Wed 6 Oct 2010

41 Responses to “150 Favorite Golden Age British Detective Novels, by Curt Evans.”

1. Curt Says:
   October 6th, 2010 at 8:02 pm

   I notice the Coles were deleted from the list, and the comment I made for their books is listed with Margery Allingham. Just thought I should note that in case there is any confusion!

   Hope this helps spark some interest in some lesser known but deserving Golden Age Brits.

2. Steve Says:
   October 6th, 2010 at 8:24 pm

   Curt

   Just a small glitch on my part. Don’t know how it happened, but it’s fixed now.

   Re your second paragraph, “lesser known” on some of these authors is putting it mildly. Just a handful, Ianthe Jerrold, to pick one, but they’re new to me!

   — Steve

3. Curt Says:
   October 6th, 2010 at 9:13 pm

   By the way, it was postings this site that encouraged me to go back and look at David Hume and find some more puzzle-oriented work by him. I think he emphasized it earlier on then gravitated much more to pure action.

   I’ll try to write here about some of these more obscure people. I do talk about a lot of this in the survey I’m working on (done about two thirds, 155 pages).

4. David L. Vineyard Says:
   October 7th, 2010 at 2:38 am

   I know Hume mostly from his good later thriller phase so will be interested to know more of his more detective styled tales — I’ve read good reviews of some of the early books, but not the books themselves. Mostly I know him from the Mick Carby series.

   Rhode (and as Burton) is certainly underrated, and I think it is because he hung on so long and in the end was not at the top of his game. I prefer the Merrion’s to the Priestley’s but there are excellent books in both series that fans — particularly of Carr — would enjoy.

   Nice to see the Ethel Lina White on the list. A good book by a writer unfairly identified as a sort of British Rinehart. This one is quite good with an attractive detective hero. THE WHEEL SPINS (basis for Hitchcock’s THE LADY VANISHES) and of course SOME MUST WATCH (THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE) are more suspense thriller though not without interest.

   Phllipotts would be important if only for encouraging Agatha Christie to write and reversing the trend in THE RED REMAYNES in having an American sleuth in England. He was an important regional writer in the mainstream as well. I have a rather wild post war (WW II) novel by him about a nuclear physicst more in the thriller vein that’s quite an interesting book.

   A few names I only know and haven’t read and a few different choices on some than mine, but that’s half the fun of these.

   Wade, again a very underrated writer and sadly fallen out of favor.

   I might have tried to slip in one of Basil Thompson’s P.C. Richardson books, but I don’t know which (P.C. RICHARDSON’S FIRST CASE — plodding but competent). Bailey’s best work was in short story form.

   Glad you chose NOT TO BE TAKEN over the (I think) overrated POISON CHOCOLATES CASE for Berkeley. It’s a classic, but not a favorite. Truthfully I like him much better as Iles or in TRIAL AND ERROR.

   The only three I can think of that I would have included are DEATH COMES TO PERIGORD by John Ferguson and John Masterman’s AN OXFORD TRAGEDY and Raymond Postgate’s VERDICT OF TWELVE.

   Actually my favorite Connington isn’t a detective story at all, but NORDENHOLT’S MILLIONS a science fiction thriller of England faced by a killer plague. Though I liked both A MINOR OPERATION and THE SWEEPSTAKES MURDER.

   Liked MURDER IN ST.JOHN’S WOOD by Lorac and one or two others I’ve been able to find.

   LOSS OF THE JANE VOSPER and PIT PROP SYNDICATE are my favorite Crofts.

   Prefer the Coles in the short form.

   No Monsignor Knox? Maybe SETTLED OUT OF COURT?

   ENTER THREE WITCHES (THE SPANISH STEPS) would be my McGuire.

   I have to put in a vote for DEATH UNDER SAIL by C. P. Snow.

   I rather liked Canon Whitechurch’s THE CRIME AT DIANA’S POOL though perhaps he belongs more properly to the early era for his short stories.

