimefictionlover.com/2017...

Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection

I just posted the covers of both editions of a fairly essential work. It is way overdue for a new edition. The newest of the 2 is from 1984. I have the first edition.

Of course for those less familiar with words about the Golden Age, we have Martin Edwards 'must have,' new book The Golden Age of Murder

Winner of the 2016 EDGAR, AGATHA, MACAVITY and H.R.F.KEATING crime writing awards, this real-life detective story investigates how Agatha Christie and colleagues in a mysterious literary club transformed crime fiction.

Detective stories of the Twenties and Thirties have long been stereotyped as cosily conventional. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Golden Age of Murder tells for the first time the extraordinary story of British detective fiction between the two World Wars. A gripping real-life detective story, it investigates how Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie and their colleagues in the mysterious Detection Club transformed crime fiction. Their work cast new light on unsolved murders whilst hiding clues to their authors’ darkest secrets, and their complex and sometimes bizarre private lives.

Crime novelist and current Detection Club President Martin Edwards rewrites the history of crime fiction with unique authority, transforming our understanding of detective stories, and the brilliant but tormented men and women who wrote them.

Talking About Detective Fiction

P. D. James, the undisputed queen of mystery, gives us an intriguing, inspiring and idiosyncratic look at the genre she has spent her life perfecting.
Examining mystery from top to bottom, beginning with such classics as Charles Dickens's Bleak House and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, and then looking at such contemporary masters as Colin Dexter and Henning Mankell, P. D. James goes right to the heart of the genre. Along the way she traces the lives and writing styles of Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and many more. Here is P.D. James discussing detective fiction as social history, explaining its stylistic components, revealing her own writing process, and commenting on the recent resurgence of detective fiction in modern culture. It is a must have for the mystery connoisseur and casual fan alike.

The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books

Another from Martin Edwards - he main aim of detective stories is to entertain, but the best cast a light on human behaviour, and display both literary ambition and accomplishment. Even unpretentious detective stories, written for unashamedly commercial reasons, can give us clues to the past, and give us insight into a long-vanished world that, for all its imperfections, continues to fascinate. This book, written by award-winning crime writer and president of the Detection Club, Martin Edwards, serves as a companion to the British Library's internationally acclaimed series of Crime Classics. Long-forgotten stories republished in the series have won a devoted new readership, with several titles entering the bestseller charts and sales outstripping those of highly acclaimed contemporary thrillers.

Taking Detective Stories Seriously: The Collected Crime Reviews of Dorothy L. Sayers

Have not read this, but certainly on my Christmas list!

Dorothy L. Sayers carved for herself an enviable reputation as a detective novelist. Beyond that, she wrote with insight about real life crimes, was a pioneering historian and anthologist of crime fiction, and established herself as the most incisive reviewer of detective novels at the height of the genre's Golden Age. Sayers reviewed detective fiction for The Sunday Times for just over two years. Her reviews demonstrate a remarkable breadth of reading, and an extraordinary capacity for hard work, but more than that they display air and forthright, sometimes controversial, views about crime writing, and a good deal else. Today, at a time when Golden Age detective fiction is enjoying a revival of popularity, Sayers reviews remain as entertaining and informative as when they were first published.

Miss M wrote: "Glad you started this...Crime Fiction Lovers blog is doing a classics month, just saw this interview with Ann Cleeves on her favorites:
http://www.crimefictionlover.com/2017......"

Many thanks for these, Miss M, I will check them out!

Susan and Gary, thanks for the book details - out of these I've only read The Golden Age of Murder so far. The others sound excellent too and it would be nice to have an updated edition of the encyclopedia.

Leslie wrote: "Nero Wolfe's favorite recipes - sounds tempting but I don't have a Fritz to do the cooking for me!"

Yes, Leslie, and I'd also be worried about emulating Wolfe in terms of figure if I ate too many of the meals from the books!

Carol, glad you found the article interesting too. I see there is also a Madame Maigret cookery book mentioned in the comments...

A nice article here about Agatha Christie - with a striking colour photo of her from the 1950s:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/bo...

It makes me want to read Ordeal by Innocence, mentioning just enough of the plot to hook me in.l..

Glad you liked the article, Annie. :)

Glad you liked the article, Annie. :)

Sorry Annie, I was trying to delete my double post and deleted your comment instead - just getting to grips with a new phone! Forgive me.

Annie had said she liked the article and the photo of Agatha Christie's room with all the objects there - sorry again for deleting the wrong post!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...

Nicholas Blake's Nigel Strangeways series is proving popular with a couple of us, at least (!), over on the buddy thread. I came across this interesting article about him. Or rather, about Cecil Day-Lewis, for whom Nicholas Blake was a pseudonym.

We have The Beast Must Die listed as a future read, which is a bit of a GA classic. I include a great review I found in the hope of whetting some appetites...

https://bloodymurder.wordpress.com/20...

Susan wrote: "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...

Nicholas Blake's Nigel Strangeways series is proving popular with a couple of us, at least (!), over ..."

I'm getting ready to start A Question of Proof, the first in the series.

Just came across this: In the Shadow of Agatha Christie: Classic Crime Fiction by Forgotten Female Authors: 1850-1917

It is listed on NetGalley, if anyone uses that, and is due out on 2nd January, 2018

Ooh, that sounds very interesting - will look forward to hearing what you think if you get hold of it, Susan.

I was approved on NetGalley - it is quite expensive, so I was pleased about that!

It sounds interesting.

Nice article by Martin Edwards on one of the British Library's blogs about their Crime Classics series, with some lovely pictures of their covers.

http://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2...

Judy wrote: "Nice article by Martin Edwards on one of the British Library's blogs about their Crime Classics series, with some lovely pictures of their covers.

http://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2......"

Nice cover on The Poisoned Chocolates Case

Interesting article in The Times Higher Education Supplement about why so many fictional detectives fall in love with academics:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/...

Can anyone think of more examples apart from those in the article?

ww.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article...

One of my Goodreads friends brought this article to my attention.