The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

The Golden Age of Murder 

Martin Edwards

2015

5/5 stars

This multiple award winning book studies the early history of the Detection Club, a social organization for mystery and crime authors, from it's inception in 1930 through the start of World War II.  Martin discusses the life and interests of these Golden Age writers, such as their fascination with real life crime, their relationships with each other, and the various secrets in their own lives.  He focuses more in depth on Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkeley than the most, but still includes a good deal of anecdotes and  information on many other members.

The Golden Age of Murder is an ode to the mystery novels and authors of  the Golden Age (the years between the two World Wars), and it's obvious that Edwards loves these devotedly.  Using the resources available to him as current President of the Club, he gives reams of stories about these authors that are enlightening as well as entertaining.  He discusses the real life murders that so interested this group, as well, and shows how those crimes influenced some of the Golden Age novels.

Edwards debunks popular myths about the genre and it's creators, as well as showing how current events shaped many of the plots, and further, how these books impacted future crime writers.

He discusses many of the most famous Golden Age stories, as well as mentioning lesser known authors and their works.  He is careful not to spoil the solutions of any of the novels, while giving tantalizing glimpses of the plots.  I now have a list of new-to-me authors and books to explore.

Edwards also uses his own deductive powers to answer questions about the secrets of Christie, Sayers, and Berkeley.  These are, of course, his own opinion and are meant to be taken as such, but he gives sound reasoning for his solutions.

I've seen complaints saying that if the reader does not have a basic understanding of this very specific period of fiction or a fascination with it, this book will be unreadable -- but why would such a one pick it up in the first place?  The Golden Age of Murder is, I believe, intended to be a gift from Edwards to his fellow fanatics and I found it to be just that.