Simon Anthony Lee Brett OBE FRSL is a British author of detective fiction, a playwright, and a producer-writer for television and radio. As an author, he is best known for his mystery series featuring Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, Fethering and Blotto & Twinks. His radio credits have included The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Just a Minute.
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer was an English playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He wrote numerous award-winning plays, of which several were adapted into films.
Anthony Joshua Shaffer was an English playwright, screenwriter, novelist, barrister, and advertising executive.
Sleuth is a 1972 British-American mystery comedy thriller film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The screenplay by playwright Anthony Shaffer was based on his 1970 Tony Award-winning play. Both Olivier and Caine were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. This was Mankiewicz's final film. Critics gave the film overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Mystery is a fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective, who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are non-fiction. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism.
The Secret of Chimneys is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in June 1925 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. It introduces the characters of Superintendent Battle and Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
Sir Henry Merrivale is a fictional amateur detective created by "Carter Dickson", a pen name of John Dickson Carr (1906–1977). Also known as "the Old Man," by his initials "H. M.", or "the Maestro", Merrivale appears in 22 of Carr's locked-room mysteries and "impossible crime" novels of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, as well as in two short stories.
Edward Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, a prolific writer of best-selling genre fiction, featuring glamorous characters, international intrigue and fast action. Notably easy to read, they were viewed as popular entertainments. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1927.
Anthony John Horowitz, is an English novelist and screenwriter specialising in mystery and suspense.
Julian Gustave Symons was a British crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature. He was born in Clapham, London, and died in Walmer, Kent.
Barbara Louise Mertz was an American author who wrote under her own name as well as under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. In 1952, she received a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. While she was best known for her mystery and suspense novels, in the 1960s she authored two books on ancient Egypt, both of which have remained in print ever since.
An inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describes the detective's attempt to solve the mystery. There may also be subsidiary puzzles, such as why the crime was committed, and they are explained or resolved during the story. This format is the opposite of the more typical "whodunit", where all of the details of the perpetrator of the crime are not revealed until the story's climax. The first such story was R. Austin Freeman's The Case of Oskar Brodski published in Pearson's Magazine in 1912.
"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is a poem by Lewis Carroll which appears in chapter 2 of his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice recites it while attempting to recall "Against Idleness and Mischief" by Isaac Watts. It describes a crafty crocodile that lures fish into its mouth with a welcoming smile.
Charles Fulton Oursler was an American journalist, playwright, editor and writer. Writing as Anthony Abbot, he was an author of mysteries and detective fiction. His son was the journalist and author Will Oursler (1913–1985).
The Lodger is a novel by English author Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. The short story was first published in the January, 1911 edition of McClure's Magazine, in 1911. Belloc Lowndes wrote a longer version of the story, which was published as a series in the Daily Telegraph in 1913 with the same name. Later that year, the novel was published in its entirety by Methuen Publishing.
How Doth The Little Crocodile? was the first of two murder mystery novels written by twin authors Anthony and Peter Shaffer. It featured their eccentric detective Mr Verity who also appeared in their other novel Withered Murder.
Doris Miles Disney was an American mystery writer. She wrote 47 novels, many of which were best sellers; several were made into feature films or TV movies.
Leopold Suhodolčan was a Slovene writer, best known for his juvenile fiction. Together with Stanko Kotnik he was one of the conceptors of the Reading Badge of Slovenia competition that still runs today as a motivation for primary school children in reading and literacy.
Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children is a collection of didactic, moral poetry for children by Isaac Watts, first published in 1715. Though Watts's hymns are now better known than these poems, Divine Songs was a ubiquitous children's book for nearly two hundred years, serving as a standard textbook in schools. By the mid-19th century there were more than one thousand editions.
How Doth the Little Crocodile is both a painting and an outdoor bronze sculpture by British-born Mexican surrealist artist Leonora Carrington.
