The British Library have been publishing a collection of classic crime novels of late which have proven surprisingly popular. Paul Gallagher highlighted the series in an article in
The Independent back in December, describing J. Jefferson Farjeon's
Mystery In White: A Christmas Crime Story as a "Festive sleeper hit" that was selling in "astonishing numbers". According to Waterstones, it had outsold
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Amazon had temporarily run out of stock the previous week due to surging demand.
The book had sold some 60,000 copies, accounting for 40 percent of sales for the whole series which, at that time, had reached 155,000. According to Joseph Knobbs of Waterstones, sales might reflect readers' yearning for genuine mysteries rather than darker, modern thrillers. "The Crime Classics stand out against the darker crop of contemporary crime fiction and offer something a bit different. A lot of modern stuff skews closer to thriller than mystery." Perhaps true. I think the British Library have made the series stand out with a selection of delightfully old-fashioned covers and with no Poirot or Marple on the TV at the moment, maybe readers who enjoy a cosy murder mystery are looking elsewhere for their devilishly clever murders and drawing room revelations. I hope the series continues for a long time to come.
The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams
British Library 978-0712-25859-0, February 2012, 312pp, £8.99.
Detective fiction at its best,
The Notting Hill Mystery was first published as an eight part serial between 1862 and 1863 in the magazine
Once a Week,
written under the pseudonym Charles Felix. It has been widely described
as the first detective fiction novel, pre-dating as it does other
novels such as Wilkie Collins’s
The Moonstone (1868) and Emile Gaboriau’s first Monsieur Lecoq novel (1869) that have previously claimed that accolade.
The
story is told by insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, who is
building a case against the sinister Baron ‘R___’, suspected of
murdering his wife in order to obtain significant life insurance
payments. Henderson descends into a maze of intrigue including a
diabolical mesmerist, kidnapping by gypsies, slow-poisoners, a rich
uncle’s will and three murders. Presented in the form of diary entries,
family letters, chemical analysis reports, interviews with witnesses and
a crime scene map, the novel displays innovative techniques that would
not become common features of detective fiction until the 1920s.
Now
made available again, with George du Maurier’s original illustrations
included for the first time since the original serial publication, this
new edition of
The Notting Hill Mystery will be welcomed by all fans of detective fiction.
The Female Detective
British Library, 978-0712-35878-1, October 2012, 328pp, £8.99.
British Library 978-0712-35759-3, August 2014, 328pp, £8.99.
The Female Detective is the first novel in
British fiction to feature a professional female detective. Written by
Andrew Forrester, it was originally published in 1864. The protagonist
is Miss Gladden, or 'G' as she is also known - the precursor to Miss
Marple, Mma Ramotswe and Lisbeth Salander.
Miss Gladden's deductive methods and energetic approach anticipate those
of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, and she can be seen as
beginning a powerful tradition of female detectives in these 7 short
stories. 'G' uses similar methods to her male counterparts – she enters
scenes of crime incognito, tracking down killers while trying to conceal
her own tracks and her identity from others
'G', the first female detective, does much physical detective work,
examining crime scenes, looking for clues and employing all manner of
skill, subterfuge, observation and charm solve crimes. Like Holmes, 'G'
regards the regular constabulary with disdain. For all the intrigue and
interest of the stories, little is ever revealed about 'G' herself, and
her personal circumstances remain a mystery throughout. But it is her
ability to apply her considerable energy and intelligence to solve
crimes that is her greatest appeal, and the reappearance of the original
lady detective will be welcomed by fans of crime fiction.
Revelations of a Lady Detective by W. Stephens Hayward
British Library 978-0712-35896-5, February 2013, 320pp, £8.99.
`owing to frequent acquaintance with peril, I had become unusually hardened for a woman`
Mrs Paschal is only the second ever professional female detective to
feature in a work of fiction, pipped to the post by just 6 months by
Andrew Forrester’s
The Lady Detective (republished by The British
Library in 2012). Both were published in 1864 and are of historical
significance because for over 20 years they remained the only books to
feature a female detective as the protagonist.
Mrs Paschal, the heroine of Revelations of a Lady Detective, is
regularly consulted by the police and serves as an undercover agent as
well as investigating her own cases. She throws herself into cases with
verve and gusto and has no hesitation in infiltrating a deadly society
or casting off her crinolines in order to plummet into a sewer on the
trail of a criminal.
Mr Bazalgette's Agent by Leonard Merrick
British Library 978-0712- 9, September 2013, 144pp, £6.99.