   P. W. Wilson’s BLACK TARN.

   The little boy in Woodthorpe’s ROPE FOR A CONVICT is better done than usual.

   But in general this is a fine reading list for anyone wanting a sort of general survey of some of the better books of the Golden Age.

5. David L. Vineyard Says:
   October 7th, 2010 at 2:48 am

   Curt

   I don’t really disagree with 1920 as the start of the true Golden Age, save I do think the critics have a point about the impact of Bentley and TRENT’S LAST CASE.

   But truthfully the full impact didn’t hit until at least 1920 thanks to the war.

   I used 1913 somewhat aritrarily on both of my lists for several reasons. In any case I would not argue with 1920 to 1941 as the purest form of the Age.

6. Curt Says:
   October 7th, 2010 at 3:12 am

   David,

   Thanks for the comments.

   Agree on Rope for a Convict, that’s another good one and I think would fit the detection framework sufficiently, though it’s looser.

   I haven’t read all the Whitechurches (Diana’s Pool or Murder at College or the one about stolen snuffboxes that is very hard to find but doesn’t sound that exciting), need to do so. Need to give Knox’s Body in the Silo another whirl (put down years ago and never picked up again, but I preferred to other Knoxes).

   I know the C. P. Snow makes a lot of lists, but I honestly don’t remember much about the book except that it’s on a boat and the author doesn’t like religious puritanism. I recall James Hilton’s effort much better. Didn’t like the Masterman much. All three of these were reprinted in those excellent Dover editions. These are better known for that reason of course and because they are by higher-browed authors.

   Verdict of Twelve doesn’t really fit the framework as a detective story in my view, though this is the sort of thing one can debate.

   I like The Loss of the Jane Vosper, I think that’s the closest Crofts came to real police procedural.

   Nordenholt’s Million is a fascinating (if repulsive) book!

   I need to read John Ferguson.

   Anthony Berkeley is overrated when it comes to detection, I think. The Poisoned Chocolates Case strikes me as a stunt story, designed to prove that the search for truth in the puzzle story is essentially meaningless (because any sets of facts can be manipulated endlessly by the author to lead to different solutions). Not to be Taken, on the other hand, is a fine formal detective novel. For stunt stories I prefer Top Storey Murder or Jumping Jenny. Also like Trial and Error. Berkeley loved the idea of bumping off a objectionable person and approached it here with great gusto.

   Haven’t been bowled over with Basil Thomson, but haven’t read several in that series. It’s a series certainly worth noting on account of the early rocedural aspect.

   I like Ethel Lina White a great deal, she’s more than The Lady Vanishes (The Wheel Spins). Much harder-nosed than Rinehart, I think.

   I think Phillpotts is underrated as a mystery writer–Symons did a hatchet job on him in Bloody Murder!

   By the way, I think his neighbor Agatha Christie’s success with Mysterious Affair at Styles may have inspired him to pen detective novels–so the inspiration ran both ways.

   When he died in 1960 (at age 98), Christie (a mere child of 70) penned an affectionate obituary of him in the Times (I believe).

7. Curt Says:
   October 7th, 2010 at 3:19 am

   David, I agree the time line is arbitrary by nature. I use 1920 because of the appearance of Crofts and Christie and the opening of the floodgates. Symons says Crofts wrote The Cask in 1919, but more reliable sources say 1916, same year as Christie. No doubt the war held things up (thrillers with evil Germans were popular).

   I think one could also make a case for ending the Golden Age in 1945, 1950 or even 1960. I use 1941 because I think the war undermined the traditional detective novel. Put more emphasis on espionage thrillers and realism. But a lot of Golden age authors still were producing very good stuff throughout the 1940s. In the 1950s they are really losing ground, however.

8. Curt Says:
   October 7th, 2010 at 3:24 am

   Should add I’ve noticed that the spy thriller doesn’t really seem to pop up with traditional authors a great deal until 1941. I read somewhere that American publishers at first didn’t want war content in British mysteries because of American isolationism.

