Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards has won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating, Macavity, Poirot and Dagger Awards and is President of the Detection Club. In 2020 he was awarded the Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to crime fiction. Martin is the consultant to the British Library’s bestselling crime classics. He has been the Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and is the award-winning author of The Golden Age of Murder.
Books by Martin Edwards
Gallows Court
by Martin Edwards
Gallows Court is the first book in a series by British crime writer Martin Edwards featuring Rachel Savernake as the detective figure.
The Coffin Trail
by Martin Edwards
The Coffin Trail is the first book in British crime writer Martin Edwards's Lake District series.
All the Lonely People
by Martin Edwards
All the Lonely People by British crime writer Martin Edwards is the first book in a series with Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin as the main protagonist.
The Golden Age of Murder
by Martin Edwards
***Winner 2016 Edgar award for the best critical/biographical work***
“The Life of Crime is at its strongest when it focuses on one or both elements of its subtitle: pinpointing the developments of the genre — especially within a wider historical context — and engaging in discussion of individual authors”
Review by Jane Pek of "The Life of Crime" in the New York Times, August 30th, 2022
Blackstone Fell
by Martin Edwards
Blackstone Fell is by Martin Edwards, a leading expert on the 'golden age' of mystery writing, the period between the two world wars when escapism was the order of the day and reading a mystery book all about solving a clever puzzle. This book is written very much in that genre, even featuring a locked room mystery (though that's not the main plot). Set mainly in Yorkshire, it does read like it was written in the 1930s and even has a 'cluefinder' at the end, a device popular during the golden age and alerted the reader to the clues they should have picked up on while reading the book. It's the third book in a series featuring Rachel Savernake as the crime solver, Gallows Court and Mortmain Hall are the first two books in the series.
Interviews with Martin Edwards
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1
The Detective Stories of Edgar Allan Poe: Three Tales Featuring C. Auguste Dupin
by Edgar Allan Poe -
2
The Mystery of the Yellow Room
by Gaston Leroux -
3
The Third Bullet and Other Stories
by John Dickson Carr -
4
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938)
by Agatha Christie -
5
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders
by Ross and Shika Mackenzie (translators) & Soji Shimada
The Best Golden Age Mysteries, recommended by Martin Edwards
The Best Golden Age Mysteries, recommended by Martin Edwards
Partly as a response to the horrors of World War I, the 1920s and 30s saw a surge in the writing of whodunnits, a period often referred to as the ‘golden age’ of mystery writing. Here, Martin Edwards, one of the leading experts on the genre, picks out some key works, with a special focus on ‘locked room’ mysteries.
Review by Michael Dirda of "The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books," Washington Post, August 9th, 2017