A free monthly newsletter about all aspects of writing, reading, and watching crime fiction – from Martin Edwards, President of the Detection Club
https://martinedwardsbooks.substack.com/p/the-life-of-crime-7a3
This month sees the publication of my latest anthology in the British Library’s Crime Classics series, Puzzles of the Parish. This was quite a tricky collection to compile, as I discovered that, although there is no shortage of detective novels with a ‘clerical’ theme, short stories of that kind are much less plentiful. However, with the help of well-read friends like Jamie Sturgeon, I’ve managed to find a mix of stories which I think offer quite a lot of variety as well as interest.
Want to know more? Here’s the publisher’s blurb: ‘“I think that it is desirable to discuss the affair – here, in the room in which the Bishop’s body was found.” A pernicious parson outwits the thieves of a priceless chalice from the parish treasury. A beloved vicar contemplates a perfect crime when a blackmailer comes knocking. Poisoned pen letters lead to a fall from grace for a rector’s wife, and a suspicious fall from the second storey for the rector.
Gathered here in this new collection are some of the greatest mystery tales in which the tendrils of crime steal into the churchyard, featuring clergymen and nuns as victims, amateur sleuths and villainous perpetrators of the devil’s work. Replete with a fascinating introduction and notes from one of the guiding lights of crime fiction, Martin Edwards, this anthology delivers cosy brainteasers and fiendishly-fashioned stories with a sting in the tail, from a congregation of writers including Joyce Porter, H. C. Bailey, Cyril Hare and Edmund Crispin.’