‘Here is a business where breeding must be a recommendation .... Here is a work where beauty is a passport’
When Miriam Lea falls on hard times, an advertisement for private agents
catches her eye, and within weeks she finds herself in Mr Bazalgette’s
employ as a private detective, travelling on a train to Hamburg in
pursuit of an audacious fraudster. What follows is a journey through
some of the great cities of Europe – and eventually to South Africa - as
Miss Lea attempts to find her man.
Miriam Lea is only the third ever professional female detective to
appear in a work of crime fiction. Originally published in 1888, Mr
Bazalgette’s Agent presents a determined and resourceful heroine in the
figure of Miss Lea, who grapples with some very modern dilemmas of
female virtue and vice.
Leonard Merrick said of the book, his
first: ‘It’s a terrible book. It’s the worst thing I ever wrote. I
bought them all up and destroyed them. You can’t find any.’ It seems
Merrick was true to his word since copies of the book can now only be
found in private collections and in a handful of university and national
libraries throughout the world. This new edition offers the modern
crime fiction fan an opportunity to rediscover an enticing and rare
detective story.
The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay
British Library 978-0712-35712-8, November 2013, 288pp, £8.99.
Aunt Mildred declared that no good could come of the Melbury family
Christmas gatherings at their country residence Flaxmere. So when Sir
Osmond Melbury, the family patriarch, is discovered – by a guest dressed
as Santa Klaus - with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day, the
festivities are plunged into chaos. Nearly every member of the party
stands to reap some sort of benefit from Sir Osmond’s death, but Santa
Klaus, the one person who seems to have every opportunity to fire the
shot, has no apparent motive.
Various members of the family have
their private suspicions about the identity of the murderer, and the
Chief Constable of Haulmshire, who begins his investigations by saying
that he knows the family too well and that is his difficulty, wishes
before long that he understood them better. In the midst of mistrust,
suspicion and hatred, it emerges that there was not one Santa Klaus, but
two.
The Lake District Murder by John Bude
British Library 978-0712-35716-6, March 2014, 288pp, £8.99.
Luke flung the light of his torch full onto
the face of the immobile figure. Then he had the shock of his life. The
man had no face! Where his face should have been was a sort of inhuman,
uniform blank!
When a body is found at an isolated garage, Inspector Meredith is drawn
into a complex investigation where every clue leads to another puzzle:
was this a suicide, or something more sinister? Why was the dead man
planning to flee the country? And how is this connected to the shady
business dealings of the garage?
This classic mystery novel is set amidst the stunning scenery of a small
village in the Lake District. It is now republished for the first time
since the 1930s.
The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude
British Library 978-0712-35715-9, March 2014, 288pp, £8.99.
‘Never, even in his most optimistic moments,
had he visualised a scene of this nature – himself in one arm-chair, a
police officer in another, and between them… a mystery.’
The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen,
spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside – but
heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across
his seaside parish. But the vicar’s peace is shattered one stormy night
when Julius Tregarthan, a secretive and ill-tempered magistrate, is
found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head.
The local police inspector is baffled by the complete absence of clues.
Suspicion seems to fall on Tregarthan’s niece, Ruth – but surely that
young woman lacks the motive to shoot her uncle dead in cold blood?
Luckily for Inspector Bigswell, the Reverend Dodd is on hand, and ready
to put his keen understanding of the criminal mind to the test.
This classic mystery novel of the golden age of British crime fiction is
set against the vividly described backdrop of a fishing village on
Cornwall’s Atlantic coast. It is now republished for the first time
since the 1930s, with a new introduction by Martin Edwards.
Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay
British Library 978-0712-35726-5, March 2014, 288pp, £8.99.
For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone
College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behaviour
among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and
cosy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates
meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the
drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe.
The police assume that a student prank got out of hand, but the
resourceful Persephone girls suspect foul play, and take the
investigation into their own hands. Soon they uncover the tangled
secrets that led to the bursar’s death – and the clues that point to a
fellow student.
Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay
British Library 978-0712-35725-8, March 2014, 288pp, £8.99.
‘This detective novel is much more than interesting. The numerous
characters are well differentiated, and include one of the most
feckless, exasperating and lifelike literary men that ever confused a
trail.’ Dorothy L. Sayers, Sunday Times, 1934.
When Miss Pongleton is found murdered on the stairs of Belsize Park
station, her fellow-boarders in the Frampton Hotel are not overwhelmed
with grief at the death of a tiresome old woman. But they all have their
theories about the identity of the murderer, and help to unravel the
mystery of who killed the wealthy ‘Pongle’. Several of her fellow
residents – even Tuppy the terrier – have a part to play in the events
that lead to a dramatic arrest.
