Police at the Funeral (1931) by Margery Allingham

Book review by Sylvia D. My Queen of Crime novel was Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham (pub 1931 by Heinemann. My edition is a Penguin Classic Crime 1987, one of many reprints). It’s the fourth of the Campion series and was made into a two part TV production in 1989. Picture a large … Continue reading →

Speedy Death (1929) by Gladys Mitchell

Book Review by George S: Speedy Death was Gladys Mitchell’s first detective novel. It introduces Mrs Bradley, her psychoanalyst detective, who would go on to solve another sixty-two mysteries. Philip Larkin was a big fan; he called her ‘the great Gladys’, and wrote that she ‘stood splendidly apart from her crime-club confrères in total originality’.

Josephine Tey and the Psychological Detective Story (The Franchise Affair)

By Val Hewson Josephine Tey (1896-1952), who wrote The Franchise Affair (1948) and seven other detective stories between 1929 and 1952, is not one of the original Golden Age Queens of Crime.  They are Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham.  But Tey surely has a strong claim to be crowned with … Continue reading →

A Deed without a Name by Dorothy Bowers (1940)

I’m not sure if Dorothy Bowers quite counts as a Queen of Crime (our topic for this month), though I would like to think so. Her novels were highly thought of at the time, but she didn’t remain popular in the way that Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham did. A reviewer in the … Continue reading →

‘Vivandière’ (1929) by Phoebe Fenwick Gaye

Book Review by Sylvia D. Reading Group members may remember the delightful poem by Phoebe Fenwick Gaye that was circulated to us a little while ago. It was called ‘The Plaint of the Middlebrow Novelist’. Chris has acquired two novels by Fenwick Gaye for the Collection and over the summer I have read one called … Continue reading →