#thedetectionclub — Public Fediverse posts

New book releases I’m keeping my eyes on

On the 29th of September, we will have The Classic Crime Companion by Martin Edwards. This is not a totally new book, but it adds more than 20 titles to a previous edition, so it’s quite exciting. I wrote about the older edition here, if you are curious about it. I love this title and I’m always picking it up from the shelf. It is also a book you can read to know about the history of the genre, but also to check the entry of the book you’re reading or to choose your next read.

Kate Jackson, from Cross Examining Crime, has a new book, The Golden Age of Classic Crime Quiz Book, to be published on 20th of October 2026. Jackson has an extensive amount of knowledge about the genre, as her blog is proof of, so besides the questions, puzzles, and mysteries, I’m sure you will also discover new to you authors and titles. Her previous book, How to survive a classic crime novel, was one of my favorite readings from 2023, so you can’t go wrong with her books and I’m really excited about this new one. She also has a Patreon, if you want to join.

From 30th of October 2026 to 20th of June 2027, The British Library will have a major exhibition on about Agatha Christie and will publish Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery when the exhibition opens. The book is edited by Martin Edwards and Lucy Rowland and besides objects related to Christie, it also includes essays by Martin Edwards, John Curran, Mark Aldridge, Caroline Crampton, David Suchet, Zoë Wanamaker, and many others. The book is already available for pre-order, but it is quite expensive for my budget (more than 50€). There is no indication of a paperback edition, so I probably will have to wait some years to get it second hand. If you can afford it, I’m sure it will be a wonderful book.

In January 2027, we will have Writing Partners, a new book from the collection Bodies from the Library and it is introduced and contextualised by John Curran. This volume, inspired by Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime (I know they’re not so well known characters, but I do love Tommy & Tuppence), features short stories from forgotten authors. This collection has six volumes and two extra ones edited by Tony Medawar and publishes short stories or novellas that either were never published before or were only published in magazines. It is a favorite collection of mine.

In February 2027, The Swinging Christies by Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown will be released. The book goes through Agatha Christie novels and life during the 1960s and its cultural and historical context. This book comes from The Swinging Christies’ podcast started by the same authors two years ago, and which you can subscribe. Aldridge is a researcher and he published previously Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World and Marple: Expert on Wickedness, which I loved and can’t recommend enough.

Last, but not least, we will have in 2028 a new book by the members of The Detection Club: The Detection Club Murders. Not much information yet, but you can read about it at the Club’s President, Martin Edwards, blog here. I love the experimentation and creativity from the Club’s books and as you probably know I even keep a page on this blog with a list of the published titles, so of course I’m very excited with this new book!

One has to wonder - before double checking the exact timeline of 'The Detection Club' and when they would have first met - if Dorothy L. Sayers didn't base Lord Peter Wimsey on A. A. Milne just a little bit - the shattered WWI vet who strove to maintain childlike delight and curiosity in the face of horrors -

Tell me… am I the only girlie for whom Lord Peter Wimsey (envisioned as played by Leslie Howard - oh how I wish) invokes the kinds of feelings that, I can only assume, having not particularly experienced them before except I think maybe one time watching Cary Grant in The Bishop's Wife while I was ovulating, make women want to get pregnant and give men babies?

Wednesday, June 24th is a reminder to stop working through lunch and actually take that break! It's #NationalTakeBackLunchBreakDay! 🥪

Today's #newbook highlights ✨

The Case of the Christie Wedding Affair by #KellyOliver
( #TheDetectionClub Series)
All the Bones Beneath Bayview Bridge by #AdamTaylorBarker
( #HondoVelazquezThriller Series)
Trouble Brewing by #WalkerRose
( #CrossroadsRanch Series)

#bookstodon

#MurderEveryMonday A special edition

Today’s #MurderEveryMonday is a title with a word that starts with the letter Q. I’m hoping I can use the title in Portuguese for this one, because it is the perfect excuse to tell you about a special edition, that is not much known.

The book chosen is The Floating Admiral, which title was translated to Portuguese as Quem Matou o Almirante?

