Читать книгу Bodies from the Library 2 - Группа авторов - Страница 5

‘A great many crime short stories continue to be written with nothing but entertainment in mind.’

Julian Symons

As with the first volume of Bodies from the Library (HarperCollins, 2018), the aim of this volume is to bring into the light more lost or previously unknown short fiction by some of the best-known writers active during the Golden Age of crime and detective fiction, a period that can be loosely defined as starting in 1913 and ending in 1937. These dates mark the publication of two major titles: Trent’s Last Case, in which the journalist E. C. Bentley provided an antidote to Sherlock Holmes; and Busman’s Honeymoon, described as ‘a love story with detective interruptions’ by its author Dorothy L. Sayers.

For our purposes, there is also a loose definition of crime and detective fiction and in this volume, as well as stories that conform to S. S. Van Dine’s requirement that ‘there simply must be a corpse’, there is a story that sets out merely to deceive the reader by only appearing to be criminous, one that blurs the distinction between fact and fiction and another that was published after the end of the Golden Age but playfully tweaks its tail …

Enjoy!

Tony Medawar

February 2019