   I think the decisive point with going with 1941 however was I wanted an excuse to include Christianna Brand! And Death in High Heels does have a prewar setting.

   Andrew Garve published a pre-war thriller and Michael Gilbert and Julian Symons wrote their first published mysteries before WW2 (though they were published afterward), so one could arguably include them. Also Crispin if one extended to 1945!

9. Jeff Meyerson Says:
   October 7th, 2010 at 8:23 am

   Nice list. Of the authors I’ve read I tend to agree with the choices, though I must add there are many I haven’t read.

   I can’t read Mitchell.

10. Curt Says:
    October 7th, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    Yeah, Mitchell tends to be love or hate. I like her earlier books, which actually do have detection in them and are I think quite funny. The two later ones are enjoyable mysteries that are also novels about her childhood.

    I didn’t like her either at first but grew to do so.

11. David L. Vineyard Says:
    October 8th, 2010 at 1:03 am

    Mitchell is a bit of an oddity in that she isn’t that well known in the states, but is a major writer in the genre in England.

    She is an acquired taste, but once you have it there’s a good deal to admire and some real entertainment, though the humor may take some getting used to for some.

    BBC7 aired some adaptations of a few Mitchell’s a few months back, and likely will air more. They do a good deal of classical genre fiction.

12. David L. Vineyard Says:
    October 8th, 2010 at 7:14 am

    Re pre war writers, both Hammond Innes and Victor Canning began pre war too, though Canning didn’t tackle thrillers until after the war. Innes just barely starts pre war and most of his early works are war related adventures. Nevil Shute began before the war too in the Buchan vein with several thrillers. Winston Graham began writing pre war too, but didn’t get much recognition until after the war. I don’t think any of them were published in the States until after the war, even though Graham’s TAKE MY LIFE was filmed by Ronald Neame (with David Lean as editor).

    The spy novel as such is fairly rare in American fiction until after the war. There are a few things like Post’s Walker of the Secret Service or Clarence New’s Freelances of Diplomacy, but other than the rare international criminal like Count Jedho in Daly’s MURDER IN THE EAST there’s not a lot of attention paid.

    Of course in the pulps there were Max Brand’s Anthony Hamilton, SECRET AGENT X, and OPERATOR #5 (and the latter two mostly fought homegrown menaces or invasions by various colored hordes), but compared to the Brits very few Americans were penning the stuff and even most of the Brits were in the Buchan mold. Talbot Mundy’s Jimgrim stories are mostly adventure even though he works for the British Secret Service, but Grim is an American, and Mundy a naturalized one, the stories written for ADVENTURE.

    Marquand’s exotic adventures of Mr. Moto were about as serious as the American version of the spy novel got in the between the wars period. Van Wyck Mason’s pre war Hugh North’s usually mixed a standard murder plot with some spy doings as did James Norman’s books about an Irish/Mexican mercenary working for a Chinese warlord.

    One of the few Americans writing that sort of thing was David Garth, but his most important book, FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER, has four British brothers as the heroes — one in love with an American heiress (filmed by John Ford with Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven and William Henry as the brothers, Loretta Young as the heiress, plus C. Aubrey Smith as the boy’s father, J. Edward Bromberg a Latin dictator, Reginald Denny, Barry Fitzgerald, and Alan Hale, the villain, round out the cast).

    There is no real serious spy novel after Maugham’s ASHENDEN unless you want to count Compton Mackenzie’s humorous THREE COURIERS (he almost went to prison for revealing the head of the British Secret Service was called C). Almost everything is in the Buchan vein save for Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, and even they are influenced by Buchan. Even John Mair’s NEVER COME BACK, written at the start of the war, is Buchanesque, albeit with an amoral murderous sociopath for a ‘hero.’

    Buchan’s A PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY features a fairly straightforward portrait of a spy behind the lines in deep cover during wartime, but it is only a small part of the novel and not it’s main subject. Valentine Williams, Francis Beeding, L.F.Hay, George Goodchild, Operator 1384, Rupert Grayson, and almost anyone else you can think of are operating in the Buchan vein.

