The Golden Age of Murder, Martin Edwards

There’s a lot going on in this novel — it tracks the development of crime fiction and mystery stories, deals with the biographies of various famous Golden Age crime writers (including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkeley, of course) and deals with the development of the Detection Club. There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know, even about Sayers (whose work I adore), and the whole thing left me feeling that my experience of the Golden Age of crime fiction was rather limited. Fortunately, and not coincidentally, Martin Edwards has also been curating the publication of the British Library Crime Classics, so I’ve been able to check out some of the authors that were totally unfamiliar to me (and I have a whole stack more to get to, too).

It’s an enjoyable read, though it does get a little bogged down or distracted at times — I think because it does try to tackle so much. It doesn’t stick purely to a single writer, but nor does it stay firmly focused on the Detection Club as a whole. If you’re interested in the period, though, it’s a gem.

Rating: 4/5

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