The story was written by the members of The Detection Club and in a round-robin format, meaning each author would write a chapter to continue the story without knowing how it would go. The publishers of the Colecção Vampiro, a book collection I’ve been talking about in this blog, decided to published this book when the collection reached 500 volumes in March of 1989. But besides the regular edition that follows the design of the other volumes in the collection, they also decided to publish a special limited and numbered edition in a totally different design. This is bigger book, it’s a paperback, but has a dust jacket with the title and the logo (the bat) of the collection embossed in. It is also printed in a much better and thicker paper. Both volumes have a list of all the titles published in the collection up to number 500 and their date of publication (I’m always forgetting this resource!).

#BookLook #books #ColecçãoVampiro #CrimeFiction #readings #TheDetectionClub

BBC Confirms Agatha Christie Drama & Greenlights ‘The Hairdresser Mysteries’ As Replacements For Canceled Series ‘Doctors’
#News #BBC #BBCStudios #Doctors #TheDetectionClub #TheHairdresserMysteries

https://deadline.com/2025/09/bbc-confirms-agatha-christie-drama-hairdresser-mysteries-doctors-1236528522/

Agatha Christie To Be Fictionalized In TV Series For BBC & BritBox About Mysterious Society Of Crime Writers
#News #AgathaChristie #BBC #BBCStudios #BritBox #BritBoxInternational #TheDetectionClub

https://deadline.com/2025/07/agatha-christie-series-the-detection-club-bbc-britbox-1236464899/

It’s Weekend, Let’s Read: Books you can read & download for free right now – The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke

R. Austin Freeman was a member of The Detection Club and he is known for the invention of the inverted mystery, where the reader gets from the beginning the description of the crime and/or the perpetrator, but still wants to read the story to know how or why it was done.

I’m suggesting The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke, a collection of short stories with a preface where Freeman explains how he came to write this type of mystery. Dr. Thorndyke, Freeman’s detective, is a medical doctor, like its creator, turned forensic scientist, so if you like mysteries with scientific know-how, this is also a good choice.

So, this weekend give yourself some “me time” with no worries, nor rushes, get a cup of tea (or coffee, by all means) and curl up with these (kind of different) mystery stories, because you really deserve it.

You can download the book at Project Gutenberg, there are several formats you can choose to read on your mobile, computer, ereader, you can even read the book on your browser.

(I may be making this “It’s Weekend, Let’s Read” a kind of habit, let me know in the comments if it’s something you’re finding interesting).

#books #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #InvertedMystery #publicDomain #RAustinFreeman #readings #TheDetectionClub

Detective & Crime Fiction Books you can read right now – The Innocence of Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton. Download at Project Gutenberg (you can choose different formats).

#books #CrimeFiction #DetectiveFiction #DetectiveFiction #ebooks #epub #FatherBrown #FatherBrown #GKChesterton #ProjectGutenberg #publicDomain #PublicDomain #ShortStories #TheDetectionClub

Happy publication day to members of The Detection Club for "Playing Dead", a collection of short stories to honour the anniversary of Simon Brett! 🎉 cc/ @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social @severnhouse.bsky.social 📚💙 #TheDetectionClub #ShortStories #SimonBrett #Books @bookstodon@a.gup.pe

Happy publication day to members of The Detection Club for "Playing Dead", a collection of short stories to honour the anniversary of Simon Brett! 🎉 cc/ @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social @severnhouse.bsky.social 📚💙 #TheDetectionClub #ShortStories #SimonBrett #Books @bookstodon@a.gup.pe

Happy publication day to members of The Detection Club for "Playing Dead", a collection of short stories to honour the anniversary of Simon Brett! 🎉 cc/ @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social @severnhouse.bsky.social

📚💙 #TheDetectionClub #ShortStories #SimonBrett #Books @bookstodon

Playing Dead: A new book by The Detection Club (out 4th March 2025)

(I got an advancing reading copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review).

To the delight of so many readers (like me!), we will have soon a new book written by the members of The Detection Club.

Playing Dead was written to honour Simon Brett for his 80th anniversary this year, as a way to celebrate his contributions to the Club, and includes short stories from 22 members of The Detection Club, including Simon Brett (President Emeritus of the Club) and Martin Edwards (editor of this anthology and current President of the Club).

According to Edwards, that organised and edited the collection, the contributors were encouraged to write whatever type of crime story they preferred, and this shows in a truly delightful way.