    Dennis Wheatley was already taking his stories from the headlines before the war and his books are heavily influenced by wartime activity, but you could hardly call them serious, but Gregory Sallust and Duc de Richelieu and his friends as well as Wheatley’s non series books are full of wartime settings.

    Probably Peter Cheyney’s Dark series is the first group of spy stories to eschew the Buchan influence entirely, mixing spies with the American hard boiled school and anticipating Ian Fleming and James Bond by a good decade.

    The British publishers as well as the American publishers seemed to fear the impact of war content in mysteries. Early on there is a mention of the war here and there and the odd hint of a spy plot, but in many books of the era you’d have to look hard to tell a war was going on. The closest the Toff gets (and these weren’t being published in he States then) is taking on the Black Market (and a villain named Barbque) while on leave from intelligence.

    Most of the fictional sleuths did a stint in intelligence though one or two were RAF pilots and Bulldog Drummond between missions was confined to the Home Guard.

    The same for most of the American detectives, who mostly avoid the war entirely or else fight it off screen so to speak like Donald Lam and Doug Selby.

    Helen McCloy’s Dr. Basil Willing takes on an undercover job and Michael Shayne tackles a counterfeiting ring for Uncle Sam, but that’s about it.

    Even Rex Stout, who was deeply involved in the war effort, mostly sidesteps the issue with Archie assigned to Wolfe by military intelligence. The Dol Bonner book HAND TO GLOVE is one of the few to make much use of the wartime atmosphere until fairly late in the game.

    Cleve Adams Rex McBride takes on some saboteurs, and Charles Leonard (M.V. Heberden)’s Paul Kilgerin does too, but there is no real sense of the war about the books.

    As W. Vivian Butler points out the gentleman adventurers are even worse. The Saint takes on a few cases here in the States for intelligence, but most of them do their soldiering offstage like the Toff.

    The Baron is a sgt. in the RAF and has a desk job, Blackshirt’s in the RAF too but manages a few adventures, and Creasey’s Patrick Dawlish, Bruce Murdoch, and Dr. Palfrey are all busy in war work, but then they were into that before the war. Murdoch and Bulldog Drummond even have a few adventures in France and Germany like Wheatley’s Sallust, but they are the exception, and in the case of both Wheatley and Gerard Fairlie, who was writing the Drummond’s by then, they were heavily involved in real wartime espionage — Fairlie having to censor for Drummond’s adventures how he had actually gotten in and out of France while training the French underground in sabotage; Wheatley in charge of a group of writers, movie people, and the like who did things like create the phantom army that convinced the Germans the invasion would come in Calais and not Normandy. The famous MAN WHO NEVER WAS operation was under the auspices of Wheatley’s group and based on a memo written by Ian Fleming who oversaw them. But for the most part even those involved in war work seemed to avoid the war in popular fiction.

    But I think the fear was less isolationism in general than the recognition that the war was real and people were really dying, and somehow trivializing that in books that would likely be read by soldiers in combat and people at home who had loved ones in the war was somehow wrong. Escapism was the order of the day, and for the most part the model followed on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s relatively late in the war when a few books — often by returning soldiers or correspondents — begin to show up suggesting anything like the real war, and really not until several years after the war that something closer to the truth begins to appear in popular fiction.

    We forget now that much of the savagery of the Spillane school comes with the men returning from the war suddenly writing about their actual experience and no longer satisfied with the more bloodless (or at least realistic) popular fiction of the pre war era.

    It was all right to do something heroic and uplifting like MRS. MINIVER, but somehow the war seemed too important for mere detective fiction, and that’s how it was treated by writers and publishers on both sides of the Atlantic for the most part. There may be more people around in uniform, and an occaisional blackout gets mentioned, in British books once in a while the Blitz or an air raid features in a plot, but for the most part there seems a plot to ignore the war is going on. Even in Peter Cheyney’s IT COULDN’T MATTER LESS where spies are behind the murder plot you barely know the war is going on, much less the action is taking place while London is being bombed save for some taped over headlamps and blackout curtains mentioned sparingly.

