Author: Otto Penzler
Publisher: Penzler Publishers
ISBN: 1613165439
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 411
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Book Description
Fifteen puzzling tales from the masters of the mystery genre Depending on who you ask, the term “whodunit” was first coined sometime around 1930, but the literary form predates that name by several decades. Still, it was in the years between the two World Wars—the so-called “Golden Age” of mystery fiction—that the style flourished. Short mysteries were published far and wide by a variety of authors, not just those primarily associated with the genre. They appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, and other high-end periodicals that still exist today. These tales were, in short, among the most popular diversions in literature and were of the highest caliber. In this volume, Edgar Award–winning anthologist Otto Penzler collects some of the finest American whodunits of the era, including household names and welcome rediscoveries. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ellery Queen, and Mary Roberts Rinehart are all included, as are Ring Lardner, Melville Davisson Post, and Helen Reilly. The result is a cross section of the whodunit tale in the years that made it a staple in mystery fiction.
Author: Otto Penzler
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1613162154
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The greatest detectives of the Golden Age investigate the most puzzling crimes of the era Sometimes, the police aren’t the best suited to solve a crime. Depending on the case, you may find that a retired magician, a schoolteacher, a Broadway producer, or a nun have the necessary skills to suss out a killer. Or, in other cases, a blind veteran, or a publisher, or a hard-drinking attorney, or a mostly-sober attorney… or, indeed, any sort of detective you could think of might be able to best the professionals when it comes to comprehending strange and puzzling murders. At least, that’s what the authors from the Golden Age of American mystery fiction would have you think. For decades in the middle of the twentieth century, the country’s best-selling authors produced delightful tales in which all types of eccentrics used rarified knowledge to interpret confounding clues. And for even longer, in the decades that have followed, these characters have continued to entertain new audiences with every new generation that discovers them. Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler selects some of the greatest American short stories from era. With authors including Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Anthony Boucher, this collection is a treat for those who know and love this celebrated period in literary history, and a great introduction to its best writers for the uninitiated. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.
Author: Curtis Evans
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786490896
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
In 1972, in an attempt to elevate the stature of the "crime novel," influential crime writer and critic Julian Symons cast numerous Golden Age detective fiction writers into literary perdition as "Humdrums," condemning their focus on puzzle plots over stylish writing and explorations of character, setting and theme. This volume explores the works of three prominent British "Humdrums"--Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, and Alfred Walter Stewart--revealing their work to be more complex, as puzzles and as social documents, than Symons allowed. By championing the intrinsic merit of these mystery writers, the study demonstrates that reintegrating the "Humdrums" into mystery genre studies provides a fuller understanding of the Golden Age of detective fiction and its aftermath.
Author: Ianthe Jerrold
Publisher: Dean Street Press
ISBN: 1910570303
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
Description"the murderer was also riding a bicycle... why, if we can trace it, we shall have the murderer!"On a cycling holiday in the idyllic Wales-Herefordshire border countryside, Nora and her friends make a gruesome discovery - the body of their missing comrade at the bottom of a quarry. But an apparently accidental fall turns out to have been murder - for the man was shot in the head.Fortunately John Christmas, last seen in The Studio Crime (1929), is on hand with his redoubtable forensic assistant, Sydenham Rampson. Between them they shed light on an intricate pattern of crimes... and uncover a most formidable foe.Dead Man's Quarry is the second of Ianthe Jerrold's classic and influential whodunits, originally published in 1930. This edition, the first for more than eighty years, features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008380988
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
This annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna Brand.
Author: Tom Bullimore
Publisher: Main Street Press
ISBN: 9781402710650
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
You solve the crimes! ... join forces with some expert crime-solvers to untangle the clues and find the guilty parties in these wickedly devious whodunits!
Author: Martin Edwards
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0008105979
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 505
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Book Description
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.
Author: Otto Penzler
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1613163282
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Fourteen impossible crimes from the American masters of the form For devotees of the Golden Age mystery, the impossible crime story represents the period’s purest form: it presents the reader with a baffling scenario (a corpse discovered in a windowless room locked from the inside, perhaps), lays out a set of increasingly confounding clues, and swiftly delivers an ingenious and satisfying solution. During the years between the two world wars, the best writers in the genre strove to outdo one another with unfathomable crime scenes and brilliant explanations, and the puzzling and clever tales they produced in those brief decades remain unmatched to this day. Among the Americans, some of these authors are still household names, inextricably linked to the locked room mysteries they devised: John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, Clayton Rawson, Stuart Palmer. Others, associated with different styles of crime fiction, also produced great works—authors including Fredric Brown, MacKinlay Kantor, Craig Rice, and Cornell Woolrich. All of these and more can be found in Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries, selected by Edgar Award-winning mystery expert and anthologist Otto Penzler. Featuring a delightful mix of well-known writers and unjustly-forgotten masters, the fourteen tales included herein highlight the best of the American impossible crime story, promising hours of entertainment for armchair sleuths young and old.
Author: Otto Penzler
Publisher: American Mystery Classics
ISBN: 9781613165423
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Fifteen puzzling tales from the masters of the mystery genre
Author: Dana Percec
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152757346X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Bringing together academics from Romania, the USA, Spain and Turkey, this volume follows the evolution of detective fiction, from its early forms during the late eighteenth century until its contemporary multi-media expressions. Tackling the best-known authors in the genre, as well as marginal, forgotten or eccentric names, and discussing prose which fits perfectly in the pattern of the genre or texts which have been conventionally associated with other genres, as well as films, the book explores the impact of whodunits in both highbrow and popular culture.
