The Golden Age of Murder

Man this was so dense and interesting. I feel like it's something to come back to though, so you can really get it all. Edwards did a lot of research and it shows (helps to be the current Detection Club President :) ). This is meticulous and so well done.

I know a decent amount about Christie, and some about Sayers. Otherwise what I know is mainly from the Shedunnit podcast (highly recommend!), so this was a really great way to learn about these authors. I need to get on reading some of these lesser known (to me at least) authors. (Thank goodness for the British Library reissuing so many!)

Also! I didn't know Anthony Berkeley and E. M. Delafield were so close! Or that Evelyn Waugh wrote a biography of Ronald Knox (though I may have read that years ago when I was reading a lot about Waugh, but I wouldn't've known who Knox was then). There's just so much in this!

(I used the audiobook while waiting in the school line, and overall it was good, but there were weird pauses after some sentences that were distracting.)

Very British and thorough review of the Golden Age of British detective fiction between the World Wars. Lots of portraits of lots of authors. Fun if you like mysteries.

It's not really fair for me to rate this book 3 stars, because it's a thorough and well-researched look at the golden age of detective fiction and the Detection Club. My rating just reflects my personal enjoyment; if this is something you think you would be interested in learning about, it's a great book.

While I found plenty of interesting anecdotes, along with some perspective on influential detective novels of the time, overall this book was fairly long and often dry. A lot of names and dates and discussion of novels that would certainly be appealing to someone truly fascinated by this topic—that someone is not me, unfortunately.