    It was almost as if there was a conspiracy in mystery fiction to pretend the war wasn’t happening, or if it was that it was far away and not particularly worth noting. In the early war years you really could escape any hint of the war in mystery fiction — if you were careful they might not even mention ration books or the draft. It is hard to imagine such a conspiracy of silence today.

13. » FORTY FROM THE TWENTIES, by Curt J. Evans. Says:
    October 11th, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    […] of “50 Favorite Golden Age Generation British Detective Novels,” which you may find here. This list consists of worthy British works of detection, both novels and short story collections, […]

14. J.F. Norris Says:
    November 22nd, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    I would never have thought Cecil Freeman Gregg a “tough” school writer. You must only have read his later books when he definitely switched gears. The Inspector Higgins novels he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s are about as traditional as they come.

    I think Anthony Wynne was ingenious in his plots and spins on the locked room or impossible crime genre. I have always wondered why his books were printed over here in large numbers but are so incredibly British with much of pre and post ww2 era England so inherently part of the stories. Much of the British culture is lost on me whereas I’m never clueless reading far better known British detective novelists’ work. Also, I find more copies of his US books than UK editions – in fact finding a UK edition of a Wynne book is like a hunt for the Holy Grail. It’s a shame he lacked a sense of humor for stories that were so outrageous and begged for some of the characters to make jokes. I think of him as a melodramatic somber writer who often was dreary in the middle parts of his drawn out stories. I used to call him the inventor of the “detective opera” (minus the music) since the stories are laden with soap opera, melodrama and so often end with the villain committing suicide. The White Arrow is a perfect example of this operatic plot-line. My favorites of his are (these are US titles, by the way) The Mystery of the Ashes, The Red Lady, The Dagger and The Case of the Gold Coins.

    Has anyone written a U.S. version of this list? I would love to contribute my own. I am fascinated with the American writers whose work filled the pulp magazines. Two lesser known writers who did a good job concocting unusual plots and laid the clues fairly well were Charles J Dutton and Isabel Ostrander. I could easily come up with 150 titles of mostly obscure, forgotten and neglected writers form the U.S. between 1920 and 1955.

15. Steve Says:
    November 22nd, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    J. F.

    I’ll make sure that Curt reads this, so that he can reply also, if he wishes. As for me, I’m afraid I know very little about Cecil Freeman Gregg. I know Inspector Higgins appeared in most of his novels, but titles such as DANGER AT CLIFF HOUSE and MURDER AT MIDNIGHT have made me think of his work as thrillers rather than detective fiction. I’ll have to see if I can’t find some of them.

    Believe it or not, Charles J. Dutton has been reviewed here, though it was several years ago. My review of THE CLUTCHING HAND appears here, along with a complete crime fiction bibliography for him: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=258.

    More lists of obscure but favorite writers? Sure, by all means, and they needn’t be obscure. And reviews, too!

    — Steve

16. Curt Says:
    November 22nd, 2010 at 11:23 pm

    J. F. Norris:

    Thanks for the comments. I have read thirties Gregg (in fact this is all I have read). By tough I didn’t mean American hardboiled, but rather that there are gangs and fights and action more than cerebration. Most of his books seem to arise more out of the British thriller transition than detection.

    I have some Dutton books but have not read. I actually use him a bit in my manuscript (Steve: will read your review).

    I would love to see an American list by you.

17. Curt Says:
    November 22nd, 2010 at 11:24 pm

    Oh, yes, I agree about Wynne and a sense of humor. His books would have benefited from a little lightness of touch, but are often very clever.

