Margery Allingham

4 results

The Golden Age of Murder, by Martin Edwards | Review
  • Books
  • July 11, 2015, 06:00

‘Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” Edmund Wilson asked in the New Yorker in 1945. Taking its title from Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? , an Agatha Chris(...)

PD James’s first novel was Cover Her Face (1962), which harked back to the cosy murders of the golden age, set in a country house with a body in a locked room and a cast including the vicar and a genial country doctor.
Assured practitioner of the classic English murder mystery
  • People
  • December 6, 2014, 01:03

PD James, latterly Lady James of Holland Park, who has died aged 94, was the grande dame of the British crime novel. She was a link with the golden ag(...)

The mystery form understands that plot comes out of character, and not just that: it believes that the great mystery is character
Unravelling the mystery of what makes a great crime novel
  • Books
  • October 3, 2014, 01:00

Why does the mystery novel enjoy such enduring appeal? There is no simple answer. It has a distinctive capacity for subtle social commentary; a con(...)

Jane Casey: “I’d love to write something about London during the second World War. That sense of constant threat, the backdrop of the blackout and broken buildings, the breakdown of social barriers, the now-or-never frantic feel to human relations, the casual heroism – all potent stuff for a novelist”
Brought to Book: Jane Casey on Donna Tartt, Maeve Brennan and avoiding the twist
  • Books
  • June 22, 2014, 01:00

Born and brought up in Dublin, Jane Casey has been twice shortlisted for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year Award. The Kill, the fifth novel featuri(...)