by Tony Medawar
First published 2018
Tony Medawar excavates sixteen forgotten crime tales from detective fiction's golden era between the World Wars. The collection spans five decades, from Ernest Bramah's unpublished 1917 script featuring blind detective Max Carrados to early 1950s stories written for London's Evening Standard. Readers discover Agatha Christie's dark tale published in an Australian journal during her 1922 Empire tour, Georgette Heyer's first detective story unseen since 1923, and an unpublished work by Christianna Brand. Detection Club members Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington, John Rhode and Nicholas Blake contribute alongside Freeman Wills Crofts, Cyril Hare, A.A. Milne, and others. These stories emerged from newspapers, rare magazines, or remained unpublished entirely. The anthology captures an age when detective fiction dominated public imagination and murder required intricate plotting rather than forensic analysis. Medawar's successful formula launched five subsequent volumes through 2023, coinciding with crime writing's return to bestseller dominance over literary fiction.
Genres: short-stories, 20th-century, mystery, crime, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, intricate-plotting
Period: 1917, 1922, 1923, 1950s
324 pages · Hardcover · Collins Crime Club