18. Tim Longville Says:
    December 5th, 2010 at 10:05 am

    I may have missed this – there was a lot to read through! (I stumbled on the site by accident looking for info on Ianthe Jerrold) – so apologies if I’m saying again what’s already been said – but Nicholas Blake was of course the nom de plume of C. Day Lewis, then a bright or brightish young poet, later a less bright Poet Laureate. (Couldn’t in those days have a poet writing a tec story under his own name – very infra dig!)

19. Dave Says:
    October 1st, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Hi ! I am doing research on Crime Fiction of the 20th Century………I have got a wonderful support from your Blog….thanks

20. Dave Says:
    January 23rd, 2013 at 8:35 am

    Where’s Ellery Queen? Dannay and Lee (as Queen) really helped to shape the golden age.

21. Dave Says:
    January 23rd, 2013 at 8:37 am

    Oops, sorry. I missed the British qualifier. Many apologies.

22. Pavel Gromnic Says:
    February 27th, 2015 at 5:36 pm

    Great list. Thanks. I particularly enjoyed Gaudy Night (Sayers) and The Singing Sands (Tey).
    Thanks.

23. l philip folger Says:
    March 25th, 2015 at 11:26 am

    why no hc bailey ?

24. Melanie Atherton Allen Says:
    May 7th, 2015 at 10:15 pm

    Oh my! This is a lovely list! And, there are so many authors here that I didn’t know about! Though I have to say that, for Michael Innes, I prefer Stop Press! and Appleby’s End. In many ways, the two are the same story (a novelist’s stories come to life, or seem to do so; wacky consequences ensue), but there are so many divergences that that doesn’t really matter. I wonder if Stop Press could have been a sort of rehearsal for Appleby’s End? Oh, and Hamlet, Revenge! is very good, as is Appleby at Allington, and… well, almost all of them, really. So, I see why you confine yourself to only the two titles- and I love The Daffodil Affair! And What Happened At Hazelwood is great, too- and if I remember correctly there is some Appleby-bashing in that one, which is neat because it indicates that this is all in the same world. I love it when authors do that. How, by the way, do you feel about Lament for a Maker?
    As for Gladys Mitchell, I love her- though I agree that she is an acquired taste, and not always comfortable to read. Still, I’ve read exactly half of the eight you list for her (numbers 2-5 on your list), plus several others, some of which I love, and some of which just wander and ramble and seem to come to nothing. Anyway, of the ones you’ve listed, I agree- except for Death at the Opera, which I’m sort of luke-warm on (meaning I’ve only read it 3 or 4 times). But Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop is wonderful, and so is The Saltmarsh Murders- though Noel Wells is so very fat-headedly wrong about everything that I get a little frustrated with him.
    I think I’ve read all of Nicholas Blake’s Nigel Strangeways stories, and I agree with your selections. I especially love Minute for Murder, because of the setting. I especially love Charles Kennington (I think that’s his name), because he’s so delightful. “This one’s my favorite. It’s shaped like a pansy” -not an exact quote, but he’s talking about his war medals.
    And Georgette Heyer is wonderful, too! My favorite of hers, though, is Behold, Here’s Poison!
    Why do you exclude Knox? I adore his Miles Bredon, of the Indescribable Insurance Company.
    As for Allingham, my favorite is The Beckoning Lady- and I don’t especially like Death of a Ghost, as the title seems to give so much away (if I remember it correctly, which I may not- it has been quite a long time since I’ve read it).
    I think this comment has grown quite long enough at this point, so I’ll say goodbye for now. But thank you so much for making this list, as I now have a whole new list of authors to check out! Splendid work!

25. Maureen Reynolds Says:
    June 18th, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    Death on the Cherwell…Mavis Doriel Hay
    ?any information

26. Steve Says:
    June 18th, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    A “Golden Age” mystery recently reprinted:

    See for example:

    http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/D/bo18048924.html

27. Rebecca Says:
    August 8th, 2016 at 11:12 pm

    Thank you for this terrific list, there are some new names for me to explore. However, why is there no mention of Patricia Wentworth and her clever Miss Silver?