A Scream in Soho by John G. Brndon
British Library 978-0712-35745-6, September 2014, 256pp, £8.99.
‘For a scream in the early hours of the morning in Soho, even from a
female throat, to stop dead in his tracks a hard-boiled constable, it
had to be something entirely out of the ordinary.’
Soho during the blackouts of the Second World War. When a piercing
scream rends the air and a bloodied knife is found, Detective Inspector
MacCarthy is soon on the scene. He must move through the dark, seedy
Soho underworld – peopled by Italian gangsters, cross-dressing German
spies and glamorous Austrian aristocrats – as he attempts to unravel the
connection between the mysterious Madame Rohner and the theft of secret
anti-aircraft defence plans.
The Sussex Downs Mystery by John Bude
British Library 978-0712-35796-8, October 2014, 288pp, £8.99.
'Already it looked as if the police were up against a carefully
planned and cleverly executed murder, and, what was more, a murder
without a corpse!'
Two brothers, John and William Rother,
live together at Chalklands Farm in the beautiful Sussex Downs. Their
peaceful rural life is shattered when John Rother disappears and his
abandoned car is found. Has he been kidnapped? Or is his disappearance
more sinister - connected, perhaps, to his growing rather too friendly
with his brother's wife?
Superintendent Meredith is called to
investigate - and begins to suspect the worst when human bones are
discovered on Chalklands farmland. His patient, careful detective method
begins slowly to untangle the clues as suspicion shifts from one
character to the next.
Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon
British Library 978-0712-35770-8, November 2014, 256pp, £8.99.
The horror on the train, great though it may turn out to be, will not compare with the horror that exists here, in this house.’
On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the
village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted
country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea –
but no one is at home.
Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel
the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.
Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston
British Library 978-0712-35795-1, January 2015, 320pp, £8.99.
‘Scores of men and women died daily in London, but on this day of
days one of them had died in the very midst of a crowd and the cause of
his death was a dagger piercing his heart. Death had become something
very real.’
When Bobbie Cheldon falls in love with a pretty
young dancer at the Frozen Fang night club in Soho, he has every hope of
an idyllic marriage. But Nancy has more worldly ideas about her future:
she is attracted not so much to Bobbie as to the fortune he expects to
inherit.
Bobbie’s miserly uncle Massy stands between him and
happiness: he will not relinquish the ten thousand a year on which
Nancy’s hopes rest. When Bobbie falls under the sway of the roguish
Nosey Ruslin, the stage is set for murder in the heart of Piccadilly –
and for Nancy’s dreams to be realised.
When Chief Inspector Wake
of Scotland Yard enters the scene, he uncovers a tangled web of love
affairs, a cynical Soho underworld, and a motive for murder.
Capital Crimes ed. by Martin Edwards
British Library 978-0712-35749-4, March 2015, 320pp, £8.99.
With its fascinating mix of people – rich and poor, British and foreign,
worthy and suspicious – London is a city where anything can happen. The
possibilities for criminals and for the crime writer are endless.
London has been home to many of fiction's finest detectives, and the
setting for mystery novels and short stories of the highest quality.
Capital Crimes
is an eclectic collection of London-based crime stories, blending the
familiar with the unexpected in a way that reflects the personality of
the city. Alongside classics by Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley and
Thomas Burke are excellent and unusual stories by authors who are far
less well known. The stories give a flavour of how writers have tackled
crime in London over the span of more than half a century. Their
contributions range from an early serial-killer thriller set on the
London Underground and horrific vignettes to cerebral whodunits. What
they have in common is an atmospheric London setting, and enduring value
as entertainment.
Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts
British Library 978-0712-35779-1, April 2015, 288pp, £8.99.
'Mr Wills Crofts is deservedly a first favourite with all who want a real puzzle' – Times Literary Supplement
'He always manages to give us something that really keeps us guessing' – Daily Mirror
George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo, is a man with many
worries: his marriage is collapsing; his finances are insecure; and an
outbreak of disease threatens the animals in his care.
As Surridge's debts mount and the pressure on him increases, he begins
to dream of miracle solutions. But is he cunning enough to turn his
dreams into reality – and could he commit the most devious murder in
pursuit of his goals?
This ingenious crime novel, with its unusual 'inverted' structure and
sympathetic portrait of a man on the edge, is one of the greatest works
by this highly respected author. The elaborate means of murder devised
by Crofts's characters is perhaps unsurpassed in English crime fiction
for its ostentatious intricacy.
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