Awards

• Commended for Agatha Awards (Best Nonfiction) 2022
• Short-listed for Edgar Allan Poe Awards (Critical/Biographical) 2023
• Winner of Edgar Allan Poe Awards (Critical/Biographical) 2023

Overview

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9780008192426

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Reviews

REVIEWS FOR MARTIN EDWARDS: 'Few, if any, books about crime fiction have provided so much information and insight so enthusiastically and, for the reader, so enjoyably' THE TIMES 'Illuminating and entertaining - provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.' LEN DEIGHTON, author of The Ipcress File 'Forensically sharp and exhaustively informed... Crime fiction is driven by death. In this superbly compendious and entertaining book, Edwards ensures that dozens of authorial corpses are gloriously reborn.' MARK LAWSON, Guardian

'Magisterial but wickedly entertaining ... reliably readable and frequently amusing. It also inspires awe: Edwards combines wide reading with a good memory, meticulous control over his unruly material, critical acumen and sheer bloody persistence.' ANDREW TAYLOR, THE SPECTATOR 'Impressively scholarly and joyfully anecdotal... it's hard to imagine this book being superseded for many years to come.' MORNING STAR 'A magisterial history of mysteries and their creators.' THE TIMES REVIEWS FOR MARTIN EDWARDS: 'Few, if any, books about crime fiction have provided so much information and insight so enthusiastically and, for the reader, so enjoyably' THE TIMES 'Illuminating and entertaining - provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.' LEN DEIGHTON, author of The Ipcress File 'Forensically sharp and exhaustively informed... Crime fiction is driven by death. In this superbly compendious and entertaining book, Edwards ensures that dozens of authorial corpses are gloriously reborn.' MARK LAWSON, Guardian

'Magisterial but wickedly entertaining ... reliably readable and frequently amusing. It also inspires awe: Edwards combines wide reading with a good memory, meticulous control over his unruly material, critical acumen and sheer bloody persistence.' THE SPECTATOR REVIEWS FOR MARTIN EDWARDS: 'Few, if any, books about crime fiction have provided so much information and insight so enthusiastically and, for the reader, so enjoyably' THE TIMES 'Illuminating and entertaining - provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.' LEN DEIGHTON, author of The Ipcress File 'Forensically sharp and exhaustively informed... Crime fiction is driven by death. In this superbly compendious and entertaining book, Edwards ensures that dozens of authorial corpses are gloriously reborn.' MARK LAWSON, Guardian

'Magisterial but wickedly entertaining ... reliably readable and frequently amusing. It also inspires awe: Edwards combines wide reading with a good memory, meticulous control over his unruly material, critical acumen and sheer bloody persistence.' ANDREW TAYLOR, THE SPECTATOR 'Impressively scholarly and joyfully anecdotal... it's hard to imagine this book being superseded for many years to come.' MORNING STAR 'Vastly entertaining ... [Edwards] plots the development of the genre and the bizarre lives of writers ... You'll find all your favourites here, from Edgar Allan Poe to PD James ... But be warned - you'll end up with a reading list as long as a giant's arm.' DENIS MANN, DAILY EXPRESS 'A magisterial history of mysteries and their creators.' THE TIMES 'There is plenty here for mystery readers, whether well-versed in the genre's history or not -and mystery writers will welcome this book as a resource.' THE NEW YORK TIMES 'A magisterial work... THE LIFE OF CRIME does more than just inform, entertain and provoke, it also sends new readers back to old books.' THE WASHINGTON POST REVIEWS FOR MARTIN EDWARDS: 'Few, if any, books about crime fiction have provided so much information and insight so enthusiastically and, for the reader, so enjoyably' THE TIMES 'Illuminating and entertaining - provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.' LEN DEIGHTON, author of The Ipcress File 'Forensically sharp and exhaustively informed... Crime fiction is driven by death. In this superbly compendious and entertaining book, Edwards ensures that dozens of authorial corpses are gloriously reborn.' MARK LAWSON, Guardian

Author Information

Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime novelist whose Lake District Mysteries have been optioned by ITV. Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first Archivist of the Club, and is also Archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association. In addition to 17 crime novels, he has published eight non-fiction books and is a noted commentator on the genre. Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times, and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels, including unique inscribed books and manuscripts, notably the previously unknown handwritten study made by Dorothy L. Sayers of the case of Constance Kent and Inspector Whicher.

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