28. bnanno Says:
    January 17th, 2017 at 3:55 pm

    I have recently enjoyed George Bellairs & Inspector Littlejohn series. There’s also a goodly number of them!
    Looking forward to reading many of the others on your list.

29. Curtis evans Says:
    July 9th, 2017 at 10:18 pm

    Thanks for all the comments over the years, I appreciate them. It seems the list has had some influence, if not necessarily always acknowledged.

30. Steve Says:
    July 9th, 2017 at 10:33 pm

    It’s hard to believe that this list of yours, Curt, was posted here almost seven years ago. When my sitemeter was working, I could see that there were people constantly coming to this page, whether they left a comment or not.

    I have always meant to find the books on this list and read my way through them systematically, but of course no one does all of the ambitious projects they create for themselves. So far I haven’t even come close!

31. Sue Says:
    September 5th, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    Seven years ago? Rats! It just means the books will be harder to find.

32. Gretchen Says:
    December 7th, 2017 at 7:29 am

    Wonderful information! Perhaps e-books and audio books will bring back these beauties. I found Red House Mystery by A A Milne and Philip MacDonald’s The Maze, Rynox Mystery and Murder Gone Mad (reprinted 2017 with retro bookcovers) through my local public library. Abstract “This Detective Story Club classic includes an introduction by Julian Symons, who selected The Maze for the Crime Club’s 1980 Jubilee reprint series, celebrating the best of 50 golden years of crime publishing.” Long live crime fiction!

33. Sian Rushton Says:
    September 2nd, 2018 at 11:02 am

    Thank you for posting this fantastic list. I’m going to enjoy hunting for some of these.

34. Paul Cleland Says:
    July 23rd, 2019 at 7:29 am

    Having discovered the mystery genre only thirty years ago, now being in late old age, I am very grateful for your bringing these works to the attention of the reading public. I am enjoying your posts and suggestions immensely and passing them on to my reading friends.There isn’t a single writer who isn’t twenty times more satisfying than any of today’s sensationalist scribblers. Thanks again, very much!

35. Gopal Says:
    December 3rd, 2019 at 10:00 am

    A very informative and valuable listing of crime and mystery fiction titles including some well known authors and more importantly some authors who deserve to be better known (e.g. Leo Bruce). It would be helpful if the name of the detective was also mentioned beside the book title; however, even without that information this list is a big boon to aficionados of Golden Age Detective fiction.

36. Joanna Cannan (1896 – 1961) – A Crime is Afoot Says:
    March 23rd, 2020 at 3:07 pm

    […] thanks to Curtis Evans very personal selection of 150 Favorite Golden Age British Detective Novels, here. Later on, Martin Edwards included Joanna Cannan’s No Walls of Jasper (1930) in his book The […]

37. Elspeth Huxley (1907 – 1997) – A Crime is Afoot Says:
    May 30th, 2020 at 10:28 am

    […] 150 Favorite Golden Age British Detective Novels: A Very Personal Selection, by Curt J. Evans. […]

38. Pamela James Says:
    February 4th, 2021 at 12:36 am

    I am trying to find anything by or about a Sheila Atkins. She is referred to in two books I have read recently, but I can find nothing. Do you know of her? Thank you

39. Deirdre Knight Says:
    June 5th, 2021 at 12:50 am

    Ngaio Marsh was of course a New Zealander, not British.

40. Elizabeth Owen Says:
    March 21st, 2022 at 11:21 am

    Following up on #27 — why no Miss Silver?

    I used Patricia Wentworth & Miss Silver & Wentworth’s standalones to get through the C-19 Pandemic.

    Love that people keep finding this list. First comment was in 2010. It’s such a generous gift, this list of authors.

41. Casual Slaughters (James Quince) – The Grandest Game in the World Says:
    May 24th, 2022 at 5:33 am

    […] Casual Slaughters, a book it seems everyone but me adores. Curt Evans placed it among his 150 favourite Golden Age detective novels; Martin Edwards thinks it “deserves to be rescued from literary oblivion”; and […]

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