And indeed, what I loved the most about this collection was the diversity we get in terms of sub-genres, place (one of the stories takes us all the way to Iceland), time, and even form. We get historical mysteries, police procedurals, even satire, we get stories that occur today’s, with cellphones and Internet as part of the story, as well as stories in the 1930’s, we get stories that deal with writers and publishers and that add to the discussion of the genre hardboiled/cosy (can I call it a meta-fiction-essay? Delicious!), we also get stories with that twist or final kick that is so satisfying to read, we get stories that borrow characters from Simon Brett’s works, but also writers like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins as characters, and others that nod to Agatha Christie’s characters and titles, we get short stories, but also an haiku and a non-fiction essay.

This exercise of inserting known characters into (and acting in) new contexts was really exciting to read, it was like seeing the writers making a new experiment, with pleasurable results.

At the same time, besides having this wonderful diversity, the collection also has an arching coherence, that was captured both in the title and by Piers Tilbury in the cover design: there is a regular theme of theatre, radio shows and studios, actors, and acting in general, which is really fitting: besides being an author of detective fiction, with several book series, Simon Brett is also a playwright, producer and writer for radio and television. I’m sure I’m being unfair with other works, but let me cite the BBC radio drama adaptations of Lord Peter Wimsey with Ian Carmichael, which the first six instalments were directed by Simon Brett, just because they are probably my favourite radio adaptations ever.

I would also like to highlight the final essay by Simon Brett sharing his memories about the Club. Not only it was delightful to read, but I think it is critically important as memory preservation for the Club’s future history.

Finally, I knew other works by some of the authors, but not all of them, so I think this collection also gives us the opportunity to read sub-genres that we usually wouldn’t pick to find new writers and new books.

#BookReview #books #CrimeFiction #livros #PlayingDead #readings #ShortStories #TheDetectionClub

Não me esqueci do aniversário da Dorothy L. Sayers no dia 13 de Junho, escolhendo estes 4 livros, mas o dia ficou complicado e acabei por não partilhar. Copywriter em publicidade, foi fundadora e presidente do The Detection Club, e é uma das minhas autoras de policiais favoritas.

#books #DorothyLSayers #TheDetectionClub #CrimeFiction @bookstodon

The #TBR tin has spoken.
Next read for fiction:
Great tales of detection has 19 short stories selected and introduced by Dorothy L. Sayers. This collection was originally published in 1936, but it's still easy to find this more "recent" edition from Everyman.
Sayers edited several short stories collections and besides the interesting stories, she also wrote insightful introductions about the history and development of the genre.
I'll be using an Oxford related bookmark.
Next read for non-fiction:
Howdunit is a collection of essays about the genre and the work of detective, crime, thrillers authors. The articles are all from the past and present members of The Detection Club, organised and edited by Martin Edwards.
Bookmark from the Portuguese edition of The Floating Admiral, also a The Detection Club work.

#Reading #NextReads #books @bookstodon #DorothyLSayers #TheDetectionClub #CrimeFiction #Bookmarks #ShortStories #NonFiction

Found another one! Yay, \o/
I would say that a majority of my favourite crime fiction authors were or are members of The Detection Club, and the club also created collective works, so I've been keeping a list at my blog here https://paulasimoesblog.wordpress.com/the-detection-club-list-of-works/
Except for those that were republished recently, older titles are either difficult to find ou too expensive, so I was quite happy to fina a reasonable copy. This one is short stories where the linked theme is a presence of a jury, formal or not.
And of course it will go to the Detection Club's shelf!

#TheDetectionClub #Books #CrimeFiction #SundayShelfie

Arrived today.
I think it will be impossible for us to have all the books by members of #TheDetectionClub but we're getting those we can.

The rain is not stopping. Here's some of my 2023 #TBR

#Books #Reading #TheDetectionClub #Poirot #CrimeFiction #Livros #Leituras

My last #BookHaul of the year
(Famous last words?)

#Books #TheDetectionClub #AgathaChristie

https://paulasimoesblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/16/my-last-bookhaul-of-the-year/

Saturday night #reading. Starting this The Sinking Admiral by #TheDetectionClub, after re-reading The Floating Admiral
(It was not easy to find this copy)

Comforting session: A special Portuguese edition of "The Floating Admiral" by #TheDetectionClub, a spicy rooibos tea, and a hot water bottle
#Books #Reading #Tea