From Publishers Weekly
Britain's Detection Club, founded in 1930 by such legends of the genre as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, celebrates its 75th anniversary with an all-original anthology whose strongest entries are by two living legends, P.D. James and Colin Dexter. The volume opens with James's "The Part-time Job," an ironic and concise tale of vengeance narrated from beyond the grave by the victim of a childhood bully. Inspector Morse's creator weighs in with "Between the Lines," a twisty exercise in deception related through correspondence between two friends who may have witnessed a theft on a train. Weaker stories include H.R.F. Keating's "A Toothbrush," which has a marvelous setup—a man returns home to find a strange toothbrush has mysteriously appeared in his bathroom—but a disappointingly prosaic payoff. Editor Brett provides a brief history of the Detection Club.
(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The UK's invitation-only Detection Club boasts the cream of British crime writers; its early members included Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and John Dickson Carr (the only American ever to be awarded membership). In celebration of the club's seventy-fifth anniversary, its current president, Simon Brett (of the Charles Paris, Mrs. Pargeter, and Fethering series), has assembled 11 never-before-published stories from current members P. D. James, Robert Barnard, Colin Dexter, Reginald Hill, and H. R. F. Keating, among others. Besides the star power, this collection offers an impressive range of stories. Readers can move, for example, from the paranoia induced by the cruel games of corporate role-playing in Michael Ridpath's "Partnership Track" to Clare Francis' devastating character study, "The Holiday," to P. D. James' knockout account of obsession, "The Part-Time Job." Brett provides an introduction to the stories and an urbane account of the Detection Club's history. A quality anthology for fans of the crime short story.
Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
