Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Kogoro Akechi, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912. He was a fellow and chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford until he resigned from those positions following his conversion to Catholicism in 1917. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work.
An insurance investigator examines insurance claims that are suspicious or otherwise in doubt. Investigators in this field have differing specialties and backgrounds. Some insurance companies have their own in-house investigation teams while other companies sub-contract the work to private investigators or private investigation firms. Although such investigations are usually conducted to combat fraud, very often investigators will be working simply to establish the circumstances of a particular claim.
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s. The Golden Age proper is in practice usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was predominant in the 1920s and 1930s but had been written since at least 1911 and is still being written.
Gold Was Our Grave is a 1954 mystery detective novel by the British writer Henry Wade. It was the seventh and last in a series of novels featuring the character of Inspector Poole, published during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Sorry You've Been Troubled is a 1942 thriller novel by the British writer Peter Cheyney. It was the fifth book in his series featuring the hardboiled London-based private detective Slim Callaghan. It was published in the United States under the alternative title of Farewell to the Admiral.
A Man Called Jones is a 1947 mystery detective novel by British writer Julian Symons. It is the second novel in his trilogy featuring the Scotland Yard detective Chief Inspector Bland. Symons was critical of the "Great Detective" that features in so many novels during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and demonstrates this in the climatic scene where Bland assembles all the suspects to explain his theory, only to first send them to sleep and then be confronted by the late arrival of a previously unknown character on which the whole puzzle hinges.
The Deadly Joker is a 1963 mystery novel by the Anglo-Irish writer Cecil Day-Lewis, under his pen name of Nicholas Blake. It was one of four stand-alone novels he wrote under the name alongside the Nigel Strangeways detective novels. It is unusual for the author for being written in a first person narrative from the perspective of the protagonist John Waterson.
Murder in Crown Passage is a 1937 detective novel by the British writer Cecil Street, writing under the pen name of Miles Burton. It is the sixteenth in a series of books featuring the amateur detective Desmond Merrion and Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard. Street was one of the most prolific authors of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It was published in the United States by Doubleday the same year under the alternative title The Man with the Tattooed Face. As often in the series, the setting is in rural England.
The Lake District Murder is a 1935 detective novel by the British writer John Bude. It is the first in a series of novels featuring Chief Inspector Meredith, promoted at the end of case to Superintendent. Set in the Lake District of Northern England, it shows the influence of Freeman Wills Crofts's Inspector French novels by featuring a detective who methodically breaks down the alibis of his suspects. In 2014 it was reissued by the British Library Publishing as part of a group of republished crime novels from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Buried for Pleasure is a 1948 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin, the sixth in his series featuring the Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen. As with the rest of the Fen novels, a complex Golden Age-style mystery is combined with elements of farce. Fen contests a by-election in rural constituency, but events are rapidly overtaken by a murder case. It features Detective Inspector Humbleby who also appeared in the next novel Frequent Hearses as well as most of the short stories in the series.
The Long Divorce is a 1951 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin, the eighth in his series featuring the Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen. It was the penultimate novel in the series, with a gap or more than twenty five years before the next entry The Glimpses of the Moon, although a collection of short stories Beware of the Trains was published in 1953. The novel features many traits of a Golden Age mystery, set in a small, wealthy English village. The title doesn't refer to a marriage but is a quote from Shakespeare's Henry VIII "the long divorce of steel". It was published in the United States by Dodd, Mead in 1951 under the same title, and a year later as A Noose for Her.
The Twenty-One Clues is a 1941 detective novel by the British author Alfred Walter Stewart, published under his pseudonym J.J. Connington. It is the fourteenth in a series of seventeen novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London and Little, Brown and Company in the United States.
The Footsteps at the Lock is a 1928 detective novel by the British author Ronald Knox. Written during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction it is one of five books featuring his insurance investigator Miles Bredon. The author was very familiar with the area of western Oxfordshire, where much of the novel takes place.
Still Dead is a 1934 mystery detective novel by the British author Ronald Knox. It is the fourth in a series of five novels featuring the insurance investigator Miles Bredon, one of the many detectives of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It was published in London by Hodder and Stoughton and in New York by Dutton.
The Body in the Silo is a 1933 detective novel by the British author Ronald Knox. It is the third in a series of five novels featuring the insurance investigator Miles Bredon, one of the many detectives of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It is a country house mystery taking place in Herefordshire close to the Welsh border. It was published in the United States by Dutton under the alternative title Settled Out of Court.
Double Cross Purposes is a 1937 mystery detective novel by the British author Ronald Knox. It is the fifth and last in his series of novels featuring the insurance investigator Miles Bredon, one of the Golden Age Detectives. Like the previous novel it takes place in Scotland. It features several characters who appeared in earlier novels, including the schoolmaster Edward Pulteney whose skills at fishing come in useful to Bredon. While Knox continued to write prolifically for many years, this remained his last novel in the detective genre.
The Viaduct Murder is a 1925 mystery detective novel by the British author Ronald Knox. A stand-alone novel, it was a precursor to his series of five books featured the insurance investigator Miles Bredon, all published during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It was published in London by Methuen and in New York by Simon and Schuster.
Frequent Hearses is a 1950 detective novel by the British author Edmund Crispin. It is the seventh in his series of novels featuring Gervase Fen an Oxford University professor and amateur detective. Published during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, it is set in the British film industry where Fen has been employed as a historical advisor on The Unfortunate Lady, a biopic of the English poet Alexander Pope. The title is taken from a line of Pope's Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, "on all the line a sudden vengeance waits, and frequent hearses shall besiege your gates". It was published in the United States by Dodd, Mead the same year under the alternative title Sudden Vengeance.
Suicide Excepted is a 1939 detective novel by the British writer Cyril Hare. It was his third novel to feature Inspector Mallett of Scotland Yard, one of the numerous investigators of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Mallet takes a back seat for the middle of the novel and much of the detective work is done by three amateur detectives.
