Playing Dead: Short Stories by Members of the Detection Club

by Martin Edwards, Martin Edwards (Editor), Abir Mukherjee (Contribution by), Aline Templeton (Contribution by), Alison Joseph (Contribution by)

Overview

Members of the Detection Club, the most prestigious group of crime writers in the world, celebrate the eightieth birthday of their former president – the original king of cozy crime, Simon Brett – with this stunning collection of all-new short stories.

A long-married crime-writing couple plot murder most horrid, with a jaw-dropping twist . . . A group of school friends dig up a long-buried dark secret . . . A widower joins a local amdram society, with surprisingly dramatic results . . . A deranged fan stalks a celebrated TV personality . . . An online romance turns sour . . . and much, much more.

From police procedurals to the sharpest satire, from historical mystery to dark and twisted chillers, these twenty-two original tales, written by some of Britain’s most remarkable bestselling authors, are essential reading for crime and mystery fans.

With stories by Abir Mukherjee, Aline Templeton, Alison Joseph, Andrew Taylor, Ann Cleeves, Catherine Aird, Christopher Fowler, David Stuart Davies, Elly Griffiths, Frances Brody, John Harvey, Kate Ellis, L.C. Tyler, Liza Cody, Lynne Truss, Martin Edwards, Michael Jecks, Michael Ridpath, Michael Z. Lewin, Peter Lovesey, Ruth Dudley Edwards – and last, but very much not least, Simon Brett, who’s brought back his much-loved amateur sleuth, washed-up actor Charles Paris, to tread the boards once again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448312962
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	03/04/2025
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.67(w) x 8.74(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Kinn Hamilton McIntosh MBE, known professionally as Catherine Aird, is the author of more than twenty crime fiction novels and several collections of short stories. Her witty, literate, and deftly plotted novels straddle the "cozy" and "police procedural" genres and are somewhat similar in flavour to those of Martha Grimes, Caroline Graham, M C Beaton, Margaret Yorke, and Pauline Bell. She is a recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger award.

Michael Jecks is the author of more than thirty novels in the Knights Templar medieval mystery series, and four previous Bloody Mary Tudor mysteries. A former Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association, he lives with his wife, children and dogs in northern Dartmoor.

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours for services to Literature and also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2014 he won the CWA’s prestigious Diamond Dagger for an outstanding body of work.

Editorial Reviews

Each story is atmospheric, playing with structure, form, and the reader's expectations of classic murder mysteries

Booklist

An excellent collection–every one of the stories is a treat to read–and a fine introduction to British crime fiction

Booklist on Deadly Pleasures

2024-12-14
In this anthology, 22 members of Britain’s Detection Club gather under the banner of its current president to honor his immediate predecessor, Simon Brett, on his 80th birthday.

Edwards’ introduction indicates that he gave his contributors free rein, and many of them took him at his word. Andrew Taylor traces the consequences of four schoolmates’ discovery of a body on forbidden ground. Michael Ridpath presents a couple’s curdled revenge for an online scam. Catherine Aird revisits the 1593 murder of Christopher Marlowe, and Elly Griffiths reimagines the incident that sparked Wilkie Collins to writeThe Woman in White. John Harvey produces an efficient mini-procedural for Charlie Resnick. Michael Jecks’ copper crashes a funeral in order to unearth a Ponzi scheme. Frances Brody follows her hero from the acquisition of 120 Churchill Crowns—a set of commemorative coins—till his death. Abir Mukherjee does right by a wrongfully convicted rapist. Other contributors echo Brett’s work more closely. Peter Lovesey and Lynne Truss plant their crimes in the world of radio broadcasting, and Ann Cleeves, Alison Joseph, David Stuart Davies, Michael Z. Lewin, and Aline Templeton stage theirs in the theater. Brett’s best-known franchise detective, actor Charles Paris, appears in Kate Ellis’ tale of impersonation gone wrong, and Ruth Dudley Edwards’ resourceful hero seems a lot like Brett himself. L.C. Tyler and Christopher Fowler push Brett’s antic wit even further, and editor Edwards pushes anagrams to their limit. Liza Cody provides a triple haiku just 39 words long. The last and longest story is by Brett himself, not to be outdone, who plays on the title of his first novel,Cast, in Order of Disappearance, in another Charles Paris misadventure that rings down the curtain with an appropriate anticlimax.

Lots of acting, lots of playing, a fair amount of meta. Happy birthday!

Kirkus Reviews